How do I reduce my facilities need for maintenance rework?

To reduce the amount of reworked maintenance you’re redoing, you’d first have to look at what’s causing it. It might be tempting to think your team is just being sloppy, but there could be some real issues here, like skills gaps or poor practices.

Common causes of maintenance rework

Some of the most common causes of maintenance rework are:

• Poor maintenance procedures
• Poor operating procedures
• Lack of proper training or adequate skills
• Subpar materials and parts
• Poor maintenance planning
• Particularly rough use of the equipment

As you identify the root cause, you can make plans to resolve it.

Training in best practices

If you keep reworking the same types of tasks performed on different assets, you might have a training issue. Equipment might be used in a way that wears out certain parts faster, or you might have some poor maintenance practices. In either case, it will be time to train your team on best practices.

Fill in skill gaps

If your crew simply lacks the skills or resources to handle equipment issues properly, you’d want to consider how to fill those gaps. New hires or skills training may be needed, or you might hire out contracted work, depending on the frequency and nature of the rework involved.

Improve inventory purchasing practices

If specific parts or brands keep failing, take a look at your purchasing practices. You might need to switch vendors for parts that fail often.

Review your maintenance planning practices

Perhaps your teams have been following all instructions to the letter and have all the necessary skills and tools to perform their assigned tasks. If you still have frequent rework maintenance, you might want to review your maintenance planning practices.

If your team doesn’t have enough time to complete work orders or if they don’t have access to the needed schematics, manuals, or parts, it could diminish the quality of your maintenance work. Improving maintenance planning should help you reduce the incidence of rework maintenance and increase the reliability of your equipment.