the maintenance function and the change process - Wiley Online Library

New Technology, Work and Employment 18:1 ISSN 0268-1072

Maintaining change: the maintenance function and the change process Fang Lee Cooke This paper explores the organisation of the maintenance function of five manufacturing and utility companies and the involvement of maintenance workers in plant improvement. It highlights the important role of the tacit skills of maintenance workers and the broader role of the maintenance function in technological change and organisational performance.

Introduction Traditionally skilled and knowledge intensive work, such as plant maintenance, has been provided by workers of ‘status’ with whom the employers tend to have an employment relationship characterised by relatively high level of trust in order to elicit greater commitment and effort from the workers (Fox, 1974; Streeck, 1987). The ‘quality of working life’ (QWL) initiatives were promoted as a management strategy in the 1960s and 1970s based on the notion that shopfloor staff would produce better quality work and be more committed to their employer if their jobs were designed to allow greater skill and autonomy (Buchanan, 1995). More recent QWL initiatives include employee involvement (EI) and empowerment. For example, Walton (1985) argues that workers respond most productively and are more likely to be engaged in a ‘beyond contract’ effort when they are not tightly controlled by hierarchical layers of management, and when they are provided with opportunities to move beyond narrowly defined and prescribed jobs. The underlying assumption is that workers are an untapped resource with knowledge and experience. They have an interest in becoming involved and that managers should provide opportunities and structures for their involvement in order to harness their talents. Writers on tacit skills and knowledge (Polanyi, 1966; Manwaring, 1984; Pavitt, 1991; Willman, 1997) similarly argue that tacit knowledge obtained through experience is of central importance in organisational competence. ‘Although firms can buy in some technology and skills from the outside, what they have been able to do in the past ❒ Dr Fang Lee Cooke is Lecturer in Employment Studies, Manchester School of Management, UMIST, Manchester.  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Maintaining change 35

strongly conditions what they can hope to do in the future’ (Pavitt, 1991: 42). In other words, the ability to benefit from innovation in the future depends heavily on past experience. As Cartier observed: If learning is endogenous in the individual and in the firm, the development of knowledge and understanding is endogenous in the nature of work, or in the memory of a firm held in its procedures, in the design of capital assets, or in the specification of materials and products. Increasing returns arise through the continuity of interaction in problem-solving between the experience of work and its interpretation by workers which can progressively reduce error within a current technological paradigm, and generate innovation and a continuing reduction of unit costs (Cartier, 1993: 126).

Parallel to the above arguments of the need for employment involvement and the importance of tacit knowledge in technological change and organisational competitiveness is the growing use of outsourcing by firms in the last two decades as a management strategy. Organisations in the private sector and public sector alike are constantly reassessing what constitutes the core and non-core aspects of their business and readjusting the way these activities can be sourced, either in-house or externally. Specialist outsourcing supplier firms have emerged in response to this growing market in businesses ranging from cleaning, catering, customer service to maintenance and IT (Evans and Walker, 1986; Rees and Fielder, 1992; Colling, 1993; Willcocks et al., 1995; Domberger, 1998; Kessler et al., 1999). However, the implication of outsourcing for skill retention and utilisation have not been extensively explored, in sharp contrast to a burgeoning literature on the financial and strategic reasons that firms should outsource (Zappala, 2000). As Purcell (1996: 22) notes, ‘We lack the research to make definite statements on the effect of outsourcing on employees’. More importantly, the effectiveness of outsourcing as a management strategy has been little understood, especially for work which involves in-depth knowledge and great autonomy such as the plant maintenance function (Benson and Ieronimo, 1996; Williams, 2000). This paper reports the finding of an in-depth study of the maintenance function of five large and medium size process/manufacturing and utility companies. By examining their organisation of plant maintenance work and their process of technological change, this paper explores the extent of involvement of the maintenance workers in plant improvement. It also explores the potential impact of the outsourcing of plant maintenance on the effectiveness of the maintenance function and the long-term competitiveness of the firm itself. This paper accentuates the important role of the tacit skills of maintenance workers and the broader role of the maintenance function in technological change and organisational performance, which is currently under estimated.

