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Overcoming Speed Bumps on the Road to World Class Performance

by Dean J. Carrier, operations manager. Practical advice on how to first reduce, then virtually eliminate, scheduled maintenance overruns in the pulp and paper industry.

Problem: Scheduled maintenance regularly exceeds time allotted for its completion.

Potential causes: There are typically six causes of overruns:
1) lack of or poor maintenance planning;
2) no staging of parts and/or tools;
3) ineffective use of manpower required to do the work;
4) a lack of disciplined follow up of work in progress;
5) additional " found work discovered during inspections; and,
6) problems with the shutdown lockout of equipment and or getting it back on line after maintenance work has been completed.

Solution:

1. The planning process for the next shut down needs to begin the day after the current shut down ends. The maintenance and production functions need to conduct a post mortem of what went right and what went wrong so that specific actions can be taken to ensure that the same issues do not crop up again in the future.
2. Formal plannings should begin at least one (and maybe two) weeks before the event. Maintenance and production need to review the outstanding backlog and come to a consensus on what work must be completed and what work they’d like completed depending on the amount of unexpected work found in the course of the shutdown.
3. A Gantt chart should be prepared showing tasks to be completed by trade and part of the equipment along a timeline. Critical tasks should be sequenced to avoid congestion and allow time to deal with any additional work that is found.
4. As the day approaches, the production group needs to prepare step-by-step instructions on how the shutdown/lockout will be completed. Twenty-four hours before shutdown a walk through is done using a formal checklist is to ensure that all requirements have been met. This same list can be used again after the shutdown to ensure proper equipment startup. Also, at this time, parts and equipment are delivered to the point of use to ensure their availability when needed.
5. During the shutdown, use a disciplined approach to follow up work in progress. Post the Gantt chart on a board in the immediate area and review the status of work in progress at least every two hours. Regularly update the chart to reflect progress against the plan. This will focus everyone on what needs to be done to get the equipment repaired, back up and running on time.Avoiding the problem in the future: Following this approach will get and keep your scheduled maintenance on schedule. But there’s still more you can and should be doing. Top performing mills are invariably better at keeping their machines up and running at optimal speeds than also rans. If you want to be a high quality, low cost producer you need to adopt world class management practices. And the first step in this process to determine how you rank against industry best practices and standards.

An offer of assistance: USC Consulting Group has developed a diagnostic tool that can help provide you the answer. It’s a diskette that captures key performance data in a simple excel spread sheet. Simply fill out the requested information and return it for comparative analysis to see how you rank against the world's best performing mills. The diskette and the analysis are free and totally confidential. They can be obtained by calling USC Executive Vice President, Jack Korpela at (905) 673-2600 or email at jkorpela@usccg.com. USC Consulting Group has specialized in the area of operating effectiveness since 1968. It has had years of experience and dozens of successes in the North American pulp and paper industry helping a wide variety of mills improve machine uptime, speed and throughput, reduce chemical and kraft usage, raise quality and, most notably, adopt world class maintenance management practices.

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