Space Telescope Repair - Maintenance Planning for Astronauts

I just finished watching the Nova program; Hubble's Amazing Rescue. The May 2009 shuttle mission to service the Hubble space telescope was the last in a series of maintenance and repair events. The mission was twelve days long, involving five space walks. One of the spacewalks lasted over eight hours.

As I watched the show I was impressed with the meticulous nature of the two plus years of planning and preparation for the repair and maintenance activities. Of course the margin for error on the mission was near zero. If the astronauts encountered problems that were not accounted for during the planning and training phases, the chances of success for the mission would be minimal.

All procedures from working with the smallest threaded fastener to moving eight hundred pound assemblies had to be carefully choreographed well in advance of the mission. Each task had to be scripted and practiced numerous times by the astronauts in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory swimming pool in Houston. If the procedures for tasks did not practice well, the procedures were rewritten and then tested and practiced again. You can read the transcript of the program here

The total number of people and teams that prepared the astronauts for the Hubble work was impressive. The complexity and thoroughness of the planning, procedure writing and training was impressive. Training was carried out right up to the time when the actual final mission began.

If we compare this space mission to an industrial maintenance event (shut down), then the astronauts were the tradespersons and the heavy equipment operators who worked with the tools, materials and components at the workface. Every possible effort was made by the mission engineers, planners and trainers to ensure success in orbit. The astronauts were the front line, the final expression of an enormous team effort. To have prepared the astronauts in an ad hoc or random fashion would have brought disappointment for many players and stakeholders.

The same holds true for an industrial team during a plant shut down. The front line trades and equipment operators need to work from the best possible preparation and planning in order to help them achieve an efficient work cycle. They also need the best possible training to make sure they are ready to solve problems as they arise. Problem solving is, after all, the reason why humans are needed to complete the complex work carried out during a shut down.

If you catch the program on PBS, be sure to watch for the glitches and problems that crop up during the actual work on the telescope and how the teams and support experts work together to solve them.

Maintenance Has To Report!

Further to my 'Blow your Horn' post on May 06, here is more encouragement.

Of course the industrial maintenance department has to report on matters of cost and budgets. But how about reports from the tradespersons on the plant floor, or from technician in the fleet maintenance shops?

Many tradespersons I speak to have been quietly monitoring some aspect of the machinery they look after. They often have valid ideas for improvement that no one else has heard. Initiatives and reporting can and should start at the tradesperson level. If you are a tradesperson and you've got a sense of initiative and some great ideas and you work hard, then start blowing your horn. This is your company, with its expensive assets that you are helping to manage. Don't worry if others in the lunchroom are giving you strange looks as you compile your data and as you write your reports.

Perhaps you are thinking "What should I report?" Most people involved with maintenance, whether a tradesperson on the floor or a shop supervisor, have at least one pet project that they are interested in exploring deeper. Your commitment to report about it monthly or quarterly will help you keep the project on track. If you are convinced that you can coax better overall performance from your machinery and your department by starting with a particular initiative then wait no longer. This is your year!

If you have made some notable progress by the time the corporate annual report is being compiled, then submit your work and ask to be included. Be as assertive on this as you can get away with. If it doesn't make the report this year, ask why and perhaps ask for some guidelines on how to prepare your materials and then try again next year. If you're serious about your work, as most every maintenance department is, you'll get into that annual report eventually.

Wouldn't some recognition for your department's efforts and contributions help to paint the big picture?

The Future of Industrial Trades

I was very lucky to serve as a Skill Ambassador for the Polymechanics/Automation competition at World Skills 2009 in Calgary Alberta last week. What an event!


The 17 to 22 year old competitors had already won the national competitions in their home countries. They are the best of the best! The national competitions are tough. I know this because I was involved with creating and judging an electronics troubleshooting event when the Skills Canada event was in Red Deer back in 1997.

The young men and women who came to show the best of their skills and talents in areas such as CNC machining, Polymechanics (Millwright work), Industrial Automation, Manufacturing, Mechatronics, Welding, Electrical Installation and many more were absolutely first rate. Learn more at www.worldskills.org


The future of industrial skills around the world is in great hands if this year's competitors were representative of the next generation.