The maintenance function and technological change Maintenance is ‘work undertaken in order to keep or restore every facility, i.e. every part of a site, building and contents to an acceptable standard’ (British Standards Institution, 1974). In plant engineering, maintenance is not only about preventing and fixing breakdowns, but also about improving the performance of the equipment. In other words, it is concerned with the immediate and long-term efficiency of the capital assets of the firm ‘with the view to obtaining from these the best profit throughout their life’ (Husband, 1986: 139). Maintenance is therefore a prominent issue in the whole life of the assets. Maintenance activities can be categorised into three types on the basis of when the work must be done: emergency, routine and preventative maintenance. Emergency maintenance means that the work must be done in the immediate future; routine maintenance normally means that the work must be done in the finite, foreseeable future; and preventive maintenance denotes maintenance that is carried out in accordance with a planned schedule (Mann, 1988: 1).

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New Technology, Work and Employment

 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003

These activities embraces a number of what are too often thought about as discrete activities including: inspection, replenishing consumables, trouble shooting, removal and replacement/reinstallation, repair, adjustment/alignment, calibration, functional testing, refurbishing, and conditioning (Patton, 1980; Durkin, 1992). The nature of plant maintenance requirements varies according to the type and size of the organisation and the type of equipment to be maintained. Accordingly, the organisation of maintenance work and how the maintenance function is to be delivered take a number of forms and firms develop their own ways of organising maintenance work to suit their needs. Some have shift maintenance technicians providing ‘immediate’ maintenance service. Some are staffed only in day shifts with a call-out system to cover urgent maintenance needs. Some firms have a large maintenance department staffed with craftsmen of all trades. In some firms, a core maintenance team is employed supplemented by temporary contractors. In other firms, basic maintenance work (or first call maintenance), for instance, lubrication of the asset and its components is delegated to the operating staff. Still in other firms, especially the smaller ones, maintenance work may be carried out by operators, whereas there is a growing trend for larger firms to outsource their maintenance function. The organisation of maintenance resources for a fluctuating, fragmented and multitrade maintenance workload is a difficult managerial problem which involves a variety of decision-making processes. Partially because of that, the maintenance function is often regarded as a necessary evil, a non-core part of the business and is increasingly outsourced because firms may not want to develop the skills required nor the mess of maintenance. ‘In firms, busy managers no longer want to worry about noncritical activities, even if the services could be performed equally as well in-house’ (Porter, 1990: 244). According to a recent research on large companies in the recession period of the early 1990s, ‘focus on core business’ was an action considered very important by 54% of the firms surveyed (Geroski and Gregg, 1997). Outsourcing is even expanding into areas many of which were once considered core-functions by firms and carried out in-house. As Bosch et al. (2000: 108) noted, ‘some very radical decisions are being made to outsource apparently central core functions’. This outsourcing trend is closely related to intensifying business competition in the last two decades. What is insufficiently understood is, however, that the role of the maintenance function goes far beyond the maintenance activities described above (Husband, 1986), although tangible maintenance work is often carried out after the equipment is operational (Hodges, 1996). In the process of technological change, the input of the maintenance function starts before the equipment is introduced and continues throughout the rest of the whole life of the equipment (see Figure 1). The design and improvisation of new technology is a continuing process. Ideally a feedback system should be introduced in which information concerning the maintainability and reliability of the equipment can be gathered and continuously fed back to the equipment designer/manufacturer and in certain circumstances to a data bank which could be shared on an inter-company, national or international basis. At the installation stage, the maintenance function continues to play an important role because it is only then that the multi-dimensional nature of many of the maintenance

Figure 1: The role of the maintenance function in the process of technological change  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003


problems becomes clear. The commissioning stage is not only a period of technical performance testing but also a learning period where primary design faults that may affect equipment performance are identified and ironed out. Finally, throughout the whole operational life a suitable learning system should be continued. The function of a learning system is to gather and provide information on maintenance problem areas, thus facilitating determination of the plant’s optimum maintenance operation. This information should be fedback to the designer and manufacturer. It has been argued (Boddy and Buchanan, 1986; Clark et al., 1988; Fleck, 1987; Leonard-Barton, 1988) that technological change is a process which takes place over time without a clearly marked beginning and end. So much so that innovation often continues to occur during and after the implementation of the new technology. Studies on technological change and organisational analysis have also highlighted the importance of user involvement in technological change (Burns and Stalker, 1994; Fleck, 1987; Leonard-Barton, 1988). Central to the involvement is the maintenance workforce who possess the first hand experience. The rest of this paper provides empirical evidence to illustrate the important role of maintenance workers in technological change and why outsourcing of plant maintenance may not bring competitive advantage to the organisations.

