Use the CMMS three-pile process to kill maintenance zombies

Maintenance zombies are everywhere. Here's one tactic for keeping them out of the CMMS. Set up a CMMS three-pile process.After you have performed, documented, and collected a month's worth of work on your company's critical equipment, set up a Friday-afternoon maintenance staff meeting. Once you have assembled your team, print out all of the activities that your department has performed on critical equipment.Put that stack of completed work orders on the conference room table and start the process of setting up three stacks of work orders.Stack 1 is the work that could be eliminated completely if you performed a periodic inspection or preventive maintenance activities.Stack 2 is work that could reduce the consequences if you performed a periodic inspection or preventive maintenance activities.Stack 3 is work that you have to respond to reactively and will occur regardless of whether you perform an inspection or PM.Ok, now you and your team have the fun work of going through stacks 1 and 2 and developing the PM procedures and intervals to schedule events in your CMMS.Don’t do this independently. The more input your team has on the front end of this process, the more support they will give you as they do the work, thus revitalizing a sense of purpose and commitment to keeping proactive maintenance processes alive.Tune into the next blog to see how to kill more mindless maintenance zombies and revitalize your department.