The danger of daily schedules

I wrote recently about some of the "tells"a maintenance department displays when it is running in a reactive fashion.

One that I left out but should not have overlooked is the issue of daily inspections. When a maintenance department is in a purely reactive mode they tend towards large swathes of daily inspections and regimes.

While I agree that there are definitely some inspections that warrant daily execution, the sort of thing I am talking about here is actually counter-productive and, I believe, extremely dangerous.

I ave come across this more times than I can recall and every tingle time the people in the offices think they are a good thing, while the people roaming the plant on a daily basis think they are utter bunk.

And one brief look at them generally speaks volumes. They are either generic things such as "Check motor" (wonderful) or they are attempts at sophistication like "Check holding bolts for tightness".

Within a few short questions you can usually establish their illegitimacy. For example, "Would these bolts actually come loose in one 24 hour day?", "Is there really the likelihood that this liner will have worn so dramatically within the last day?"and so on.

There are several dangers here, some to the assets themselves and some to the safety of the people doing them.

a) If they just say "check motor" then they are garbage and useful for nothing more than wiping the crib room tables with. Agreed?

b) If they are more prescriptive, and the maintenance is not needed, then a) You are willfully putting people into situations that may be dangerous. Every time intrusive maintenance actually gets done there is an increased risk of human error. And b) You of course increase the likelihood of introducing failure.

c) If they are truly not warranted then the people who have to carry them out will be aware of this. (Let's go with the idea that they are not stupid...) The result? They ignore them and they become ballpoint services. meaning that if there is real inspection mixed in there, or a real reason why they should view, check (whatever) an asset - then it is not going to get done.

So even without issues like wasting time and annoying the life out of the technicians, these sorts of over reactions can lead to troubles, can lead to safety incidents, and can cause a false sense of security.

Yet there are people all over the world who will read this and justify themselves by saying "Yeah, but it sure beats doing nothing"... So does getting it right.