The case study In this research, the plant maintenance department of five large and medium-sized manufacturing/process companies were studied. They include: privatised utilities (WaterCo and TransPower), two manufacturing processing companies (SaltCo and GlassUK), and a newspaper printing company (PrintersLtd). The empirical work took place in the period from March 1997 to April 1999. Follow-up interviews were carried out in 2000. A mixture of techniques has been used throughout the case study process which includes in-depth interview, documentary analysis, observation and informal conversation. Altogether, at least 125 formal interviews were conducted on an individual basis with interviewees ranging from managers at all levels including directors, to maintenance craftsmen, operators, apprentices, and contractors, there was a strong quantitative bias towards middle mangers and maintenance craftsmen. In addition, a questionnaire survey was carried out by a relatively high proportion of maintenance technicians on issues relating to technological change and the role of maintenance workers (see Table 1). The maintenance departments studied were responsible for plant maintenance. The firms in this study shared broadly similar characteristics in terms of their production nature and the types of employers they were perceived to be by their employees. All five case study firms had a company history of at least 20 years. They all operate in a continuous production mode based on mass production and sale at cheap cost and price, although this does not mean that quality is not important for these monopoly producers. All five case study firms have introduced a computerised maintenance management information system to monitor and improve equipment performance and maintenance efficiency. Irrespective of the history of industrial relations of each firm, they all enjoyed reasonably stable employment relations at the time of the research. Employees readily admitted that they had better pay and conditions than people in other firms. WaterCo supplies fresh water and recycles waste water to a region in England. Its Maintenance Department provides a planned and reactive maintenance and refurbishment service for more than 66,000 mechanical, electrical and instrumentation assets which are mainly above the ground. The maintenance craftsmen have received flexi-skill training in the early 1990s and officially practice partial multi-skilling. WaterCo has downsized its workforce radically since privatisation. The maintenance workforce has been reduced to its minimum number and temporary contractors are used for their special skills or to cover extra workload. The in-house maintenance staff were allocated to 18 geographical units performing primarily break down maintenance and planned preventative maintenance. Work such as electrical installation, 38



Table 1: Information on maintenance work in the five process/manufacturing firms Variable

WaterCo

TransPower

SaltCo

GlassUK

PrintersLtd

Total no. of employees (2000) Total no. of employees (1995) Total No. of craftsmen (2000) No. of people interviewed No of craftsmen surveyed Representing rate Maintenance budget (1999) Technological change (TC)

4225

1600

155

359

276

4770

1950

222

350

261

370

530

28

38

71

54

22

18

15

16

78

76

27

15

28

20

14

96

39

39

£20m

£167m

£2.8m

£1.03m

£0.66m

Low level of TC CMMIS Telemetry system Downsizing Flattened hierarchy ‘Field Service Engineer’

Low level of TC

Auto packing equipment CMMIS Downsizing

On-going automation CMMIS Downsizing

New printers CMMIS Limited OC

‘Manufacturing Technician’

‘Engineer/ Electrician’

Mechanical Electrical

Mechanical Electrical

Day shift Shift technician Maintenance tasks Training operators H&S Report writing Spare purchase Data input to CMMIS Project work Broad-base craft skill IT skill Training programmes Apprentice training Outsourcing

Shift system Shift technician Maintenance tasks Training operators H&S Project work Data input to CMMIS

Organisational change (OC) Job title for maintenance craftsmen Crafts groups

Mechanical Electrical Instrumentation Work Day-shift organisation On-call rota Scope of Maintenance tasks responsibility Training Customer liaison Health and safety (H&S) Data input to CMMIS Administration Skill Flexi-skill requirements IT skill Training skill Skill acquisition Training programmes Apprentice training Extensive outsourcing

Downsizing Flattened hierarchy ‘Industrial Staff’ ‘Technician’ Mechanical Linesmen Jointers Day-shift On-call rota Maintenance tasks Customer liaison H&S

Mechanical Electrical Instrumentation Day shift On-call rota Maintenance tasks Training operators H&S Spare purchase Data input to CMMIS

Voluntary flexi-skill

Flexi-skill IT skill

Training programmes Apprentice training Extensive outsourcing

Training programmes Extensive outsourcing Recruit readytrained

Quality-related IIP*, EFQM** IIP IIP initiatives Customer care Customer care Customer care Suggestion scheme Suggestion scheme Plant care Best practice

*Investors in People

IIP Customer care Plant care Team building

Broad-base craft skill IT skill Training programmes Apprentice training Limited outsourcing Recruit readytrained Did not apply Team building Suggestion scheme

**European Foundation of Quality Management

machining, and fabrication were to be contracted out, as well as the labourer type of work like reservoir cleaning. Some high-tech maintenance work was to be brought back in house to be more cost effective. A rule of thumb to determine whether a task is outsourced or kept in-house is the cost of the services provided. If the service can be purchased more cheaply from the external market, then it will be outsourced. In the words of a maintenance manager:  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003


It is not our strategy to pay our people skilled earners’ wages to do labourers’ job or to train them up at great expense to do a specialist’s task which only needs doing once a year.

