The Documentation Crisis

Over the past ten years I've been paying attention to a problem in industry that is wide spread and rather consistent. I've come to refer to it as the documentation crisis. Its effects are very serious. Equipment capital life may be shortened. Production quality and quantity are impacted. The effectiveness of maintenance activities can come into question. Safety and environmental issues can easily enter into the equation as well.

First of all, what is documentation? In the industrial machinery environment, documentation can be thought of as the total collection of information resources pertaining to how a complex system functions, how to install, commission and operate it, and how to maintain and troubleshoot it. For a system that has been in place for a number of years, documentation should also include a historical record of changes, repairs, maintenance activities and developed best practices.

Is it reasonable to expect a team of equipment operators and maintainers to do their best possible work without a comprehensive collection of well designed, accurate information resources? If we look to the world of commercial aircraft we find that the standard and expectation for up to date and accurate documentation is very high. This is understandable given the reliable nature of gravity and the burden of responsibility that falls on those in charge of public transportation.

The reality for many industrial environments on the ground seems to include a story or two about a system or a number of systems within the machinery fleet, or at the mill, plant or mine site where some or many of these resources have gone missing, were never created or are badly out of date. A system schematic is one example of a document that is often not accurate and therefor not useful for system learning and problem solving. There are a good number of reasons that can explain how a schematic turns out to be inaccurate. What is more interesting is how a good number of years can go by with no resolution for these inaccuracies.

Another example of the documentation crisis involves the experience of individuals who work with the complex systems in question for a period of time. It seems like an obvious loss of intellectual property or capital knowledge to find these individuals moving on from the plant or the machinery team without having recorded or passed on what they've learned over the years. Yet this is precisely what happens at so many sites.



One last example among many comes from the program running within a programmable logic controller (PLC). While I don't compile precise statistical data, a fairly high percentage of PLC programs are very poorly documented. If the original programmer doesn't stick around or make it a goal to train another person at the site, the electrical and instrumentation team is left to struggle through their use of the PLC as a plant system diagnostic tool.

The question I often pose to team members in the industrial environment is; how will operational performance and equipment reliability goals be reached without addressing the documentation crisis that seems so prevalent? If the documentation crisis is not an impediment to reaching those goals, then perhaps the goals are not set high enough. Perhaps in that case the goals are not sufficiently based on the expectation of deep learning within the team.

How are you addressing the documentation issues at your site?

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.