Myth Busting 6: Planning by trades

This myth, planning should be done by the trades, has a big impact on common practice, but when you talk to those who do it, they’ll often agree that planners are needed. That is an apparent contradiction and it arises due to the sloppy use of terminology in the maintenance world.

Many companies have heard that planners should be skilled trades and misinterpreted that to mean that your skilled trades should do the planning. No, no, no.

There are two distinct roles here.

It is a good idea (and successful practice) to have experienced trades doing planning work, but that doesn’t mean planning is done by trades. The planners plan, they are not people executing the work in the field. Planners should have trade experience. They need to know enough about the work that needs to be done to be able to plan it well. A good planner can keep a number of trades very busy with his planned jobs. Trade productivity rises as a result. In fact, the reason for planning and scheduling is to optimize the productivity of the trades in the field.

On the other hand, having the trades do their own planning as a regular practice, is a recipe for chaos. While this meets the requirement for people with trade skills doing the planning, it fails miserably at doing planning proactively.  They’ll only ever plan the job they are about to execute.

Proactive plans and confirmation of all resources being available are keys to success with any schedule.

Planning work just before executing it leaves no time to acquire needed resources such as parts and materials. The result is that jobs get delayed – sometimes for quite long. Tradespersons do not manage their own work backlog beyond the work assigned to them for the day.

They do not have a list of jobs that can be scheduled when all the materials arrive. If planning is done by your trades’ persons, then they will do it as a first step in executing the work orders they’ve been assigned. Chances are that you’ve given them those work orders and expect action “today” (sooner) not later. If they can’t get the parts they need right away, then those work orders will wait. Organizations that are this bad with planning are probably not using a CMMS or they are not using it well. Those WOs are likely printed copies. They’ll get lost if the tradesman has to keep track of them.

If your trades are doing all your planning, then you effectively have no planning.

If your so-called “planner” is busy chasing parts and tools to support work already assigned, then you effectively have no planning.

Scheduling in those cases is a futile exercise. Operations/production will see that you can’t stick to whatever schedule you promise and they will be assigning every work order a top priority (emergency). Your trades may indeed be planning but those plans will be doing you very little good.

Planning needs to be a separate activity and done well in advance of work execution. That requires a dedicated planner that plans ahead, material support that is driven by plans and schedules (not by emergencies), and a schedule that you can rely on. If you need a parts chaser because your stores and supply chain cannot meet demand, then hire a parts coordinator who works for the planners and schedulers.

Even the word “planning” gets misused and is often misunderstood. If you have a calendar of upcoming jobs, you do not have a plan. You have a schedule.

Often, when maintainers speak about planning they are really talking about “scheduling.”  They even hold “planning meetings” when the only topic for discussion is really the schedule. Why? Sometimes it is because the planner (whether he is a true planner or just a parts chaser) runs the meeting. Plans often include two main elements: work scope and timing information. For maintenance, the work scope and how to do execute it constitute a plan. The timing of tasks relative to each other is a part of the plan. But the start date for the job overall is part of the schedule. Maintenance schedules and plans are two different things – one is about what and how the other is about when and who.

Bottom line:

If your organization has trades doing all their own planning, then you are very likely in chaos. You are telling the “who” to do “what” (in broad terms – i.e.: fix that) and “when” (usually now), but letting him decide for himself, on “how”, and with what resources, then make a judgment on whether or not he can do it based on material availability.

That’s a process but you are not in control.

So, yes, have skilled trades working as planners, but don’t have your planning done by your skilled trades. Keep the planning and work execution jobs separated from each other.

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