Work Management
Turn maintenance from reactive firefighting into a disciplined,
proactive work management system.
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Effective maintenance work management ensures the right work is identified, prioritized, planned, scheduled, executed, and closed out with the resources, materials, information, and accountability required to get it done efficiently.
Implementation Engineers works directly with maintenance and operations teams to implement the processes, roles, routines, and management systems required to improve wrench time, resource utilization, schedule attainment, equipment reliability, and maintenance performance.
The important distinction is implement. We aren't simply assessing the maintenance organization and recommending new processes. We establish the work management system with the people responsible for executing it.
What We Implement
Work Identification & Prioritization
Establish consistent processes for identifying defects, generating work orders, assessing equipment criticality, and prioritizing maintenance based on operational and business risk.
Maintenance Planning
Build repeatable job planning processes covering scope, labor requirements, job steps, parts, tools, permits, safety requirements, and coordination with operations.
Maintenance Scheduling
Implement daily and weekly scheduling routines that balance maintenance priorities, available resources, production requirements, equipment availability, and planned downtime.
Work Execution
Improve job readiness through parts staging, kitting, tools, instructions, resource coordination, and clear execution expectations so technicians spend more time performing value-added maintenance.
Work Closeout
Establish disciplined work-order completion, documentation, equipment history, failure coding, and feedback processes so completed work improves future maintenance decisions.
Performance Management
Implement KPIs and daily/weekly management routines around schedule compliance, backlog, wrench time, planned versus reactive work, PM performance, resource utilization, and other measures appropriate to the operation.
This aligns very closely with established maintenance planning and scheduling principles: planning removes delays within jobs, while scheduling reduces delays between jobs and improves workforce utilization. Wrench time is therefore not simply a labor-productivity measure; it can reveal weaknesses across planning, scheduling, materials, coordination, and execution.
Why Maintenance Work Management Matters
Maintenance organizations often have skilled technicians and a CMMS but still struggle with excessive reactive work, growing backlogs, poor schedule compliance, low wrench time, parts delays, and recurring equipment failures. The problem is often not the maintenance technology itself—it is the work management process surrounding it.
A strong maintenance work management system creates a repeatable path from identifying a maintenance need to completing the work and learning from it. Better planning and scheduling reduce time spent waiting for parts, tools, instructions, equipment access, or the next assignment, allowing the existing workforce to complete more planned work.
IX® in Action -
North American Food
Manufacturer
A leading North American baked goods manufacturer was experiencing significant operational disruption from unplanned maintenance and unreliable manufacturing equipment. IE implemented a comprehensive Asset Performance Excellence initiative that included a new maintenance work management system, integrated CMMS, Reliability Centered Maintenance program, and management operating system.
IE implemented standardized work identification, prioritization, planning, scheduling, execution, and closeout processes while coordinating maintenance schedules with production. Parts and tools were staged for execution, equipment criticality was incorporated into maintenance decisions, and daily and weekly operating reviews established accountability for sustaining performance.
50%
improvement in scheduled work
40%
improvement in resource utilization
35%
reduction in breakdown work
$5.5M
Annualized Financial Benefits
$2.0M
Financial Benefits During the Project
405K Units/Day
Line 1 Throughput — Exceeding the 400K Targe
49%
Improvement in Waste
Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP)
Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP) | Implementation Engineers
Implement an integrated SIOP process that aligns demand, supply, inventory, production, and capacity through forecasting, planning tools, KPIs, governance, and cross-functional decision-making.
Related Maintenance & Reliability services
- Maintenance Work Management
- CMMS Optimization
- MRO Materials Management
- Operator Driven Reliability
- Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA)
- Root Cause Analysis
- Reliability Engineering
- Asset Management System Development
- Shutdown & Turnaround Improvement
- Asset Integrity Diagnostics
- Asset Criticality Analysis
- PM Optimization
- Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
- Predictive Maintenance & Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM)
- Mechanical Integrity Programs
- Maintenance Management Operating System (MMOS)
- Maintenance Organizational Effectiveness