The challenge for industry will be to employ these amazing new artisans in a very open and progressive work culture and in a way that lets them express their full passion for their respective crafts.

Written Tests in Industrial Training - Five Tips

Did the title of this post give you the jitters? Assessment and evaluation of trainees has been a busy topic of recent in heavy industrial maintenance. Some have been asking for more written tests while others have expressed disappointment in trainee test results.
Why all of the interest in tests? Perhaps it is way of asking trainees to appreciate the expenditure and investment being made and to take the training seriously. This motivation is sound enough given the economic conditions under which many companies are operating this year. The written test can be a useful tool for reviewing key content covered in the training and for assessing the transfer of knowledge to a certain level. It also has some obvious limitations. Below are some of my thoughts on the written test.

Written Test Limitations

As a key tool in assessing worker performance the written test has limitations. Here's a few;

1. For many, our early school experiences cause our whole body physiology to change to an extremely nervous state when we're told that we'll have to take a test. I know that I am often in this camp. This factor by itself can influence how effective the training session will be when many of the participants are obsessing with the test to come and worried that they might perform poorly. Are they really in a position to get the most from the training session?

2. A written test that is not well designed for the for the learning styles of the trainee group, turns out to be a test in how well one can take a test. Basic trainee literacy issues can surface at this point as well. Computer hosted tests are notorious for these issues.

3. Tests questions that primarily require factual recall, only test short term memory. Most of us who haven't taken the written component of a driver's test in a few years know that we have forgotten some of the details in the laws that govern traffic and highway use. Many companies use a written test to document their diligence in safety training. But if the training is not refreshed until many months later, are the trainees still knowledgeable on matters of safety?

4. A written test does not clearly indicate what a person can actually do. In the field of applied skills (all of industrial maintenance) it is very important to both 'know' and be able to 'do'.

Five Tips to Get Value from Written Tests

1. Align the test and the training sessions

Make sure that the test is well matched to the content and objectives of the training session. Using questions from a standard test bank or library may make for easy test construction, but the validity of the test will be low. If the training sessions have allowed for a flexible delivery where the specific needs of the trainee have been addressed during the sessions, you may need to modify and edit the test at the last moment to account for a change in content emphasis.

2. Help the class prepare for the test

Let them know well in advance how much of the test requires factual recall and memorization vs. understanding of general principles and concepts. Let them know what resources they'll have access to during the test. Emphasize key test material during the actual training sessions.

3. Use a variety of test item types

An entire test made up of multiple choice and true or false items is easy to mark but a poor indicator of true knowledge retained by the learner. It is important to include test items that allow the trainee to write a short answer in his/her own words (fill in the blank and short answer questions). A test item that asks trainees to match a series of terms to their symbols or definitions is another example of good test item variety.

You might also choose to design an open-book portion of the of the test. This is a test or a portion of a test that asks the trainee to use other resources such as manuals, drawings, schematics and formula tables. In this case you are not asking the trainee to memorize but rather to demonstrate resourcefulness and various technical communication competencies.

You might choose to have some actual physical machine parts and components labeled by letter or number and require the trainees to identify them in writing on the test. This type of item brings the test to near crossover between written and practical evaluation.

4. Review the test together as a group

Once the test is complete, you may choose to grade and review the test in the classroom as a group. If you are concerned about participants changing their answers during this stage you might choose to supply one color of pen during the writing of the test and then collect them and pass out another color for the grading/reviewing stage. The importance of this group review is that as a trainer you get one more chance to reinforce critical concepts and gauge the group's understanding. You also give the trainees a chance to defend their answers, especially the written ones where sole interpretation on the trainer's part is much more difficult.

5. Combine written testing with practical tests

If the results of a written test are to be recorded as a part of an employee's formal performance record, combine the test with other practical assessments. Again, the field of industrial maintenance is about 'know' and 'do'. If a trainee has done well on a written test on the topic of shaft alignment for example, then a planned matching practical evaluation might include observing the trainee make the correct preparations for shaft alignment in the field.

