Why Age Matters for maintenance
Every day we see story after story of the impact of our struggling economy. News media had a field day showing of record unemployment, various government fiscal crisis and record seizures. Fortunately, we are not in total collapse, because all types of industries or professions have also been made. Take for example the construction and facilities or professional plant maintenance. Many of these highly skilled workers have been keeping our industrial infrastructure and running for decades. In fact, the average age of members of the professional maintenance team is well over 50 years set many to retire a few years. This can cause asset intensive organizations with serious problems of sustainability should know-how accumulated by starting with them in retirement.
What is Stake
The issue of aging workforce is twofold. The first question is whether enough people can be found to replace retiring workers. The answer is an unequivocal yes. The unemployment rate is very high, the work can find both nationally and internationally. This is the basic premise of supply and demand . Debates on the merits of the validity of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report that there will be up to 14 million unfilled positions open man by 2010 are irrelevant. In the grand scheme of time a temporary disruption of the workforce will ultimately be compensated in advance of the buildings and infrastructure crumble.
What term concern is what will happen to decades of experience as maintenance crews, engineers and businesses have accumulated. The impact of the potential loss of knowledge varies depending on industry, age of installations, maintenance practices and facilities that the level of sophistication or the use of technology. In industries where technology has remained virtually stagnant knowledge of equipment and solutions maintenance experience that the teams have developed over time can be lost. In other areas where the latest maintenance techniques such as vibration analysis, laser detection devices and other advanced inspection toolsare used to the loss of know-how is likely to be less. Similarly, new installations containing newequipment must first be less maintenance intensive giving new employees more time to develop. However, older buildings or equipment may need more experienced professionals makes it imperative that knowledge is captured.
Find Bread
professional human resource managers and facility managers must be able to identify their location in a heartbeat. For installations where a loss of know-how is less important, some alternatives include recruiting and training appropriate. However, it is also the perfect time for these types of facilities to begin creating a knowledge base to avoid a repetition of the impact of age at a later time. For installations where the loss of know-how to increase the response time for maintenance and expenses MRO result, management must act quickly and decisively to capture the knowledge of older workers and develop training methods or tools that can accelerate knowledge transfer.
Tools for knowledge transfer
“Enterprise Asset Management is distinct from asset management, because it deals with the assets of an enterprise (business) point of view. It refers to the management of assets for the benefit of organization as a whole and not restricted to a specific area, such as department, location or division. It includes the entire process from initial planning, designed use, installation, training, operation , maintenance and eventual retirement or replacement. “Mintek Glossary of terms
properly implement an EAM provides another very important benefit. Following the history of each asset from beginning to end, the system collects a huge amount of data maintenance, including but not limited to demand for original work, why work must be done, this work has been done, who did it, costs, parts / inventory required and results. Best of Breed EAM solutions make it easier, even in integrating handheld devices for data exchange in real time almost. The result is a handy source of data that can be used for training new recruits or increasing skills of operator maintenance.
find allies
The key to successful implementation is to achieve buy-in at all levels.
Executive management must be sold. Win your case by the numbers. When cash flow is tight non-revenue producing activities are few and far between. Work with your provider to see a measurable return on investment. For plant and facility managers ASM decrease reactive repairs (by reducing the additional costs of emergency work) and minimize downtime due to better organization of inspections and preventive maintenance. Managers know where all assets are and their history to work at the push of a button.For maintenance teams, this means showing them how the system will organize the workflow process by giving them more time to maintenance issues proactively, as well as greater flexibility in managing reactive / emergency repairs.For human resources, this means ensuring they understand the FTE equivalent of a senior engineer experienced is greater than a . Also mentioned that training costs will be lower and more employee satisfaction. Accountants buy-in can be performed using the analytical part of the capital budget of the ASM. Good collection of historical data allows capital planners more accurately project the retirement or the date of replacement of an asset. If overtime is a problem, then they will like how an ASM can reduce labor costs by streamlining workflow processes.
Use The essential functions of ASM
The basic characteristics of an EAM include the automation of many management functions such as maintenance inspections, preventive maintenance and good work. The purpose of these functions is to maintain facilities organizational tools necessary to fight against fires and increasing reduction reactive maintenance functions proactively. The effect is to reduce labor costs, reduce downtime and extend the useful life of assets.Management Facilities Maintenance