During peak demand, for example, drought, freeze or breakdown emergencies, contract craftsmen are brought in temporarily to cover manpower shortage. TransPower supplies electricity to the industrial and domestic users in the region largely overlapping with that of WaterCo. Both WaterCo and TransPower monopolise the product market but under the governance of tightening governmental regulations and shareholders’ profit demand. Flexi-skilling has been offered but not pushed to the workforce although some electrical fitters have taken up the skill enhancement package and perform some of the tasks which were formerly carried out by degree holding engineers. Like WaterCo, TransPower has downsized its workforce ‘to its bone’ and outsourcing is used to cover manpower demand rather than to meet skill shortage in maintenance work. Most of the contracts are the exemployees of TransPower who have been made redundant. In addition, TransPower hires over 50 different groups of contractors with a total force in excess of 500. These outsourced staff are used to cover a wide variety of activities ranging from consulting, project management to switchgear installation, excavation, cable laying, overhead line building and tree management. In a nutshell, any work that can be packaged together and done more cheaply externally will be outsourced after maintaining a sufficient workload for the in-house staff. Procedures for a comprehensive Resources Contractors Performance Management System have been developed to monitor the performance of contractors. Turn-key contractors are encouraged to expand their range of services, for example, switchgear changing. This allows TransPower to reduce the number of permanent staff and other costs whilst better utilising its employees’ specialist skills such as fault finding. SaltCo is one of the two salt product monopolies in Britain and operates mainly in the home market. Performance pressure comes from the group rather than from its customers. The maintenance craftsmen have received flexi-skill training and are supposed to practice partial multi-skilling. In recent years, SaltCo has introduced several automatic packaging machines which require very different maintenance skills from that for the rest of the plant. In order to combat the skill shortage and acquire skill to maintain the machines, a ‘Team of Three’ has been set up by the management to work solely on those machines. The ‘Team of Three’ is made up of three technicians: one fitter, one electrician and one instrumentation technician poached from the manufacturer. The maintenance work in British Salt is organised in such a way that the core maintenance team is readily available for emergency break downs and that there are always at least one mechanical and one electrical maintenance technicians on site and an instrument technician on call when emergency back up is needed. The rest of the maintenance work in SaltCo is not all done in-house. Operating with a lean maintenance workforce which has to be available for emergency break downs, SaltCo constantly has teams of contractors to take care of the civil, labouring type of work, and any piece of work that would tie its own maintenance team up for more than four or five days. ‘I can’t afford to let my men be tied up on a job for days at a time. I need them to be available to cover any emergency’, said one supervisor. A team of contractors are brought in during the two major shutdowns for maintenance each year, not for the skills, but for the manpower needed to cover the sheer amount of work to be done within the week. In addition, the maintenance of certain special parts of equipment is handled by the manufacturer as it involves special skills which are infrequently used. As the Engineering Manager said: It will not be cost effective to train up the skill in-house, they will forget the skill after a while and you need to train them again each time the skill is needed. Using the manufacturer will have another advantage, because they update the modifications taken place on other sites and tell us what changes they have made on the equipment.

