What will Happen to the Knowledge of Aging Maintenance Workers

Everyday we see story after story of the impact of our distressed economy. News media has a had a field day reporting record unemployment rates, various government fiscal crisis as well as record foreclosures. Fortunately, we are not in a total meltdown as not all industries types or professions have been effected equally. Take for example engineering and facility or plant maintenance professionals. Many of these highly skilled workers have been keeping our industrial infrastructure up and running for decades. In fact the average age of professional maintenance team members is well over 50 with many set to retire with a few years. This can present asset intensive organizations with serious sustainability problems should the know-how accumulated by leave with them upon retirement.

What Is At Stake

The issue of an aging workforce is two-fold. The first issue is whether enough workers can be found to replace retiring workers. The answer is an unequivocally yes. Unemployment is very high, labor can found both domestically and internationally. This is the basic premise of Supply and Demand. Debates on the merits of the validity of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics report that there will be up to 14 million unfilled skilled positions open by 2010 are irrelevant. In the grand scheme of time any temporary disturbance in the labor force will eventually be offset long before buildings and infrastructures crumble.

What does warrant concern is what will happen to the decades of practical experience that maintenance teams, engineers and companies have amassed. The impact of the potential knowledge loss will vary depending on the industry, facility age, prior facility maintenance practices as well as the level of sophistication or use of technology. In industries where the technology has remained almost stagnant the equipment knowledge and maintenance workarounds experiences that crews have developed over time may be lost. In other industries where newer maintenance techniques such as vibration analysis, laser sensing devices or other advanced inspection tools are being used the loss of know-how is likely to be less. Similarly, new facilities containing new equipment should initially be less maintenance intensive giving new hires more time to develop. In contrast, older buildings or equipment probably require more seasoned professionals making it imperative that there knowledge be captured.

Finding The Pain

Human resource professionals, executives as well as facility managers should be able to identify their situation in a heartbeat. For facilities where a loss of know-how is less important, the some alternatives include proper recruitment and training. However, this is also the ideal time for these types of facilities to begin the creation of a knowledge database in order to avoid a repeat of the age impact at a later point in time. For facilities where the loss of know-how will increase maintenance response time as well as subsequent MRO expenses, management must act quickly and decisively to capture the knowledge of older workers and develop training methods or tools that can expedite the knowledge transfer.

Tools For Knowledge Transfer

It would be great if there was one tool that would be the best solution for all industries, complexities as well as all types of facilities. Unfortunately that tool does not yet exist. The determination of the best tool to use such as an EAM, IWMS, ERP, CAFM and so on is dependent on too many variables to cover in this article. However, we can explain how an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system works to address the preceding problems. For this discussion

"Enterprise Asset Management differs from Asset Management because it treats the asset from a company (enterprise) perspective. It refers to the management of assets to the benefit of the organization as a whole and not limited to a specific area such as a department, location or division. It includes the entire process from initial planning, designed use, installation, training, operations, maintenance and eventual retirement/replacement." Mintek Glossary of Terms

Properly implementing an EAM brings one other very significant benefit. By tracking the history of each asset from beginning to end, the system collects an enormous amount of maintenance data including but not limited to the original work order request, why work needed to be done, what work was done, who did it, the costs, the parts/inventory needed and the results. Best of Breed EAM solutions make this even easier by integrating mobile handheld devices for near real time data exchange. The result is a very manageable source of data that can be used for training new recruits or increasing operator maintenance skills.

Finding Allies

The key to a successful implementation is achieving buy-in at all levels.

Executive management must be sold. Win your case by the numbers. When cash flow is tight non-revenue producing actions are few and far between. Work with your vendor to ascertain a measurable ROI.

For Plant and Facility managers the EAM will decrease reactive repairs (lowering emergency overtime labor costs) and minimize downtime as a result of better inspections and preventive maintenance organization. Managers will know where all assets are and their work order history at the push of a button.

For Maintenance teams this means showing them how the system will organize the work flow process giving them more time for proactive maintenance issues as well as greater flexibility in handling reactive/emergency repairs.

For Human Resources this means making sure they understand the FTE equivalent of a senior experienced engineer is greater than one. Also make mention that training costs will be lower and employee satisfaction higher.

For Accountants buy-in can be achieved by utilizing the capital budget analysis piece of the EAM. Good historical data collection enables capital planners to more accurately project the expected retirement or replacement date of an asset. If overtime is an issue then they will love how an EAM can lower labor costs by streamlining the workflow process.

Using The Core Functions Of An EAM

The core features of an EAM include the automation of many maintenance management functions such as inspections, preventive maintenance and work orders. The goal of these features is to provide facilities maintenance the organizational tools necessary to decrease reactive firefighting and increase proactive maintenance functions. The effect is to reduce labor cost, minimize equipment downtime and lengthen the useful lifecycle of assets.

Mintek