Time Management & Efficiency Flashcards

A maintenance technician has four pending work orders: a conveyor bearing replacement (4 hrs, production impact if delayed >2 hrs), a lighting fixture swap (30 min, no production impact), an air compressor PM (2 hrs, due in 6 hrs), and a hydraulic leak repair (1.5 hrs, slow leak with 8-hr safe window). Using critical-path prioritization, what is the CORRECT sequence?

Answer: Conveyor bearing → air compressor PM → hydraulic leak → lighting fixture

The conveyor bearing is the most critical — production stops in 2 hours, and the repair itself takes 4 hours, meaning it must start immediately. After that, the air compressor PM has a hard 6-hour deadline, so it must be completed before the hydraulic leak (which has an 8-hour safe window). The lighting fixture has no production impact and is done last. This sequence addresses imminent production loss first, then respects deadline urgency.

A plant uses an OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) metric to evaluate maintenance efficiency. Line A runs at 85% availability, 90% performance, and 95% quality. Line B runs at 95% availability, 80% performance, and 90% quality. If a maintenance team has 4 hours to improve exactly ONE line's OEE, which line should they focus on to achieve the greatest absolute OEE gain, and why?

Answer: Line B, because its current OEE is lower, so there is more room for improvement

Line A OEE = 0.85 × 0.90 × 0.95 = 72.7%. Line B OEE = 0.95 × 0.80 × 0.90 = 68.4%. Line B has the lower OEE (68.4% vs 72.7%), meaning it has more absolute room for improvement. Addressing Line B's performance bottleneck (80%) — the largest single-factor gap — offers the greatest potential OEE gain. Even a modest performance improvement on Line B yields more absolute OEE points than an equivalent effort on Line A.

During a scheduled 8-hour shift, a maintenance tech spends 2.5 hours on reactive (emergency) repairs that were not planned. Industry benchmarks suggest reactive work should not exceed 20% of total maintenance hours. Which of the following corrective actions would MOST directly reduce this ratio over the following month?

Answer: Implement predictive maintenance triggers for the equipment that generated the emergency repairs

The reactive ratio was 2.5/8 = 31.25%, exceeding the 20% benchmark. The root cause is undetected equipment failures escalating into emergencies. Predictive maintenance (vibration analysis, thermography, oil sampling, etc.) detects degradation before failure, converting reactive events into planned interventions. This directly reduces the frequency of emergencies. Increasing crew size or buffering time manages the symptom, not the cause. Rescheduling PMs redistributes work but does not prevent equipment failures.

A maintenance supervisor is applying the 'time boxing' technique to weekly job assignments. Technician A can complete motor alignments at a rate of 3 per hour. Technician B completes them at 2 per hour but also performs the required post-alignment quality check (15 min each) that Technician A skips. In a 6-hour time box with a hard stop, which assignment maximizes verified (checked) alignments completed?

Answer: Assign Technician A to alignments and Technician B to checking A's completed alignments in real time

Technician A aligns at 3/hr with no checking. Technician B checks at 4/hr (60 min ÷ 15 min). In 6 hours: A completes 18 alignments. B can check at 4/hr, keeping pace with A (3/hr) and never falling behind — finishing all 18 checks within the 6-hour window (18 checks × 0.25 hr = 4.5 hrs). This pipeline approach yields 18 verified alignments. Option C: A does 13.5 alignments in 4.5 hrs; B checks 6 in 1.5 hrs = only 6 verified. Option B: B does 12 alignments + 12 checks but the checks are integrated, yielding only 12. Option A creates a third-resource dependency outside the problem scope.

A facility adopts a 'wrench time' improvement initiative. A time study reveals technicians spend 28% of their shift on actual hands-on repair work. The remainder breaks down as: 22% travel/parts retrieval, 18% waiting for permits or equipment lockout, 17% job planning and paperwork, and 15% meetings and training. Which two categories, if addressed TOGETHER, would yield the highest potential increase in wrench time with the least operational disruption?

Answer: Travel/parts retrieval and job planning — shadow boards and pre-kitted parts bins paired with standardized job plans eliminate both delays simultaneously

Travel/parts retrieval (22%) and job planning/paperwork (17%) together account for 39% of shift time — the largest combined pool of recoverable non-wrench time. Critically, both are addressable without altering safety-critical processes: satellite tool cribs or pre-kitted job packages eliminate retrieval trips, while standardized job plans and digital work orders reduce planning time. Reducing permit wait times (18%) risks compromising LOTO safety culture. Cutting meetings/training affects workforce development. The combination in Option D offers the greatest yield with lowest risk.

A maintenance planner uses the formula: **Schedule Compliance % = (Planned work orders completed on schedule ÷ Total planned work orders scheduled) × 100**. In week 1, 34 of 40 planned WOs were completed. In week 2, the planner reduced the schedule to 30 WOs to improve compliance, and 28 were completed. Which assessment CORRECTLY evaluates the planner's decision?

Answer: The decision was incorrect — reducing the schedule artificially inflates compliance but reduces meaningful workload, masking an underlying capacity problem

Week 1: 34/40 = 85% compliance, 34 WOs completed. Week 2: 28/30 = 93.3% compliance, but only 28 WOs completed. The compliance metric improved, but the planner gamed it by shrinking the denominator rather than improving execution. This is a classic metric manipulation: the facility completed fewer maintenance tasks (28 vs 34), meaning the backlog grew. The correct response would be to investigate why 6 WOs were missed in week 1 (resource constraints, parts availability, emergency interruptions) and address those root causes. Option B is partially correct (throughput decreased) but misses the deeper diagnostic — option D captures both the metric distortion and the masking of a real capacity issue.