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GlassUK is one of the over twenty establishments of the glass-manufacturing group in the world supplying flat glass for the building and automobile industry. Cut-throat business competition takes place in the global (but predominantly European) arena. Although no multi-skilling is officially required in GlassUK, the craftsmen have broad trade skills. Like WaterCo and TransPower, GlassUK has been through massive redundancy in which the maintenance workforce has been reduced by a third. The workload has been absorbed by the remaining maintenance staff. Outsourcing is only used for project work and component (e.g. motor) repair type of work. Plant maintenance (breakdown or preventative maintenance) is carried out by the in-house workforce. Skill training is conducted mostly on-the-job on site in an ad hoc and informal style. Most of the maintenance work on the two production lines are carried out by the in-house craftsmen. Contractors are used for capital work and for work which requires special tools and skills, such as instrument calibration and air conditioning. Repairing of parts, e.g. rewinding of motors, which was once done in-house by the craftsmen, has been contracted out due to the shortage of maintenance staff as a result of the Company’s persistent attempt to keep the number of employees down. More outsourcing is imminent with the management’s intention to keep in-house the plant specific skills and subcontract any skills that can be readily supplied externally. PrintersLtd is a subsidiary of two leading newspaper titles but prints newspapers for several titles. Competition is among the newspapers rather than between the printing firms in this case. The maintenance craftsmen are divided into mechanical and electrical groups who look after the whole plant by shift work. Although no multi-skilling programme has been introduced in PrintersLtd, the craftsmen have broad trade skills, similar to their counterparts in GlassUK. Overtime is in general restricted and if worked, time off is usually given instead of pay. PrintersLtd is the only firm in the study which will not outsource anything to do with the production equipment as it is seen as the Company’s ‘bread and butter’. Although newspapers can be published daily or weekly, in the morning or in the afternoon, immediacy remains central to its value. Keeping the plant running obviously becomes vital in the publication of a newspaper. The perishable nature of the product (newspaper) does not allow them to wait for the contractors to turn up to fix the machine. The press is the bread and butter of the Company, they can’t afford to hang around and wait for the contractors to turn up and fix the machine (the Operations Manager).

To ensure the continuity of plant operation, the vast majority of maintenance work in PrintersLtd is done in-house after the machines have been installed and commissioned. There is no outsourcing in maintenance work except on the maintenance of the building facilities.

The involvement of maintenance workers in plant improvement This study found that the maintenance workers of the five firms played an important role in technological change and plant improvement. For the purpose of discussion, this role is divided into two aspects: the indirect role and the direct role. The indirect role here refers to the feedback that maintenance function provides for other departments when designing, selecting or installing new technology/equipment. The direct role is the more ‘hands-on’ input from the maintenance workforce in helping their organisation to adapt more quickly to the new technology introduced, and by modifying existing technology to suit the working environment. In real life, the two roles can be closely related. The direct role of maintenance workers The maintenance workers’ role in these five firms appears to be mainly confined to the existing equipment and after the new equipment has been introduced. In other  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003


words, they have far more discretion in exercising their direct role than their indirect role. For example, a majority of them have ever initiated modification on the equipment to make it more adaptable to the working environment (see Table 2). In the introduction of new plant or equipment, few plants can pass the ‘practical completion’ stage without any problem. ‘Teething’ problems are quite common for various reasons. This is when maintenance people, as the maintainer of the equipment, can play an important part in solving the problems. The experience of working with new equipment creates new perceptions and ideas from which the new equipment can be modified and developed to suit the specific work environment. In any maintenance operation, maintenance craftsmen and supervisors are always looking for better methods and better materials. This results in a longer run life for equipment (Mann, 1988: 160) and an easier life for the maintenance people. As was observed by some of the maintenance technicians: Any type of plant, when you get on it, you can always look at it and think how things can be made easier. That’s the general rule for maintenance. There is no point in struggling when you can make it easier for yourself and other people. You get a kick out of it as well rather than just stripping things down (Maintenance Technician of PrintersLtd). We have to do a lot of modifications: (a), to make our lives a lot easier and (b), to make the equipment run better. But there are only three of us and having that much equipment to look after, you just don’t have the time or backing to actually get on to do the job (One of the ‘Team of Three’ of SaltCo).

The adoption of the philosophy of ‘fit for purpose’ and the use of manufacturer’s standard equipment/packages in order to reduce the initial capital expenditure and achieve the capital savings desired by both WaterCo and its supplier has led to a number of problems on sites regarding access for maintenance. Modifications initiated by the maintenance workers have been made to equipment to allow better access and/or better performance. For example, isolation valves had to be fitted between sludge pipes which need to be taken out for service. Pumps and motors originally fitted in the middle of a 30-metre diameter circular tank were refitted to the edge of the tank to allow access for their removal for maintenance purposes. Without this modification, WaterCo would have to hire a heavy-duty crank truck externally to facilitate maintenance each time those parts need to be maintained. Similarly, a modification to the computer control system which controls the conveyor for newspaper reels has saved the PrintersLtd a significant sum of money which it would have to spend each time the unfriendly system failed. Before the modification, only the manufacturing firm could solve the software problem which cost a minimum of £600 per visit. The modification enabled the fault finding and rectification to be carried out by in-house maintenance workers by adopting the same software system already in use by other parts of the plant. Although not the main focus of this study, the operators’ indispensable support to the maintenance personnel in plant improvement is worth noting, as was recalled by a manager interviewed: They [the company] decided to automate one specific part of the plant to make it easier to run and to reduce manpower. R&D was given the project to do and they brought to site a 40-button panel desk. It wasn’t user-friendly at all. People just got lost in the job. So modification was carried out by the maintenance guys here to reduce it down to 12 buttons. This was the operators’ idea (Shift Manager in GlassUK).

