THE 14 STEPS TO REDUCE MAINTENANCE BACKLOG

Maintenance Backlog (in this instance referring to overdue maintenance) is a sign that an organisation is unable to keep up with its maintenance work demand. Left unchecked, this can have a serious, detrimental effect on the ability of equipment to perform its primary function and an organisation to meet its business objectives and legislative obligations.

Regain Control - Short-Term Actions

1. Cleanse to remove duplicates & previously completed scopes from backlog.
2. Assess the un-assessed backlog to assign a new date by which it must be completed.
3. Build a plan for the next 6 months based on the Latest Key Risk Date to ascertain if all can be liquidated with existing capacity.
4. Prioritise if not, and be explicit about the work that is NOT going to be completed. (This should be of Asset consequence only, not People or Environment). Prepare for the consequences occurring from this work
5. Enforce the break-in process for any new work
6. Implement schedule attainment reviews at an appropriate frequency (similar to how everyone runs shutdowns) to ensure barriers to execution are resolved.
7. Acknowledge there is a problem.
8. Ensure it is clearly articulated that the issue is to be resolved correctly and sustainably. The work is not simply to be hidden, filtered from KPIs or otherwise made to simply look better without actually being better.
9. Set clear expectations; this is the organisation's priority, and obstacles are to be overcome, not simply raised as reasons not to do the work.

Sustain Control - Mid to Long Term Activity

10. Review existing maintenance strategies to ensure it is ALARP to achieve business and legislative objectives.

11. Review the previous PM to CM ratio to determine expected corrective volume.

12. Determine REALISTIC, CURRENT wrench time.

13. Carry out a resource review to determine if there are appropriate resources to ensure execution capacity meets the 12-24 month workload.14. If yes, proceed to deliver; if no:

• Review point 1 to confirm no further reduction is practicable.
• Review point 2 to identify what risk of corrective consequence is acceptable to reduce demand. (Note this will not entirely eliminate this demand as work will be required once equipment fails).
• Review point 3 to determine if there is an opportunity to improve execution efficiency (hence wrench time).

Note: An imbalance in execution capacity vs demand based on realistic current wrench time can not be tolerated in the 12 - 24 month window. If the imbalance remains, the first 2 points above must be repeated until it is removed or the resource is increased in the short term. Whilst wrench time improvements will allow resources to be reduced in future, they must be allowed time to embed.

Role of Leadership to Sustain Control

1. Set clear expectations; changing ways of working is a priority until it is sustainable.
2. Be clear with both organisation and themselves, this is not a short-term fix, and they must be prepared to “stay the course".
3. Resist the temptation of improvement functions to move to a new initiative before this one is complete
4. Consistently communicate this is the organisational priority and demonstrate it is such by actions, not just words.
5. Reinvigorate enthusiasm and focus when it inevitably drifts over time.
6. Embed progress reviews into performance review sessions.
7. Make budget available.

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