MRO Today - How ya gonna keep 'em...

How ya gonna keep ’em...

by Tom Hammel

Odds are you can finish the sentence above even if you aren’t a fan of ragtime music. Penned in 1919, “How ’Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)” was more than a keen observation of American life, it was downright prophetic. And it rings as true today as it did then. How we as manufacturers adapt to and plan for change is a front-burner issue.

As manufacturers, we take pride in our industries and the contributions they make to the American economy and way of life. The survival of that economic power depends on a strong, skilled workforce; unfortunately the trickle of skilled workers entering retirement will soon become a flood. And there are NOT enough workers with comparable skills coming in to replace them.

Worse yet, a recent U.S. Department of Education study shows that literacy scores of current high school seniors are actually declining.

I sometimes think my skills are decaying, too. Why? Because I scan. I scan such ridiculous amounts of information on my computers (all three of ’em) every day that I’m not only forgetting how to write by hand, I’m actually forgetting how to read. Maybe we all are.

The point is, we must begin taking steps now to address this coming crisis and avert it as best we can. And one of the best places to start is right under our own roofs. If your company does not have a visual Standard Operating Procedure maintenance manual posted on the control panel of every critical machine in your plant, you’re begging for trouble. And it will likely strike the day Harold back in the machine shop collects his gold watch and goes home for good.

Our MRO Pros this issue, Bobcat’s Andy Stroh and Kenny Coleman, are nowhere near retirement, but they have seen the need to dam up the brain drain and create standard work now for the benefit for both current and future employees. So far Bobcat’s maintenance team has produced about two dozen SOPs, which Stroh and Coleman credit with making “dramatic” improvements in efficiencies and uptime. And, not incidentally, one of the biggest payoffs of a good visual manual is that a worker can understand it without reading it.

The cost? Some paper, printer ink, plastic sleeves and three ring binders, plus some time taken to mine the experience of your best mechanics and operators. For Bobcat, it has been a small investment with an immense payoff, a maintenance mechanic’s gift that keeps on giving.

So go find your Andy and Kenny and get them on it. Start today, because tomorrow your best mechanic might just retire, and the workers you get to replace him “down on the farm” may not have the skills he did.