About a week ago, many Infraspeakers ruined their knees and reputations by trying their luck at a game of football. As well as being a harrowing realisation of the fact that they had “passed it”, the football match actually brought up some very interesting points regarding maintenance management. Read on to see what the team found out:
1. Rushed planning (higher costs and not enough players available)
The team came up with the idea just 2 days before the match. Anyone that has ever tried to sort a Power League match at last minute will know the frustrations of not making up the numbers because the regulars can’t make it. To top it off, all the cheap courts were booked which meant that they had to pay for a far more expensive court than was necessary.
In maintenance:
If you plan maintenance works in advance, you can avoid unnecessary costs caused by failures or by having inappropriate/not enough material. It will also allow you to distribute tasks according to the technicians’ availability and to avoid being left understaffed.
2. A late start because there wasn’t enough money (bad cost management and budgeting)
Just as we were getting excited about the ‘big fixture’.. we realised we didn’t have enough money for all the deposits!
Thankfully, we were saved by Vítor, our kind Mobile Engineer. Despite not even taking part, Vítor’s kind gesture to pay the difference was enough to cover the costs. We are still working on paying him back….
In maintenance:
Good cost management and budgeting allow you to avoid situations where the amount paid is higher than estimated, or even, where purchases or services need to be suspended due to a lack of funds.
3. Luís and Felipe, our co-founders (!), were both late (lack of notifications)
Miscommunication and a lack of notifications/reminders meant that many players arrived late, including both co-founders (apparently “leading by example” is for babies). One by one they trickled in, as the by now sub-standard and very unbalanced football teams went head to head in the sporting event of the Maintenance Management calendar.
In maintenance:
If the whole maintenance team can easily communicate with some degree of automation e.g, with systems that include push notifications regarding reported failures or scheduled works, the productivity and punctuality of the whole team will increase.
4. A worrying shortage of breath for some of the players (lack of training for technicians)
Literally, just 20 minutes into this veritable ‘Clash of Titans’, many of the players (especially Ricardo, our Frontend Developer) began to breathe very heavily indeed and it looked like they were running through what appeared to be thick ‘treacle’. Regular exercise and fewer puddings would have helped to improve the competitiveness of the match and may, bless them, have saved the team some embarrassment!
In maintenance:
It’s important that technicians in a maintenance team have adequate and regular training for a better performance in their jobs and are up to date with the technological advances of the sector. Otherwise, they will perform worse than intended.
5. Pedro injured himself (allocation of non-qualified technicians)
Pedro, our Marketing & Content Executive, was not only struggling with the physical burden of the game, but also managed to somehow injure his ankle for absolutely no reason! The script had been written and the guys were sure that poor Pedro was gonna get injured, but nobody could have said when…
In maintenance:
It’s crucial that managers assign tasks to specialised technicians. In the same way that injury-prone Pedro shouldn’t have been assigned a football match, an electrician shouldn’t be assigned a task in HVAC, for instance.
6. José chose intensity over quality
José, our Customer Development specialist, had many shots during the match. He seemed to be paying a little bit too much attention to the well known saying “if you don’t buy a ticket, you won’t win the raffle” that he must have heard on FIFA 14 commentary! Shot after shot cannoned over the crossbar, and despite his considerable effort, it was another cliché that best summed up Jo’s performance: “Close… but no cigar”!
In maintenance:
Managers shouldn’t attribute as many tasks as possible to technicians, underestimating the time it takes to do these tasks with quality. When presented with a mountain of tasks to do, technicians will prioritise intensity of work (so that they can complete their schedule) over the quality of execution, and everyone, including managers, will end up on the losers’ list with José.
7. Pedro switched teams, lost twice… and yet managed to win (detailed KPI analysis)
Before his injury, Pedro was playing for one team that was losing 5-0. After he hurt his ankle and the rest of the latecomers had arrived, he switched teams to become the goalkeeper for the other team. They ended up winning the match 11-7 (6-7 at the time of his switch). So, somehow, Pedro lost after his time with each team but managed to end up on the winning side.
Confusing! But bear with us… because…
In maintenance:
A detailed analysis of indicators can reveal information that isn’t obvious in the overall metrics, e.g.: even if your company has a positive growth after a year, analysing the monthly metrics might reveal some negative phases which should be explored to determine the causes and avoid them in the future.
