By Michael Elling
External pressures pose increasing challenges for companies who face complex commercial and production problems, as well as health and safety issues.
Pressures arise from external sources, such as regulatory demands, changing customer needs, and certification requirements, as well as from internal sources. These include cost control measures, the need for operational consistency and occupational health and safety directives.
Compliance with these new demands can be greatly facilitated through the implementation of computerized solutions. Within production facilities increased attention is directed at the maintenance function, as many of the new demands affect the daily maintenance routines, and subsequently initiatives are launched to implement Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS).
The maintenance function is traditionally focused around tangible assets, based on the premise that proper maintenance of machinery and equipment will minimize equipment downtime, improve product quality and enhance the health and safety of the workers on the production floor. However, health and safety issues are only addressed indirectly through a limited focus on the functional design and reliability of production equipment.
At Home Hardware Paint & Chemical Division (Home Hardware) rapid growth and the introduction of a new production line had brought about a situation which required a support system to ensure the continued controlled growth of its manufacturing facilities. Early in 1994 the maintenance department was given a mandate to find a CMMS, that would support the new direction of the maintenance function.
In addition to the traditional functional requirements of a CMMS, the company wanted a software solution with multimedia capabilities which would convey information in a graphical manner. The company sought an interface that would provide ease of use to its employees, yet with enough flexibility to incorporate the company¹s human resources as part of the maintenance solution.
Home Hardware chose a solution named Maintenance Support System® (MSS) provided by SISTEAM Software & Consulting, of Richmond Hill, Ontario. The first implementation phase was completed by late 1994, and in cooperation with the systems provider, some human resource management aspects were defined, with the objective of incorporating these aspects into the MSS solution, and ultimately to enhance the health and safety on the production floor.
Formalized Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were the first human resource management aspect to be incorporated into the MSS solution. Many production environments lack formalized SOPs, and rely mostly on oral operator training, leading to potential inconsistencies, especially in situations with high turn-over rates. Furthermore, oral training does not ensure that relevant health and safety issues are communicated to the workers.
The MSS solution contains CAD layout drawings of all production lines, which serves as a navigation tool to find relevant information in the database. Small "person" icons were added to these drawings to represent each of the job positions on the production floor, and subsequently active buttons were defined to access the SOPs for each work station. To ensure that each SOP reflects the real job on the plant floor, periodic reviews are now scheduled with one-year intervals, and these work orders will automatically appear in the systems workbook annually.
Implementing SOPs into the MSS solution enables each employee to walk up to a computer on the plant floor and access his/her SOP, as well as review safety issues and recommended work positions. The rationale is that this initiative will lead to reduced work related injuries and long-term disabilities, in addition to a well informed work force.
The MSS solution maintains history records of all activities relating to each SOP. It is now possible to trace and document the historic development of individual operating procedures, and to determine if any SOPs cause above average ergonomic problems for the operators. In Ontario, this aspect is becoming increasingly relevant, given the growing unfunded liabilities of the Workers' Compensation Board, reinforced by the recent changes to the Workers' Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act (through Bill 165).
These regulatory developments effectively shift a greater portion of the financial burden of worker disabilities onto the private sector, and has introduced the notion of mandatory "Return to Work" programs for individual employers. These regulatory changes primarily affect the way employers deal with vocational disabilities after they have occurred, while the MSS solution builds on a proactive approach to reduce the frequency of work related disabilities. At Home Hardware a foundation has now been established for presenting and collecting relevant information, that serves to improve the organization's ability to make informed decisions on how to improve operating procedures in their pursuit of operational effectiveness.
Other aspects of human resource management currently under consideration to be incorporated into the MSS solution are:
The "Emergency Response Plan" has been made readily available to all personnel, as it has been incorporated into the MSS solution where it can be accessed by clicking on an active button on the overview photograph of the production facilities. An additional benefit to the MSS solution includes the possibility of utilizing hand-held computers to issue work orders and to capture information on the production floor. This enables the maintenance department to establish a paperless environment in the future, if the paper-based workorder administration becomes too labour intensive.
One year after the MSS project was initiated, "we feel the MSS solution is a definite asset that gives us a better overview", says Lloyd Rutherford, Maintenance Supervisor at Home Hardware.
The organization is now better equipped to meet the increasing external demands, which in their situation involves an ISO 9002 Certification, and management feels that their new asset management tool is integral to operational excellence.