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Maintenance Kits: Maintenance kits streamline workflow, reduce inventory, and make your maintenance technicians more efficient. However, integrating kitting into your maintenance workflow is not something that can be implemented overnight.  The theory behind maintenance kits is simple. You have a planned maintenance task to complete and you need to complete that task into one box. This includes spare part components and sub-assemblies, consumables, and even special tooling.  Such a kit is allocated a unique stock number and given a store location. When the technician receives a task, one trip to the store allows him to draw everything needed to complete the job. Some workplaces deliver the kit to the job site. This removes the need for technicians to travel to the store and possibly get stuck in a queue. Maintenance kits suit all tasks that are planned ahead — including preventive maintenance, repairs, and shutdowns. Partial kitting can also be done for tasks involving disassembly for troubleshooting purposes. The technician can then order extra parts after they identify the problem. Here’s what your run-of-the-mill kitting process looks like: • The maintenance planner schedules a maintenance task that requires a kit. • The warehouse receives notification and begins assembling it (assuming one is not already in stock). • The store’s person assigned with the task will use a kit list to pick the required components and assemble them into a suitable container, box, or pallet. • Once assembled, they can assign it a unique stock code and place the maintenance kit in a dedicated warehouse/storeroom area. • On maintenance day, the technician assigned the task will draw the kit from stock and transport it to the job site. • On opening the kit, they check all components are present before beginning the task. • On task completion, the technician returns the kit container and all the unused components to the store, signing the kit back in. • The store’s personnel then run through a process to return the unused components to the stock system. Tips to maximize the benefits of maintenance kitting Leave in-house kit development to qualified personnel Continuously work on kit refinement Define kitting procedures for exceptions and emergencies Define procedures for returning items to inventory Rein in your automatic reorder system Define how to handle unused maintenance kits Use Just Ask CMMS to support your maintenance kitting process. When it comes to planning, organizing, and tracking maintenance work and MRO inventory, nothing beats a modern, cloud-based maintenance software like Just Ask CMMS. Find out everything eamtools.com can do for you today by scheduling a product demo or talking to our CMMS specialists.

Workforce & Training: Workforce and training issues are critical to organizational success and economic prosperity. They encompass talent acquisition, employee retention, skills development, diversity and inclusion, work-life balance and labor relations. Addressing these issues effectively can boost productivity, innovation and competitiveness while enhancing employee satisfaction and well-being. With advancing technologies, a limited workforce, and a vast number of engineers retiring, attention to your workforce and operator training is more crucial than ever. Operator training hasn’t really changed in the past 50 years, relying heavily on on-the-job training with experienced operators as instructors. However, these operators often lack formal training in teaching methods and techniques. I highlight potential benefits and the advantages of a five-crew rotation system that allows for dedicated training time. Particularly a lot of plants now are trying to staff more on days than at night. So, at nights, you go with a sort of skeleton crew, and then on days, you have more people, and that can be the fifth crew. So, I think with a lot of the safety systems are being put in, it will become an easier thing to do. I may not have to hire additional people to do training. I just shift them from working nights when you really can't get anything done because you're too occupied and you're just trying to get through that 12 hours, and I'm going to get them on days and we can do things like training with it as well as some of the other process safety things that you want to do with procedures and drawings and that sort of thing. Visit Eamtools.com

Importance of Failure Codes Failure codes can be used in maintenance management and asset management software to track asset failures. Technicians can apply failure codes to work orders to indicate a specific type of failure, such as when the problem is reported, discovered, or when the work order is closed. Failure codes can also help facilities become more efficient by highlighting problematic trends. Maintenance failure codes are usually in the form of numbers or as an alphanumeric acronym. When properly used, these codes are used in many different analyses in order to find out what causes issues and how these issues can be fixed. There are three major functions of failure codes. - Improving maintenance efficiency. - Tracking and identifying issues over time. - Creating an in-depth work order. Simply generating failure codes is not enough. If companies cannot address failure codes in a timely manner, they'll continue to operate damaged equipment. As a result, you want software that can put those failure codes to work, preferably without advanced expert or technical support. This is the first step of closing the loop. - Automatically creating work orders to deal with failure codes - Organizing your failure codes in a coherent and cohesive fashion - Providing an easy access point to the history of your failure codes Beyond this, it's hard to say what your system can do. It highly depends on the system that you're using. Use Just Ask CMMS, you get all components needed for detailed Work Order with analysis.

