Detail Recommendations – Planning And Scheduling Annual Maintenance Outages
Develop Outage Work Scope
Assign individuals by name as “responsible persons” to assist scope development / schedule development / daily schedule updating during outage
Show “responsible persons” initials in column for each schedule activity
Develop distribution list for schedule to include “responsible persons”, maintenance management, mechanical maintenance, electrical maintenance, operations, engineering, purchasing, contractors when selected
Review previous year inspectors’ reports
Review work order backlog
Area walk through inspection
Operator input
Maintenance input
Corporate maintenance and records requirements
Mill engineering input
Capital projects input
For items that will need to be inspected / repaired – determine plan for locking, opening, cooling / venting, draining / emptying, cleaning, scaffolding, disconnecting and returning to service after inspect / repair / test
Timing: 18 to 24 weeks prior to outage
Develop Preliminary Schedule To Define Start, Critical Path and Duration Of Outage
Review historic and preliminary schedules from previous outages and revise per current outage work scope
Identify and review critical path and near critical path activities
- Distribute preliminary summary and detail schedules (8 ½” X 11”) per distribution list
- Post schedule file and Adobe – PDF version files on public drive. Post PDF’s in several versions as requested by users: detail, summary, critical, by major resource, etc.
- Plot in full size, too
- Show on 1st page: Print Date, Status Date, Version and File Name
Timing: 16 to 20 weeks prior to outage
Determine Which Work Will Be Contracted And How Packaged
Review work man hour estimates with expected maintenance man power availability
Contract or defer work which is beyond available man power
Timing: 14 to 18 weeks prior to outage
Request Proposals From Contractors
Send contractor work scope with preliminary summary and detail schedules (8 ½” X 11”) to potential contractors
Request bar chart schedule with proposal from major contractors
Require selected contractors to assist development and buy into composite outage schedule
Require selected contractors to update composite outage schedule by 8 AM each day during the outage with start date, finish date, logic information
Timing: 12 to 16 weeks prior to outage
Select Contractors
Remind selected contractors of requirements to assist development of composite schedule: including furnish contact person, office phone, cell phone, e-mail, and bar chart for major contractors
Timing: 8 to 12 weeks prior to outage
Develop Intermediate Schedule With Contractor Input
Develop from review of preliminary schedule
Use bar charts from major contractors
All activities should show accurate description, duration, shift, start time and finish time, group performing
Split activities which are not continuous – example: open / close
Man load maintenance activities
Show consistent level of detail
Critical path and near critical path activities should be broken down into steps with durations no longer than 1 shift
Be sure to include support activities such as scaffolding, insulation, cleaning, INDT, painting, disconnect / reconnect
- Distribute intermediate summary and detail schedules (8 ½” X 11”) per distribution list which now includes contractors
- Post schedule file and Adobe – PDF version files on public drive. Post PDF’s in several versions as requested by users: detail, summary, critical, by major resource, etc.
Plot in full size, too
Timing: 4 to 6 weeks prior to outage
Develop Final Schedule
Develop from final review of intermediate schedule
Save electronically as “baseline / target”
Distribute final summary and detail schedules (8 ½” X 11”) per distribution list
- Revise and distribute contact list for responsible persons including company name, area of responsibility, office phone, cell phone, pager, radio channel
- Post schedule file and Adobe – PDF version files on public drive. Post PDF’s in several versions as requested by users: detail, summary, critical, by major resource, etc.
Plot in full size, too
Timing: 1 Day to 2 weeks prior to outage
Update Schedule Daily During Outage
Get daily updates from “responsible persons” for their items, showing any changes to start time, finish time, logic information for all their items by using marked up composite outage schedule
Daily updates due each morning (8 AM ) to scheduler
Show “baseline / target” and 24 hours history
Mark added activities (** description prefix) and code to allow filtering
Mark deleted activities with log note and show complete on day deleted with zero duration and code to allow filtering
- Print, copy and distribute updated summary and detail schedules (8 ½” X 11”) for review 30 minutes / 1 hour before daily meeting
- Post schedule file and Adobe – PDF version files on public drive. Post PDF’s in several versions as requested by users: detail, summary, critical, by major resource, etc.
- Save MS Project schedule file each day with date suffix in file name or save in separate folder for each day
Re plot full size, too
Daily meeting format: short discussion of problems / opportunities / exceptions to safety, cost, schedule. Include review of schedule critical path and near critical path activities. Meeting duration 15 – 30 minutes. Hold separate meeting afterwards if required for lengthy, detailed discussions with smaller group
Print historic schedules at end of outage with summary of added and deleted activities
Print preliminary summary and detail schedules for next year’s outage
Notes:
Annual outage maintenance schedules can generally be developed in 3 separate site visits (preliminary, intermediate, final / outage) and do not usually require continuous presence on site
Schedule development, revision and updating can also be partially accomplished off site using phone, fax, e-mail, US Mail, express courier
Preliminary schedule can generally be developed in 1 to 2 weeks
Intermediate schedule can generally be developed in 1 to 2 weeks
Final schedule can generally be developed in 1 week combined with daily coverage during the outage
Contact David Penn to discuss how these recommendations can be applied to make your next outage the best outage to date.