Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/93519
maintenance | by Tom Jackson WRENCH TIME Y STUDIES ou hire mechanics and technicians to repair and maintain equipment. But do you know how much time they actually spend, tools in hand, doing exactly that? If you don't, you're not alone. According to Ricky Smith, senior reliability advisor for GPAllied, a global manufacturing and reliability consulting firm, in most organiza- tions, most mechanics and techni- cians spend at best 20 to 30 percent of their time with a wrench or tools doing their primary job. The rest of their time is taken up with secondary activities. Some of these are necessary, such as travel time for the service truck. But as the chart below shows, a lot are the result of poor planning and organi- zation. Activity Time spent Direct labor (wrench time) 29% Obtaining material/parts 23% Waiting Travel 17% 17% Searching for information 7% Administration 7% Source: GPAllied In an efficiently run shop, with world class performance, direct la- bor or wrench time should be 55 to 65 percent of their time, says Ricky. Measure it first Ricky, who has been doing mainte- nance and reliability work and con- sulting for 40 years, recommends a wrench time study for organizations that want to improve their shop efficiency and productivity. But un- like the old cliché of an efficiency expert walking around with a clip- board and stopwatch, the modern wrench time study takes advantage of PDAs (personal digital assistants) and self-reported activity. "We can come in and train people on how to use the PDA but they can do it themselves too," he says. They come with software and in- structions that any shop supervisor should be able to manage. The PDA devices are available online. (See the Resources box at the end of the article for more information.) Digital data The process involves giving the PDA to a technician to carry with him for a week or so. The PDA will prompt him at regular intervals to How to measure what matters in the shop and then get more of it simply press a button that describes the activity his coworkers are en- gaged in at the moment. "The guy with the PDA will do it separate from his work," Ricky says. "On those days all he does is randomly walk around and observe what the other people are doing." Some people say they can't afford to take a person off the tools, he says. But managers have to remem- ber why they're doing the study in the first place – to make everybody more efficient. Ricky recommends you use your top people to do the data recording and avoid anybody with attitude. "They have to care about the people and want to help them become more efficient in their job," he says. In the past, efficiency studies have had a bad reputation among workers, Smith says, and this nega- tive perception has to be addressed up front. "If your goal is to elimi- nate staff then you shouldn't use a wrench time study," he says. "The only reason for a wrench time study is to identify the delays that cause maintenance to be less efficient. A wrench time study is not about finding which of the mechanics is goofing off. It's about the quality of the planning process and how the organization uses the planning process." Understanding the data Several people should carry the PDA over the course of several EquipmentWorld.com | October 2012 39