2019 Maintenance Team of the Year - Large Organization

Edmonton Airports was the winner of the PEMAC 2019 Maintenance Team of the Year Award for a large organization (>150 employees). The team was officially acknowledged at PEMAC’s Annual Awards Banquet on September 18th a Fort Edmonton Park. 

“It has been quite the journey so far. The opportunity to submit for this award made us pause, and take a look back at where we were compared to where we are today, and celebrate that accomplishment,” says Nick Jensen, Director of Asset Management, Edmonton International Airport Maintenance Team. 

In order to be considered for the Maintenance Team of the Year Award, an application must be submitted by a hopeful team. The application includes the back-story of an improvement effort as well as a self-assessment against a "Maintenance Maturity Grid".  These applications are reviewed and ranked by the committee members. Based on the ranking, visits are carried out by PEMAC representatives to confirm whether the self-assessment was accurate. 

The winners of the award this year, Edmonton Airports Maintenance Team, became involved with PEMAC in early 2019 when two employees enrolled in PEMAC’s Asset Management Professional (AMP) program. Another staff member had previously completed the PEMAC Maintenance Management Professional (MMP) program.  

The team felt ready to submit an application for the Maintenance Team of the Year Award primarily due to their achievements in two categories. They have:

1. Initiated work on a maintenance improvement plan which is on schedule
2. Reorganised for effectiveness and efficiency

“We have an integrated maintenance management system with a clear line of sight to the performance, cost and resourcing requirements for all of Edmonton Airports infrastructure assets.  Our people are engaged and have the information at hand to make informed decisions,” says Nick.

In early 2016, Edmonton Airports initiated a new Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) project – DAXeam, which was finished in August 2017. 

As part of their Core Business Systems Replacement (CBSR) plan, they replaced outdated financial and asset management systems with an integrated system, improving efficiencies in time, financials, and effort. 

After a gap analysis in of each functional area in March 2018, they determined that implementing a planning and scheduling team, would have the most impactful result. Prior to Project DAXeam, maintenance work that was found was not prioritised and was worked on as soon as it was identified.

“Today we have a dedicated planning and scheduling team that has implemented an annual Preventive Maintenance (PM) plan, 28 day schedule forecast, 7 day schedule review and firming, and a daily observation review meeting,” says Nick.

Following this analysis, they prioritised and executed an improvement initiative, with a projected end date of December 2019.

Additionally, Edmonton Airports combined their two largest employee groups, Operations and Infrastructure, in 2018. This better aligned the work of both teams with the overarching efficiency goals of the organisation.

Recently, Edmonton International Airports rolled out a mobile app for all their maintenance workers to allow them to enter observations in their field. The key features of the app are:

• Ease of use
• Realtime observations (work requests) entry
• Electronic checklists with ability to add values and meter reads
• Ability to provide work order feedback and progress notes
• Offline capabilities 

At the time of their submission which was one and a half years since installation the results were:

• Planned work orders from 67% - 73%
• Preventive Maintenance (PM) Templates from 837 – 2,753
• PM program inspections from 9,100 – 29,904
• Assets being tracked 8,041 – 11,408
• Backlog work orders 413 – 186
• Reduced annual facilities maintenance spend by $254,026 compared to previous period.

Congruent with an award-winning team, Edmonton Airports is looking ahead to continued improvement. In achieving the measures of success established for the project 2017 to 2020:

• Reduce maintenance labor and material expenditures by 10%
• Improve the availability of equipment and system performance 10%
• Achieve a Planned versus Reactive Maintenance activity ratio of 80/20

In the next 5 years:

• Materials management improvement project
• Moving towards a reliability centred maintenance program
• Utilising technology and IoT 
• Implement asset management framework
• Implementing enhancements to our GIS System
• Development of Asset Management Plans for critical asset classes

In the next 10 years:

• Operational excellence
• Digital transformation
• Further asset management plan development

When asked how it has affected the team's morale to be part of this journey Nick replied, “Maintenance work is planned 28 days down to 7 days in advance, and employees know what to expect. The comment from the staff is that their day is not as chaotic as it once was. They are experiencing the power of the information, and are enhancing work plans.” 

“I want to thank the PEMAC organisation for the recognition of our team. As I look to the future, I see many more great accomplishments ahead for this team,” notes Nick on behalf of his team at Edmonton Airports.