Collecting vague or useless data is a common time vampire in preventive maintenance (PM). Here’s an example.
The PM is for a plant air compressor, which has a whole page of checkboxes for “OK / BAD.” The tech, under time pressure, looks at the gauge panel and doesn’t spot anything obvious. So he simply checks all of the “OK” boxes, without even reading the description. Even if the tech took the time to actually determine status, almost nothing in that laundry list of items has predictive value.
The checklist is a non-value added activity. Eliminate it, and the tech has more time to do those things that actually matter.
You can free up enormous amounts of PM time by simply going through your PM procedures and eliminating tasks that have little or no value.
