The Planning and Preparation GAP Focus Area assessments looked in detail at resource utilization and milestone adherence in the on-line work management process. The assessment combined interviews, document reviews and meeting observations. Identified GAPs and recommendations from each assessment are entered into the sites tracking program and monitored along with several key performance indicators.

In summary, findings and recommendations fell into three primary categories; 1) Variances in Minor Maintenance index level of detail and composition. Minor Maintenance (MM) and Single Worker Task (SWT) initiatives (LE1) lack clear alignment within Maintenance and tracking metrics are not widely recognized;  2) Milestone Exceptions are not periodically evaluated by the management team for awareness and oversight and variable performance in planning, walkdowns and parts milestones were observed at all sites; and 3) Projects and Modifications performance is well below expected standards with scope stability, schedule stability and weekly completion rates.

The fleet has seen an improvement in DC backlog, schedule stability, total PMs in 2nd half of grace, and weekly completion rates while our performance in critical scope survival and scope stability have shown a declining trend in the first three months of the year and worse than the monthly projections for the quarter, yet still recoverable.

The assessments also provided a list of strengths/opportunities to share and benchmark. In the area of Planning and Preparation the Work Management Index level of detail and composition used by Susquehanna provides an overall aggregate indicator for the stations work management process health and focus areas, the milestone exceptions reports utilized by Columbia provides the detail to support decision making and creates a strong level of station alignment and focus on exceptions, and the “Walkdown Checklist” utilized at South Texas includes a detailed section for condition report walkdown inputs which facilitates the processing during work screening meetings and a section for planner walkdown includes craft/supervisor alignment and documents the inputs used as the basis for package planning.