Coaches Corner

This situation occurred several years ago at one of Acme’s manufacturing plants. The technician (referred to as “Joe” in the case study, not the real name) had been working at the same plant for almost 20 years. He was well-liked, reliable, and had developed a wealth of maintenance and operations knowledge that made him a valued employee. He was always willing to assist other technicians.

Then, he started to display indications of personal difficulties. He started coming in late, his work was not always up to standards, and he kept his distance from his other team mates. At the same time, machinery started mysteriously failing at abnormally high rates, and the machinery was in the area of Joe’s working area. Rumors starting going around that Joe had something to do with the machinery failures.

Joe’s Team Lead Carl had known Joe for over 12 years, and in fact Joe had helped train Carl as a technician. Carl reviewed Joe’s personnel files, reviewed the machinery maintenance records, and knew something was wrong but couldn’t find any proof Joe was responsible for the breakdowns. Carl decided to try a direct approach.

One day Carl invited Joe out for lunch, one on one, and in the restaurant Carl directly asked Joe what was going on? Joe explained that his wife of 20 years had demanded a divorce, forced Joe to move out of their house, and Joe was having a hard time dealing with everything. Carl asked about the abnormally high failures of the machinery, without making any accusations. Joe explained that he had gotten in the habit of servicing a lot of the equipment between normal scheduled maintenance and not logging the work. Most of that equipment was old, and the scheduled maintenance cycles were inadequate for their condition. Since his wife left him, he had been too depressed to perform that extra work. Joe suspected not performing that extra servicing was showing up in the higher failures.

Carl discussed the situation with his supervisor, and came up with a plan that Joe agreed to. Joe was transferred to another plant in a distant city, as a way of getting him away from his soon-to-be ex-wife. The plant he was transferred to had a lot of very new and inexperienced maintenance technicians and needed Joe’s expertise. He was also given a substantial raise in recognition of his expertise.

Then Carl rewrote the maintenance schedules for shorter maintenance cycles on the equipment Joe had been personally keeping operational.

If the Apprentice’s solution did not include a private non-threatening discussion with Joe, they should be asked to reflect on personal management skills.

The salary budgets are a normal headache for Team Leaders as they have no way of predicting major equipment failures, unexpected loss of personnel, or significant equipment upgrades (all of which eat up overtime) one year in advance.  The normal solution experienced team leaders use is to perform running averages of the last three years actuals, add ten percent, and hope it works. All team leaders end up getting called up to the Chief Financial Officer at least once every couple of years for going over their salary budgets so it’s become a rite of passage.  Some of the more senior team Leaders keeps an office pool going on who’s going to get called up first during any given year.

Capital equipment budgets are a different matter.  An experienced Team Leader will keep careful records of when equipment was purchased, the amount of usage it receives in supporting manufacturing equipment, cost of repairs and duration of down time. The company maintains a formula for replacing worn equipment. Once the cost of repairs hits the “replace point” the Team leads have justification for replacement. Whenever new manufacturing equipment is installed the Team Leads carefully document any required maintenance equipment they don’t already have and get purchase quotes.

If a Team Lead presents their capital equipment requests with the necessary supporting documentation, the budgeting committee will normally approve the requests.

For reference, here are some examples of budgets your Apprentice could have created using the provided data.

Possible Budget Proposal Solutions

This situation occurred several years ago across several Acme manufacturing plants.  Maintenance for a number of fairly new machines with normal usage started increasing for no apparent reason. Reviews of team maintenance procedures found nothing abnormal other than the teams were replacing the same select parts on an increasingly more frequent basis.

A close review of the procurement records showed that these parts were being provided by one distributor that had been doing business with Acme Industries for a number of years and was a trusted partner. One of the Team Leads contacted the supplier and ended up talking to their lead buyer, who in turn started researching their own records. The buyer discovered they were purchasing, and selling, an unusually large number of a certain set of repair parts which included the parts going to Acme Industries.

The buyer then traced the purchases back to the source, and discovered their supplier was purchasing counterfeit parts through a Chinese wholesaler as a cost-cutting measure. These parts did not meet the required specifications and were prematurely failing.

The distributor changed their supplier and instituted tighter purchasing requirements. Maintenance gradually decreased back to normal as the counterfeit parts were cycled out of the system.

If your Apprentice’s solution included contacting the supplier of these parts to verify quality issues, they went as far they could, and should be commended for a valid solution.

This case, or one similar, occurs every few months at one of Acme’s plants. Other than checking the parts when they first arrived instead of the day of the maintenance task, there wasn’t much the Team Lead could have done differently. Even checking the parts upon arrival wouldn’t have changed much since it was already too late to cancel the down time.  Team Leads rely on other people for their support.

This is an inherent part of the headaches of being a Team Lead. Some factors to remember in planning out maintenance jobs:

• Although scheduling requirements may seem overwhelming, taking it one piece at a time helps. A Team Lead should start planning their schedules with the known maintenance requirements. Then look at planned work schedules for the team members. A good plan allows about ten percent slack time in work schedules to allow for unplanned minor repair issues.
• It is also important to have all your team members cross-trained in all jobs, so if one person is out someone else, properly trained, can fill in.
• Repair parts need to be ordered early, adding several days allowance for delays. Although the parts department does not approve, one effective approach is for a Team Lead to acquire some extra parts that have known high replacement rates, or a record of shipping delays, and stash them in the office. Use these in emergencies when ordered parts are not going to be delivered on schedule, and replenish with the ordered parts.
• A good Team Lead should rely on their team members for expertise in planning out schedules. Experienced team members have a wealth of experience and can let the Team Lead know when major events are coming up. Team Leads need to develop two-way communications and rapport with all their team members.

As a follow-up to this case study, the Coach should have the Apprentice develop several maintenance schedules and work through the steps involved for preparation and coordination of the various task requirements. The Apprentice should also reflect on how they would handle a situation when their carefully-developed planning falls apart through no direct fault of their own.