Quick 5 tips for backlog management

Backlog management is one of the most simple and powerful techniques in a planners arsenal. Unfortunately it is also one of the most overlooked.

Backlog management is the art of sifting through, acting upon and reporting upon the work orders and work requests within the backlog.

It starts at the point of work order creation and ends when work orders head into the analysis archives. The goal of backlog management is to help work be completed in an efficient and time saving process.

If the short term planner is doing their job correctly then they should be spending the vast majority of their time in managing the work order backlog. Reviewing statuses, parts ordering, preparing for execution and so on.


The Quick 5


1) Make sure that the role of work order creation and completion has nothing to do with the planning office.

This is the most dangerous area. Planners are all too often used as clerks because they take on work order opening and closing in order to get good data into the system. In doing so they train everyone else to avoid the CMMS, and they sow the seeds of their own failure. 

2) Develop guidelines for work order status, and define the criteria a work order must meet before it can be considered as planned.

This is a key issue and is related to work order life cycle planning. it is striking how many work order backlog systems I look through where work orders are nowhere near planned, yet they have been given out for execution.

3) Force yourself to schedule via capacity scheduling.

Capacity scheduling is a great technique. Start with the routine maintenance, then add in only the "planned" work orders from the corrective work order backlog. In this way you MUST have a planned backlog available. A good way to force yourself into the discipline of managing the backlog.

4) Develop and implement a prioritization process for works in progress. (Including reports for age versus time work orders and so on)

The core of backlog management is this concept. Work needs to be planned from highest priority items first, and this is only going to be effective if the prioritization process is robust and accurate. (As opposed to the system of "he who shouts loudest")

5) Report, review and repair.

Age versus priority, exception reports on codes entered, Number of weeks planned work ahead of the team, schedule compliance and so on. A scorecard of metrics aimed at driving efficiency and accuracy in the work order backlog.

6) Fix the underlying strategies.

Backlog management, capacity scheduling and prioritization of work will never fix poor strategies. Never.

Cutting down break in work requires a detailed approach involving correcting the underlying asset strategies. Without this your potential impact from backlog management is limited.

The maintenance work order backlog is a source of advantage - but only if the time is taken to manage it in a disciplined fashion.