Rethinking Work Events Management In A Continuous Operations Environment

By Jeffrey Smith, Senior Director of Business Process Solutions, InterPro Solutions

In the day-to day world of continuous operations, work events are everywhere and commonplace.  We are not talking about holiday gatherings or employee going-away parties, but instead about planned and coordinated physical plant events such as, seasonal turnover of plant or distribution infrastructure, integrated testing of critical systems, major campus events such as Commencement exercises, capital projects support, and disaster recovery activities, to name just a few. 

In the fast-moving world of continuous operations, these types of activities are rarely viewed as “projects,” in the same way that large capital project management might be.  Instead, they are recognized as important work events in the local environment. 

But what tools are we using to make sure they are carried out successfully?  These are, after all, crucially important activities that if poorly executed result in disproportionate disruption.  Since these work events generally punch above their weight in importance, the facilities management community needs better software tools to manage them effectively.

Tactical versus Strategic

For decades facilities management teams have relied on multi-task work orders to capture such activities.  But this tactical — rather than strategic — approach lands short of fulfilling our true needs.  Beyond consolidating the cost information, multi-task work orders do little to maintain real-time organizational awareness, and offer almost nothing in the way of post-event analysis opportunities.  These inherent limitations make them inadequate for planning and recording work events, since the knowledge most vital to continuous improvement and ongoing optimization is never being fully captured or incorporated.  The knowledge gaps that result from the deployment of tactics in place of strategies only widens as we think more broadly about work events management.

High value opportunities — including sequencing and resequencing tasks, identifying critical dependencies, producing automated status notifications, and real-time capture of notes for AAR (After Action Review) follow-up — are all left at the roadside whenever we are forced to manage with limited, blunt instruments.  Value is further diminished if some of the activities are contracted and performed by vendor partners, since most vendor updates and assignment-related feedback are buried in attachments or reports that never make it into a company’s EAM system of record.

Why Sophisticated Project Management Tools are not the Answer

Powerful, well-developed project management desktop tools have been around for at least two decades and work well for their intended use cases. But they are primarily targeted at larger-scale, multi-phase projects and require far too much training or practice to use well.  And they lack many key characteristics that would be of great value in a continuous operations environment.  More importantly, they are not fully integrated into most EAM and mobile tool sets.  As a result, such lopsided fits are typically eschewed for day-to-day operations support. 

So, if multi-task work orders are not robust enough, and desktop project management software is overkill, what’s the answer?  How do we get what we need when it comes to planning, tracking, and monitoring work events in the world of continuous operations?  Here are some important considerations when looking for a solution:

Ease of Use is King

Underutilized software tools are far too commonplace.  User breakdown occurs in a number of ways, from basic complaints about complexity to grumblings about the generally low value in performance of their daily job.  The resulting user apathy toward the process is organizationally corrosive and diminishes confidence in the management team.  The root cause: such planning and scheduling tools were never designed for the types of fast changing environments faced by continuous operations teams. 

It’s like commuting to the office in a ten-wheeled dump truck.  You could do it, but pretty quickly the challenges of navigating tight traffic or parking lots would make it frustratingly unsuitable for the job, particularly if you rarely needed to haul tons of materials each day. 

We need tools that work the way we do rather than the other way about.

Real-Time Information is Gold

The need to know now is a growing expectation across our daily lives.  Order processing updates, delivery tracking, and financial confirmations are all things that we expect to track in real-time.  These expectations serve us well in our personal lives, but facilities operations groups have been slow to benefit from the same advances.   Nearly half of all facilities management teams are still operating with paper. Therefore, the first key organizational decision is to cross the Rubicon and go mobile with all asset and work management processes. 

Once mobile — and no one ever goes back to paper — your facilities management team stands before an ever-widening vista of opportunities for real-time information sharing.  Pushing notifications to mobile devices and alerting selected audiences of work assignments, providing updates to planned activity timelines, and notifying users to critical changes in the plan all become standard operating procedure in the mobility world.    

Integration is Rocket Fuel

Standalone software tools work well for their designed purpose, but as the use cases expand, and the work process redesigns get more creative, the need for integrations increases.  In addition to automated workflow notifications, the very best work EAM planning and scheduling tools have inclusive feature sets that incorporate work events management.  Specialized functions can include creating and organizing work orders under milestones, incorporating To-Do lists along with critical inspection or confirmation checklists, associating critical dependencies and contingencies, and generating At-a-Glance graphical timelines, all rendered to any mobile device. 

Added value is found when integrating internal workforce oversight with external service vendor management.  The realities of a fully dimensioned workforce demand tools that are fully integrated.  

If your organization is not enjoying the same level of data quality across internal and external field staff, ask why not, and address it.

No Need to Wait

Fully integrated software solutions designed to support the unique needs of continuous operations environments have been long overdue, but are coming into wide use today.  The leading EAM mobility providers are dramatically expanding the opportunities for the facilities management community, no longer forcing users to adapt to the limitations of conventional tools.