A written test is but one component in an overall evaluation strategy that must include assessment of visible job performance. For those of you who are familiar with Kirkpatrick's training assessment model, this is called a level three, behavior evaluation. Ultimately what you do, and can do is more important than what you supposedly know.

Your thoughts on written tests?

Good Leader?

I've met a few of recent

Leadership means to have passion and vision, to inspire and help educate and develop your team. Its means sticking to your guns,..your long term goals despite the road blocks you face. Scheduling, reporting, budget allocating, cost controlling and such, are all tasks,...important tasks at that. Everyone has some of these tasks and they have to be executed well. But they are not the job. The job of the leader is to develop the people, and develop the team and then set resources in place, provide autonomy,...and require accountability.



Oh, and it also means being patient, staying late to help the crew, bringing pizza, scrounging for tools, supplies and expertise to support the team, listening to fishing stories, crisis counseling,...wow what a job!

What else should we add? Your definition...?

Maintenance Department Overlooked? Blow Your Horn!

If you maintain equipment and machinery this is for you. In my travels I notice that many maintenance departments are still unsung and uncelebrated within their companies. Maintenance almost never gets a mention in the corporate annual report. Do you agree with this statement?

When I engage a plant or fleet manager directly, they can usually speak to the importance of maintenance. Many however cannot speak to the top level initiatives that the maintenance department is carrying out. That's not good. It either means that maintenance doesn't have any specific initiatives (I sure hope they have some) or that they don't promote them and communicate them within the company. At some level we all know that machinery doesn't run for very long without talented and motivated people maintaining it. Awareness of this fact comes to the forefront when breakdowns have been frequent. When machinery has been running well on a consistent basis the significant role that maintenance plays can quickly become overlooked.

Start small if you must, just get started! Doing what? Blowing your horn! If maintenance wants the respect and attention of the company's top management, it has to report. Don't leave it just to the numbers stored inside the corporate database to do your reporting. Yes those numbers probably yield useful data on maintenance costs and various downtime metrics. By themselves however, they won't communicate your passion and your vision and your long term thinking. Passion and vision is the stuff that when combined with the numbers will eventually get you new predictive tools, specialized training, renovated machine shop space or perhaps even a raise. Even if it takes a while before some of these tangible items make it through the budgeting process, pursuing and communicating the vision of your maintenance department can be rewarding by itself.

There isn't a plant or fleet manager out there that won't be interested in hearing about what you are doing to be more resourceful or to work more efficiently and collaboratively as a department. The manager will also welcome your initiatives to extend the life of machinery, make it more energy efficient, more productive, or more reliable. You will also earn some positive attention for your communication and leadership if you can keep it going. Don't be discouraged if you are a maintenance department of just two or three people, or even just one guy. Set your goal in 2009 to communicate monthly or quarterly to your managers.

Doing it right. Worthy of the Title.

I believe that the general occupation title Tradesperson as applied to those who maintain industrial systems and machines is a bit weak in its capability to communicate the complexity and importance of the work. There is indeed science involved in industrial maintenance work and so perhaps the title Para-engineer or Machine Medic carries more of the reality of the job today. There is a science to understanding the sounds that machines make and the noises that indicate that a problem is developing. Vibrations, odors and heat levels all come in to play as well for an observant machinery doctor. Diagnosis of system problems involves a sound scientific approach and often utilizes sophisticated tools and data analyzers.

Art vs. Science

On the other hand, machinery maintenance is also an art. Working with components, materials and tools requires an artful approach. Without question there is art in great installation and parts replacement work. Perhaps the title of Artisan or Craftsperson captures these finer points. I have always admired neat wiring and layout work in a cabinet where a contactor or variable frequency drive was just replaced. It means the Electrician cared enough to do her best work. When I observe a Millwright polish the end of a machine shaft by hand before installing a new bearing I know that this person wants this service job to last.

Lack Lustre?

