The Maintenance Backlog and its Impact on Facility Maintenance

Maintenance managers track numerous metrics to ensure that maintenance tasks are completed reliably and on schedule. The maintenance backlog is a reflection of the effectiveness of maintenance planning and scheduling and the efficiency of maintenance teams. Learn what this performance indicator means for your company and discover some effective ways to reverse the direction of a growing maintenance backlog.

What is Maintenance Backlog

Maintenance backlog refers to the total current amount of maintenance work identified as not yet completed. This indicator represents a wide variety of duties, including inspections, repairs, overdue servicing, and equipment replacement. Maintenance backlog indicates both pending maintenance tasks and deferred upkeep.

What Causes Maintenance Backlogs?

A growing backlog suggests that there’s an issue in the organization that needs to be identified and addressed. Backlog tasks can accumulate for a number of reasons. While these circumstances are common backlog contributors, this list is by no means complete:

• Expense: Budgetary limits may force managers to rearrange maintenance backlog prioritization schedules to address less costly issues first.
• Emergencies: An unexpected equipment or system failure that can impact production will often take priority over less critical older jobs in the queue.
• Inefficiencies: A growing backlog frequently indicates deficiencies in standard maintenance processes or an issue with maintenance team efficiency.

How is Maintenance Backlog Calculated?

Calculating Maintenance Backlog involves determining the total amount of time estimated to complete all remaining outstanding maintenance work. The backlog can be measured in hours or days. In this example, we’ll use hours to indicate the maintenance backlog:

1. List all maintenance tasks that are due or overdue.
2. Determine the estimated time to complete each task.
3. Calculate a total of how many combined hours or days worth of maintenance work is incomplete.

With MBL representing the maintenance backlog, T indicating the number of overdue tasks, and H representing the total time period’s worth of incomplete work, the formula to calculate would look like this when written out:

[MBL = H x T]

For example, if a facility has 10 maintenance tasks outstanding, with each task estimated to take 3 hours, the result would be:

[MBL = 10 x 30; MBL = 30]

In this example, the backlog represents 30 hours of maintenance work yet to be completed.

Practical Examples of How Maintenance Backlog is Used

The backlog helps bring other problems to the forefront and provides a foundation for digging into issues. Organizations use maintenance backlogs to inform a variety of functions, such as these:

• Resource Allocation: The backlog informs decisions on delegating maintenance staff as well as planning and scheduling tasks.
• Budget Planning: A maintenance backlog can provide information for effective planning on implementing overtime or applying additional resources.
• Performance Metrics: The backlog can act as a metric for assessing the efficiency of the maintenance department and the reliability of assets.
• Risk Management: Growing backlogs can signal potential risks for equipment failure and downtime.

For instance, a hospital reviews its maintenance backlog to discover that critical medical equipment is behind schedule for servicing. In comparing these tasks against low-priority work, the hospital decides to prioritize high-impact equipment, such as MRI scanners and ventilators, to ensure they continue to operate properly.

Reducing the Maintenance Backlog

Keeping the maintenance backlog moving is essential for smooth operations in any industry, from industrial plants to high-end hotels. Older tasks get taken care of as new jobs join the list, to ensure that a backlog doesn’t pile up. By applying these strategies to effectively manage backlogs, your organization can keep things moving, ensuring that critical assets function properly:

• Backlog Tracking: Continually monitor backlog tasks and compare them against current requests to avoid duplicate work requests.
• Prioritization: Review backlogged maintenance tasks and prioritize the maintenance schedule to address assets that have a greater impact on operations and safety.
• Allocation: Allot materials and staff to meet essential backlog goals. Allocate additional resources when necessary, whether it’s hiring more staff or authorizing overtime to perform work that’s critical to reducing backlogged duties.
• Process Improvement: Implement more efficient maintenance processes. Adopting a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) such as ServiceChannel provides powerful tools to streamline workflow.
• Preventive Maintenance: Shift focus from reactive to proactive maintenance. A carefully considered preventive maintenance plan can significantly help avoid critical system and equipment failures and reduce overall maintenance costs.
• Outsourcing: Consider hiring third-party providers for low-impact maintenance tasks to free up internal resources for critical work.

For example, a manufacturing plant with a significant maintenance backlog might start a weekend shift or hire a third-party contractor to focus solely on the backlog, allowing the regular maintenance team to stay on top of current and preventive tasks.

In Conclusion

Managing the backlog requires strategic planning and diligent oversight to ensure that it doesn’t grow to threaten the reliability and efficiency of the facility’s operations. By taking steps to monitor, prioritize, and improve processes, a facility can keep its maintenance backlog under control and maintain a smooth operation.

FAQs

Why is maintenance backlog tracking so important?

Maintenance backlog is a critical indicator in facilities management that can impact maintenance costs, personnel safety, and operation productivity. Often, locating and addressing the root cause of a growing backlog improves other metrics impacting the maintenance backlog.

What other metrics do backlogs impact?

Increases in backlogs can have a ripple effect across other maintenance measurements. For example, neglected tasks can accumulate and begin increasing the mean time between maintenance (MTBM) metric, which indicates the average time it takes an asset to receive scheduled servicing.

What other measurements are used in facility maintenance?

Depending on the industry and type of facility, an organization has a large number of metrics they can utilize to track the efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance activities. Mean time between failures (MTBF) is a commonly used metric that indicates the average time a piece of equipment operates before it malfunctions. Mean time to repair or replace (MTTR) calculates the average time it takes to perform repairs on an asset.