Training investment helps cut downtime

 

The company operated a centralised electrical maintenance department so a significant amount of time was lost waiting for the maintenance electrician to react to breakdowns. The manufacturing process was cellular, with a mechanical engineer assigned to each cell. The heads of engineering and production looked for opportunities to reduce the amount of downtime and decided to train their mechanical engineers in basic electrical tasks. This significantly cut down-time and enabled the electrical engineers to concentrate on more specialised tasks and predictive maintenance programmes.

 

The team, using data collected from breakdown reports in the CMMS, and in consultation with MCP, selected basic electrical tasks for their mechanical engineers that would:

•  Be of a suitable skill level for a cross-skilled engineer

•  Give the biggest wins for the business, for example prioritising tasks that would  resolve the most frequent breakdowns

 

The tasks were split into core tasks and department specific tasks with the long term aim to allow the cross-skilled engineers to work across more than one department.

 

The Core Tasks:

•  Test/ remove/ refit AC motor

•  Fit/ replace plugs

•  Replace faulty cables/ terminate cables like for like after isolation

•  Reset inverter/ soft start unit

•  Identify/ investigate and reset overload unit and MCB

•  Test and replace fuse

•  Replace panel indicator lamps after isolation

•  Work on like for like electrical sensors

•  Work on like for like pneumatic solenoid coil

•  Work on switches/ buttons like for like after isolation

Onsite consolidation

Training alone cannot achieve results. On-the-job training is a crucial part of the development process and is more likely to produce long term benefits for the multi-skilled engineers and for the company. The management team also recognised this and that to successfully integrate the cross-skilled engineers into the workplace, engagement and onsite consolidation was a necessary part of the process. A team of six maintenance electricians were identified to undertake a comprehensive coaching and assessing programme to mentor the cross–skilled engineers. The mentoring programme proved to be dual purpose: 

•  Engaging both the electricians and mechanical engineers

•  Giving both teams confidence in the level of skills being attained

 

The mechanical engineers attended the four-part, MCP City & Guilds accredited, Mechanical to Electrical conversion course.  They were then given two months to complete the onsite consolidation process working with their assigned mentor. This process involved the mechanical engineers completing the selected tasks for their department in the required amount of times through actual jobs or controlled simulation. This was recorded in an onsite consolidation log book.

 

Once the tasks had been completed, the mechanical engineer was interviewed by the company electrical engineer. On successful completion, a licence was issued permitting the engineer to perform the agreed tasks, only in his department and unsupervised.

The requirement for checking confidence and skill levels on a regular basis was also recognised. So a re-authorisation date was set two years after a licence had been granted. The re-authorisation process consisted of a structured interview and refresher training focusing on the core tasks, if required. This was initially to be performed by MCP with the mentors eventually taking on this task. 

 

Using the data collected, using breakdown reports, over the initial 2 year period a minimum of 1211.8 hours of downtime was saved through the utilisation of 31 cross skilled engineers. No actual redundancies resulted in this process, only natural wastage.