The sub-titles of Machinist, Millwright, Industrial Mechanic, Heavy Duty Mechanic, Industrial Electrician, Instrument Technician and so on bring more focus and specialty to the title. Though in some industrial environments, these titles have lost their luster and may instead refer merely to compartmentalized thinking where one group is segregated from another. In some cases the segregation is so extreme that there are separate lunch rooms for the different trade titles. A sense of responsibility and ownership is often left adrift among such groups. Blame and disdain for trade groups other than your own is not discouraged in some of these industrial cultures.

Pride in Workmanship

Whatever the title is, let it inspire all who work in the field of industrial maintenance to feel and fuel a sense of pride within,...the pride that comes from stretching to learn your chosen craft to its very highest level. I believe that this level of pride is the right of someone who accepts that there is more to learn and has some ongoing training plans in place. This person also respects the knowledge and skills acquired by others with senior experience in their chosen trade and in other trades within the plant.

Doing the job right, even re-doing it if need be and accepting responsibility for the learning that was needed between the first and second attempt is the sign of someone who desires to master the trade.

Hang On To Your Passion and Principles!

Are economic conditions improving for your operation? If they are not already improving, they will! Hang on to your passion and your principles for doing things right!

The downturn has been wreaking havoc on common sense management within heavy industry. In my visits with clients over the last two months, I noticed that many of the hard fought battles to establish disciplined maintenance were being surrendered. Maintenance departments are surrendering to corporate management's request to spend almost nothing.

Absolutely No Training Allowed

One client at a very complex plant told me that he would probably be found face down floating in a nearby river if he asked management for a budget to build some troubleshooting job aids that he needs. In response to my queries he said "not only are we not conducting maintenance training, we're not even doing basic maintenance". He went on to tell me that they will gamble on maintenance for the next six months and pay the price later. He said that he knew that the price would be very high.

Did this client really want me to believe that there was a threat to his life for proposing an investment in skills and performance? Of course not. But he was making it very clear that a serious edict had come down from above. He was also making clear that maintenance management progress was now in reverse.

Stay in the Game!

I have to wonder, does this mean that many of us who earlier fought hard to make progress in maintenance, have now let go of that passion? I can understand that if the company is nearly out of cash, that gambling on the maintenance of the plant might mean the difference between continuing to operate versus shutting down and laying everyone off. I suppose that like anyone else, a maintenance manager is thinking of his own family needs and his grocery bills and mortgage payment. If the company then instructs you not to spend on anything, you have to go along. Who wants to get laid off?

Another client who directs maintenance training and development for a large organization told me that his new game is tennis. He told me that serious liabilities come with the ball when it lands in his court. He told me that as soon as the ball arrives, he now hits it hard to get the ball as far from himself as possible. While describing the troublesome politics that plague his work I asked him to just imagine what the ideal solution might be. He told me that retirement was only a few years away now. Clearly he has removed himself from constructive and optimistic participation.



Basic Skills

This final story is a brain warper. I visited a client where we are producing job aids for a complex machine. I was there to gather additional data. The superintendent sent me out on to the plant floor with a supervisor. The supervisor first had me stop off in the machine shop. He had me help a group of tradesmen with a problem completely unrelated to the purpose of my visit.

They were struggling over a problem with a hydraulic cylinder that was creeping when it should not be. It was causing a lot of problems in the plant. After a few minutes of discussion in the machine shop it became apparent that the tradesmen were struggling with basic directional valve and hydraulic cylinder knowledge. I taught them what I could in the time I had during my visit. I took them online to show them where our free training resources are kept on our website. They were very grateful for the help.

When I got back to the superintendent's office I mentioned the discussions in the machine shop and that a two-day seminar that we provide would be very helpful. I was told that even though the plant was operating at near capacity, upper management had insisted that no training take place at this time as a cost saving measure.

Training Budget Trimmed?