Who Prepares a Bill of Materials? Who Uses a Bill of Materials? Given the range of information within a bill of materials, creating one often requires input from a company’s cross-section of functions. This can include design, engineering, purchasing, materials management and manufacturing. Similarly, different areas within a company can be primary users of different types of BOMs. For instance, engineering and/or design typically uses an engineering BOM. Manufacturing generally uses manufacturing BOMs. Most BOMs include the following elements: BOM level, the part number, name, description and quantity, cost and the unit of measure, it doesn’t include labor. Depending upon the industry, designers or engineers as well as purchasing, scheduling, and planning will want to review them to ensure accuracy — an accurate BOM serves as a roadmap for finished goods and frees up resources to spend on the actual production process. Learn about the unique solutions EAM solutions and services offers businesses to accelerate growth with a unified suite for maintenance and operations. Visit Eamtools.com

Scheduling is the process of organizing, controlling, and optimizing work and workloads. It can be used in project management to create a detailed timeline and sequence of activities to guide the execution of a project. The primary goal of project scheduling is to demonstrate how to complete a project's scope on time. Visit Eamtools.com

KPIs help to track performance and provide insights for improvement. Visit Eamtools.com and use Just Ask. You will find useful information under Supervisors KPI.

What is work specific schedule? A work-specific schedule focuses on detailing the tasks and activities directly related to completing a particular job or project. It outlines what needs to be done, who will do it, and when it will be done. Unlike general project schedules that may include administrative and support tasks, a work-specific schedule zeroes in on the core activities required to achieve specific work objectives. What is a support schedule? A support schedule in work order management outlines the auxiliary tasks and activities necessary to ensure the successful completion of primary work tasks. These support activities are essential for creating a smooth workflow, maintaining safety standards, ensuring resource availability, and handling logistical concerns. What is an equipment schedule? An equipment schedule is a detailed plan that outlines the allocation, usage, maintenance, and availability of equipment necessary for completing tasks in a project or operation. This schedule ensures that the right equipment is available at the right time, preventing delays and maximizing efficiency. Visit Eamtools.com and use Just Ask CMMS to develop and track above mentioned schedule types.

Codes in a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) for work orders are essential for several reasons: 1. **Standardization**: Codes help standardize how work orders are categorized and described, ensuring consistency across the organization. This standardization is crucial for clear communication and understanding among all users. 2. **Efficiency**: Using codes streamlines the process of creating, searching, and managing work orders. Workers can quickly select the appropriate code from a predefined list, reducing the time spent on data entry. 3. **Accuracy**: Codes minimize errors and ambiguities in work order descriptions. Instead of relying on free-text descriptions that can be interpreted differently, predefined codes ensure that everyone understands the exact nature of the work required. 4. **Reporting and Analysis**: Codes facilitate effective reporting and analysis. By categorizing work orders with specific codes, organizations can easily generate reports on maintenance activities, identify trends, and analyze performance metrics. 5. **Compliance**: In industries with regulatory requirements, codes help ensure that work orders meet compliance standards. This is important for audits and inspections, where detailed and accurate records are necessary. 6. **Prioritization and Planning**: Codes assist in prioritizing and planning maintenance tasks. Different codes can indicate the urgency or type of work, helping maintenance managers allocate resources effectively. 7. **Cost Management**: By associating codes with specific types of work, organizations can track costs more accurately. This helps in budgeting and financial planning by providing insights into where resources are being spent. 8. **Historical Data and Preventive Maintenance**: Codes enable the collection of historical data on maintenance activities. This data is invaluable for preventive maintenance planning, helping to predict future maintenance needs based on past trends. In summary, codes are crucial in a CMMS for ensuring clarity, efficiency, accuracy, and effective management of maintenance activities. Authored by Chatgpt. Outcome of my question using Chatgpt - Why codes are needed for work order in CMMS? Visit Eamtools.com to use Just Ask CMMS and other excel tools for work management.

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a proactive maintenance strategy that monitors the condition of assets to determine when maintenance is needed. The goal of CBM is to perform maintenance when it's necessary, rather than on a fixed schedule or after a failure occurs. This approach can help maximize maintenance efficiency, minimize downtime, and reduce overall maintenance costs. To determine when maintenance is needed, CBM checks for indicators of decreasing performance or upcoming failure. These indicators can be identified through non-invasive measurements, visual inspection, performance data, and scheduled tests. For example, if an industrial fan has an unbalanced fan wheel, it will vibrate each time it rotates. CBM can use sensors or instruments to collect real-time measurements, such as vibration, pressure, temperature, or acoustic measurements. This data can then be used to notify maintenance teams when a problem is impending, giving them time to schedule downtime and perform repairs. Visit Eamtools.com

Meter-based preventive maintenance (PM) is a maintenance strategy that uses a piece of equipment's meter readings to schedule maintenance tasks. It's often used for vehicles, aircraft, and other machines that have meters to measure their usage, such as hours in use, miles driven, or cycles performed. The goal of meter-based PM is to ensure that devices are running at optimal performance and to prevent costly repairs due to lack of maintenance. Meter-based PM is more complex than time-based maintenance because it requires an action, such as reading and interpreting a meter, before maintenance can be triggered. It's important to read the meter regularly so that maintenance isn't delayed. Meter-based PM can be difficult to predict when future maintenance may be required. It's often used in conjunction with other maintenance strategies, such as predictive maintenance. Visit Eamtools.com