How the Deming Cycle improves maintenance planning and scheduling over time

Planners give head starts for craftspersons. They do not mandate rules of execution that craftspersons must obey. Planners also improve plans over the years especially with execution feedback. Thus, planners run a Deming Cycle of continuous improvement to support professional craftspersons with ever-improving, living plans. Organizational theory suggests that planning is not a crutch for an under-skilled workforce. 

The Deming Cycle

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, an American from Sioux City, Iowa, told American companies in the 1950s that if they would simply admit they were not perfect, then they could get better. But Americans enjoying a post-WW2 economy dismissed Dr. Deming out of hand. Not to be deterred, Dr. Deming arrived in Japan, which embraced his ideas with spectacular success in numerous industries. Dr. Deming, a hero in Japan, returned to America in the 1980s. He had gained recognition for developing quality improvement through continuous improvement, commonly called the Deming Cycle or PDCA (Plan Do Check Act). 

Maintenance remains an untapped, competitive-edge opportunity for continuous improvement. While the Deming Cycle is thought to be primarily a manufacturing assembly line concept, maintenance also provides a great application with planning playing a key role. Many view maintenance as “It’s always something different.” Even beyond repetitious PMs, maintenance performs similar tasks on the same assets over the years, but by different persons and at irregular frequencies. 

Considering the repetition of maintenance tasks, many companies establish maintenance planning to develop “standard plans” to enhance execution quality through “consistency of results across time and craftspersons.” This approach presumes that maintenance executes nearly identical tasks over the years with the same and different craftspersons. This strategy also allows for feedback to improve plans. 

Organizational theory

Nevertheless, organizational theory dictates that maintenance planning should support “skilled craftspersons” that have great freedom to make on-the-spot judgments for any particular maintenance task at hand. Organizational theory explains that the complexity and rate of change of both the environment and the technology should determine whether the primary organization coordination should depend on meetings, direct supervision, rules, staffing, or KPIs (key performance indicators). 

On one hand, the popular approach of making standard plans to enhance quality through consistency is a rules-based strategy more appropriate for an assembly line than maintenance. An automobile assembly line provides a good picture of a “machine bureaucracy” that should be coordinated primarily with “rules.” The assembly line person attaches a door to the car on the line using the exact bolts, exact tool, and exact torque prescribed. The next car comes along the line. The assembler repeats the action. The technology and environment may be complex, but they are constant without change. The assembly line may change, but slowly as new designs and techniques are developed at which time the rules are updated. Rules govern each action without variance. (One can easily imagine a robot replacing the assembly line person.) 

On the other hand, an approach to enhance quality of execution primarily through skilled craftspersons is more appropriate for maintenance. A hospital provides a good picture of a “professional bureaucracy” that should be coordinated primarily with “staffing.” (Staffing involves the hiring, training, and retaining of skills.) Maintenance task execution and asset technology is not only complex, but also continually changes with different assets in different applications each with unique failure modes. The assets change as well with newer designs and different manufacturers, not at a crisis rate, but faster than a static assembly line. The facility replaces one style pinch valve with another and one style gearbox with another. It adds sensors to one asset, but not another. The techniques gradually change as well with newer tools and processes. The environment such as the weather, parts available, and the urgency of the work also change. A craftsperson must make judgments in different unique circumstances as different conditions warrant. (One can easily imagine a skilled doctor exercising judgment concerning treatment for different patients with different symptoms and different medical techniques and tools available.)

For a machine bureaucracy (assembly line), the planning group would be “rules makers.” For a professional bureaucracy (maintenance), the planning group would be “support” giving head starts and institutionalizing lessons-learned. 

Considering Deming and organizational theory, the most effective maintenance force should primarily use the planning group to provide plans that are head starts (triage in nature) and to provide information gathering to make the plans better over the years for individual assets. Planning gives head starts like hospital support personnel provide triage, and planning keeps maintenance records like hospital personnel keep patient records: “This patient has a pacemaker and that patient did not respond to erythromycin three years ago.” This approach admits plans are never perfect. Planners should make the plans better over the years as time and feedback allow. Furthermore, the plans must never be dictatorial where craftspersons are not able to exercise their own judgment. The plans are more of a guide and reference than a dictation of rules for a skilled craftsperson.

Run planning as a Deming Cycle in a professional bureaucracy to support professional craftspersons. Don’t settle for good. Be fantastically great!