APRIL 2017 | VehicleServicePros.com 11 of tools, distance to the parts room, etc. Does your organizational culture help or hinder the maintenance process? Every culture creates a pattern. Th e pattern either supports or defi es the ability to preserve assets and provide capacity. By way of example, in some governmental maintenance departments, the pattern created by the culture stands squarely in the way of an effi cient process. A maintenance worker there has no authority to spend money to solve a problem, say to phone Grainger’s and go over and pick up a new hydraulic motor. Th ey might have to endure a procurement process to get a more expensive, inferior part and wait weeks to boot. In another case, a large fi eld service company issued $50 bills to its technicians to help them solve any customer’s maintenance problem immediately. Th ere was no call-in for authority, Page 12 » Impartiality is a principle for success in work sampling. It is important not to prejudge what is observed. The purpose is to analyze the system, not the people. Photo from iStock Work sampling is a problem finder. no second guessing. Th ey just had to turn in the receipt and get reimbursed. In both cases, the technician’s time is impacted by the systems, procedures and attitudes of their organization. Th is pattern can be seen by studying how technicians are forced to use their time. Foundation Information But fi rst, maintenance leadership needs to answer some basic questions, including: Are there enough people for the work? Are they properly managed and supervised? Are they adequately supported? If the way they are supported were changed, could they do more work? What is the optimum capacity of the work group as now organized? Would extra training increase productivity? Other basic information needed, which is usually available from the payroll department, includes: How many hours do you pay for daily? How much regular time? How much overtime time? On each shift ? Make a simple comparison between the payroll hours and the hours worked on maintenance jobs for a quick analysis of productivity. Random Snapshots Imagine taking random snapshots of your maintenance technicians. You would fi nd that at the instant of the snapshot, a percentage of your crew is involved in marginally or non-productive activities. Work sampling is a formal technique for snapshotting to evaluate the activities of your maintenance workforce. Studies show that 80 percent of productivity losses are directly attributable to management attitudes, systems and procedures. Only 20 percent can be traced to a worker’s motivation, attitude, energy or desire. Most supervisors informally – or even unconsciously – do their own version of work sampling as they walk around observing things. It is far better is to have a formal methodology like work sampling. Basically, this is a technique for determining the proportion of time spent by workers in various defi ned categories of activity by making a number of observations in a random manner at random intervals of time over a particular time period. Work sampling management can secure facts and uncover patterns about an operation with- Snapshot Observations By David A. Kolman, Editor Work sampling is a technique that provides valuable information to fleet maintenance managers on areas of low technician productivity. Basically, it is a series of snapshot observations of work in progress, taken randomly over a period of time, intended to uncover areas of potential efficiency and effectiveness improvement. This technique involves an observer, as he/she encounters a technician, categorizing and recording the activity of that technician, based on the instant the observer came into contact with that person. Typically, “activity” is classified into three categories: • Productive – Direct, hands-on productive work. • Supportive – Any activity used to support the productive work. • Non-productive – “Wasted time, such as waiting for instructions, socializing, coffee breaks, etc. ADVANTAGES Some of the pluses about work sampling is that it: • Is relatively easy to adopt. • Requires few resources. Can be conducted by anyone with limited training. • Provides quick information. • Does not require continuous observation of technicians over a long period of time. • May be interrupted at any time without affecting the results. The theory of work sampling is based on the law of probability. Observations are made at random times to give each individual moment during an observation an equal chance of being observed. Observing the people or events at the same time each day may not provide a reliable sampling of their complete routine. One way to ensure the randomness of observations is to use random number tables or random number generators.
FleetMaintenance_April_2017
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