Facility Maintenance Data Accuracy

Facility Maintenance Data Accuracy program enabled maintenance managers to better trust the data and use it more effectively to plan and staff facility maintenance projects.

The Challenge 

Our client was a prime contractor for a Department of Energy (DOE) agency. The DOE requires prime contractors on its sites to report facility maintenance expenditures on an annual basis and segment the reports by buildings and then into facility systems. Our client utilized an ASTM Standard for reporting facility expenses, but only realized a first-pass data accuracy rate of 85% for assignment of work orders to specific buildings and facility systems. The DOE required a minimum accuracy level of 95%.

The Strategy

The client’s reporting group, along with the maintenance management team and Management Solutions staff, chartered a Lean/Six Sigma Process Improvement Team to improve the coding accuracy of facility work orders. The team used the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) Lean/Six Sigma process to address the issue.

The Define & Measure phases were fairly well established with the previous assessment work. A goal of 95% accuracy was set.

The Analyze phase identified several of the major issues with why performance so poor. Several of the major contributors included:

Some of the incorrect codes were being generated by the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) due to incorrect configuration

Maintenance staff was not familiar with the Work Breakdown Structure methodology

Maintenance staff put a low priority on correct coding due to not understanding the purpose

The Improvement Phase included the following:

Re-programming the CMMS with more accurate automated coding of work

Training for all the maintenance managers on the importance of WBS accuracy

Development of a “WBS Cheat Sheet” that included the most common types of work and the most common WBS Codes to use

Establishing a “helpline” for maintenance staff to assist in determining appropriate codes

The Control Phase was an on-going effort to review work orders by maintenance managers and reporting staff at the time the work orders were created (instead of afterward when they were closed)

The Outcome

Based on the efforts of the team and routine follow-up assessments, the DOE’s target accuracy rate of 95% was achieved for our client. The increased accuracy enabled the maintenance managers to better trust the data and use it more effectively to plan and staff facility maintenance projects.