Should expenditure on training be looked upon as a burdensome cost of production? Is it realistic to treat training and human development budgets in the same way as office supply and freight budgets? In the end a plant full of machinery only runs, or only runs well if a sharp and skilled crew is looking after it. In fact, if the plant cannot hire more help for the maintenance department, then you have to do better with the people you have. If the market has put pricing pressure on the plant's products, then the machinery has to run better than ever.

Fight - Put it on The Line!

Is training and development still at the forefront of your plant's operating philosophy? In the end it's all about people isn't it? We may once again have to fight for the good stuff,...the training as needed in our respective industrial departments.

Recognizing Leaders; Supervisor - What's your strategy?

I once visited a client who had just hired a new millwright for his maintenance team. This new guy knew the importance of keeping contaminants from entering the pneumatic and hydraulic valves as he serviced them on his workbench. While observing that metal grinding and welding were happening in this same workshop area, he decided to move his work to a small adjoining room with a workbench where the parts washing tank was kept.

He proceeded to staple plastic vapor barrier to the outside wall of this small room to keep welding smoke and grinding grit at bay. He cleaned up the inside of the room and created a very clean workbench area. As he finished servicing a valve, he would place it in a large zip lock plastic bag, and then write the valve model and date of service with his initials using a black marker on the outside of the bag.

Before hiring this new millwright, the company had been experiencing a lot of problems with fluid power systems. Systems were very dirty and running with excessive heat, filter cart hoses were often found with their couplings lying in the dust on the floor, replacement parts were not installed correctly etc. Breakdowns were common.

It might (or might not) surprise you to find out that this new millwright was taking quite a bit of ribbing from his workmates for his thoughtful and precise work. His workmates would chide him about all of his attempts to keep valves and components clean both inside and out. They would tell him that his efforts to improve machine reliability were futile as the plant was a dusty place. They would taunt him so that he would surely soon give up trying so hard.

This brand new millwright was the guy that the maintenance supervisor assigned to show me around the plant before the maintenance training that we were to conduct during the following days with the whole millwright team.

Selecting this guy to show me around was a sound strategy on the part of the supervisor. In identifying a role model to the rest of his team, he was both modeling behavior that he wanted them to display, and rewarding the great work of the new millwright. Nothing was said, but the message was not lost on the rest of the team.

The maintenance manager could also have identified this role model, this unofficial leader, to the group in other ways. Perhaps he could have been given lead responsibility for maintenance improvements to a piece of equipment that had been unreliable, or provided this millwright with a new hydraulic fluid particle counter. The second idea is very powerful with its inclusion of a symbol (the particle counter) and its implied change to a maintenance emphasis. There are a number of ways to identify role models and unofficial leaders without singing their praises out loud in front of the team!

By the way, you're probably not surprised to know that I took a few photos of that new millwright's 'clean room' approach to work and put them in my presentation to the group. When I got to those slides, I would just say something like "...and I see you guys are following best practices here to keep valve internals clean after servicing them...."

What are your thoughts? Is this good leadership?

Re: Symbols, see Steven J. Thomas's book; Improving Maintenance and Reliability Through Cultural Change

Industrial Leaders and Heroes - You? You!

I travel around this continent a lot. The industrial world is the one where I make my living and its a huge contributor to our overall economy. I get into a lot of fascinating plants and industrial sites and I find unique and passionate individuals doing great work. I also get in to some environments where the enthusiasm and performance is muted at best. There's lots of different reasons for the malaise and apathy that sets into some teams. Without getting into all of those underlying causes I want to write helpful articles in support of the industrial team! Who are they? They are the tradespersons, technicians and team supervisors. Some are maintenance planners and superintendents. They are plant and fleet managers, engineers and machinery and systems operators.

These groups need a boost, some encouragement and coaching, and some fellow brain stormers as much as any other group.

I have come to believe that passion is more important than training and certification. Yes the latter are important of course, but this year we'll find that those who can lead (in whatever official role and title they may have) and press on with initiative,..those who inspire and do great work will be valued.

I hope you'll join me here, challenge each other and debate the issues of leadership and vision, and in doing so find some fresh energy for your own work. Comment with your insights, victories and quips of humor too!