Backlog Management

Maintenance backlog refers to maintenance work that is overdue. Maintenance backlog is normally measured in hours or days. It shows the total time estimate it would take to complete the pending maintenance work orders. It is a very important maintenance metric for facilities managers, maintenance managers and maintenance planners.

Although the situation may appear random and chaotic, there are several common symptoms of poor backlog management. These may include:

• Many duplicate works orders. This is one of the main issues causing waste in this area. Particularly if undiscovered they can result in wasted resources investigating already completed tasks. There are also the effects of re-ordering un-required materials and additional planning effort.
• Non-standardized free text entries. Affecting future analysis and continuous improvement. This can also lead to confusion in planning and execution of works.
• No indication of forward resource requirements. Giving only best guess indications as to the true manning levels required.
• Poor coding of work orders (No business rules to guide these) Affecting the future analysis and continuous improvement function. This can contribute to important works being buried among the work order listing.
• Little focus on priorities, many un-prioritized work orders. This results in corrective actions on the whim either the supervisor, or section manager. As there is nothing substantial to use as a guide, or give a rating relevant to other backlog works.
• Many tasks not kept in the backlog system. Maintained in lists external to the corporate system. Faith in the backlog system, and the maintenance delivery systems in general, are eroded.
• Un-required works passing through the work order system, resulting in unnecessary expenditure.
• Failure to address the quality of work requests entering the work order system will reduce the effectiveness of the planner and lead to at least some of the work orders not being adequately planned.  Lack of a well-planned work order will reduce the accuracy of the estimates. Inaccurate work order estimates lead to over or understating the amount of real man-hours held in backlog. That inaccuracy will hinder the effective scheduling and the overall credibility of the entire planning and scheduling process.
• It is important to have a way to keep track of your maintenance backlog. Ideally over time maintenance backlog should decrease. CMMS software can be very useful to keep track of such pending work orders and help you ensure that they are closed or canceled as needed.

KTT consultants with many years of experience in maintain CMMS and optimizing maintenance management can support you to have solution to manage Backlog. We will work close with your team to identify backlog causes. Find the most major causes of your backlog. Then take appropriate actions to reduce them.