Operational Work Mgmt Key to the Success of Operational Teams

This week I had two companies discuss with me Operational Efficiency across teams, trying to understand what is required. The methods they are using today are in efficient and disjointed the desire is a more efficient use of human assets and reduction in errors. The discussions revealed two common characteristics:

• Companies who have operational teams: Maintaining the traditional “swim lanes” of their departments, with the only common interaction a day in the “morning” meeting. A percentage of the morning meeting  lost in aligning / updating the data on tasks and action status due an inconsistent approach to managing, recording work across the organization.
• Significant work behavior and prioritization are “ad hoc/ fire fighting” at the operational/ plant level vs a planned coordinated and efficient work execution with the most suited skills executed the appropriate tasks.  

One company discussed their implementation of  an electronic log book system across all disciplines to at least have a common list of actions. This certainly improved the efficiency of the morning meeting and a common foundation to run the tasks, but it was clear that there was something missing. Combining the other challenge of forming a fluid, dynamic operational team, made up of different disciplines where the traditional swim lane of departments are broken down. Resulting in a living team of different skills that can react to different situations many times in a day, with teams making sure work items can be executed across the team to a result without dropping the ball.

A couple of weeks I introduced the concept of operational work, at a high level, with the seven aspects to achieve effective work management across a team. This should not be new to many people as they are happening today within in silos such as Asset Management. The different is now applying the concepts across all aspects of the operational day, and how to improve the process. The operational team has also expanded with the experts more than often be outside the plant and need to accessed.  Work Item is the key concept of an operational work management system:

Work Item = A work item that needs an answer / resolution that could be made up of many work tasks and can be tracked through it’s life time with execution steps/ actions, results captured until resolution, a work item can be passed between multiple users, with a clear owner.

The seven aspects are:

• Business Requirements: Capturing the work items needed for the business, often product, regulative, and efficiency.
• Emergent Work: This is the new one today captured in note pads, MS excel, etc but is where events/ alarms on the plant need follow up, and resolution, so a work item is created. Having a common system to capture the items from the DCS, Assets, Quality, Maintenance, Operational Planning etc. areas of the plant today.
• Consistent Work Practice: The ability to apply a proven work practice to a work item or work task, so that experience of the worker is less relevant as they have a process to follow, providing a consistent execution which can be monitored and improved over time.
• Work Planning: This is a key step where business work, emergent work and outstanding work are brought together into one place that we can review priorities, and associated materials, resources needed to successfully execute the work item. This activity of a planning will avoid people doing unplanned work, or starting work and not having resources. Providing a plan that can be passed to a team leader who allocates work tasks to the different members of his team.
• Work Execution: The ability for work items to pass to team members no matter what device or location. Capturing updates in real-time, changes in priorities, and immediate access to experience. The ability to collaborate with other team members, with different team members maybe executing different work tasks of a work item. Work items are not dropped or lost, or stalled, as visibility of work items is clear and common across the plant.
• Performance Measurement: Capturing the performance of execution of work items across the different locations, and teams, so that real-time understanding of work item status.
• Performance Improvement: The ability to see reports, dashboard of how long items take, where they get stalled(take to long or stop), and edit the proven work procedure and tune it to improve the execution. This is an ongoing process that a graphical workflow capability for process capture is key.

The different aspects are key to an effective Operational Work system, and the technology is now available, over the next few years this integrated work management system will be core to an operational management system spanning the different applications in level 3, the different teams, roles, and locations.