How can you identify time-wasters in your maintenance practices? Try observing someone perform a maintenance PM from start to finish. As the work progresses, identify the actions taken to complete each step (as delineated in the PM procedure).
Actions differ from steps. It may be a step to perform voltage measurements. It’s an action to remove a cover to get to the measurement points. It’s also an action if the tech encounters a locked door and must walk across the plant to sign out a key for it; make the key sign-out a step (in the proper sequence, before going to the work site) to eliminate the action of walking back to get the key.
You can do much to eliminate unnecessary actions. Be careful about eliminating steps; make that call on the technical merits of the step rather than on the need to save time performing the work.