The above empirical evidence demonstrates that intervention from the maintenance workers is much needed not only in the later life of the equipment, but also during the early stage of the introduction of new technology. The innovations and modifications accomplished by the maintenance personnel may be ‘nitty gritty’ and on a much smaller scale compared with the mainstream technological change, but they make the life of maintenance workers much safer and easier on a day-to-day basis, and improve the long term efficiency of the equipment. A majority of the maintenance workers surveyed admitted that they have ever initiated modifications on the equipment to make it more adaptable to the working environment (see Table 2). A 42



large majority of them (with the exception of TransPower) also believed that the type of equipment they maintained allowed them to do modification on it to improve its performance and that they could carry out more modification for its long-term improvement if their workload was lighter. It is also worth noting that modifications/innovations from the maintenance personnel are not restricted solely to the production equipment they maintain, but may cover the environment of the whole workplace, often with a mindset of improving efficiency or cost reduction. The extent of such work shows clearly that the role of the maintenance workers is often much wider than generally perceived. These effects, therefore, should not be underestimated. The indirect role of maintenance workers By comparison, the indirect role of the maintenance workers in technological change is highly restricted. The majority of maintenance workers surveyed (over 70% in each case) in this study considered that they were seldom or never consulted by other departments before the new equipment was purchased (see Table 2). This is in spite of the fact that there was clear benefits for their involvement in the process and that the overwhelming majority of them (over 90%) believed that they should be consulted more before the introduction of new equipment/technology. In general, the maintenance workers in all five firms were seldom involved in new project development decisions. Nor were they involved (with the exception of one or two people) in the installation or commissioning of the new equipment. Lack of communication (both vertical and horizontal) between the management and other departments of the firm and the maintenance function is seen as a cause of the problems associated with the technological change on site. We have various committees in the Company. When they buy equipment, they are supposed to involve site people. But in reality, it does not happen. They just go on to buy anything they fancy. Usually we end up with a piece of kit which is not user-friendly to either the production or the maintenance. So we have to spend a lot of time ironing the problems out (Maintenance Technician in GlassUK). R&D modernise/modify the parts of plant by bringing contractors in to do the job with no regard to maintenance needs of the different parts. There was no consultation of maintenance before installation. For example, they put a guard on a conveyer belt for health and safety reasons. But you can’t get the guard off because everything was welded together. We ended up burning a hole as big as a window to get access to check the parts (Maintenance Technician in GlassUK).

Factors influencing their involvement A key finding of existing research on QWL is that the success of QWL initiatives depends on a range of contingencies related to individual differences, technology and task environment (Marchington, 1992; Buchanan, 1995). This research finds that the maintenance workers in different firms are encouraged to a varying degree to innovate. Maintenance workers in the firms that promote formally employee involvement schemes and/or have long tradition of encouraging plant improvement from their workers tend to report higher incidence of involvement in plant improvement. For example, both WaterCo and GlassUK officially promoted suggestion schemes and reward employees’ ideas. Maintenance workers in these two firms felt more encouraged (81% and 87%) by their management and colleagues to carry out modifications than their counterparts in the other three firms (TransPower 18%, SaltCo 37% and PrintersLtd 50%). They also reported higher levels of modification initiation (73% and 80%) than workers in the other three firms (TransPower 11%, SaltCo 44% and PrintersLtd 68%). For TransPower, the significantly lower rate of direct role in plant improvement is largely to do with the nature of the equipment they maintain. Most of the equipment (e.g. transformers, switchgear and cables) comes in one piece and is impossible and  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003


Table 2: Survey findings (as percentages) on the role of maintenance workers in technological change Questions*

WaterCo TransPower SaltCo

GlassUK PrintersLtd

Were you consulted before new equipment was purchased? Always Often Sometimes Seldom Never

1.3 1.3 24 45 27

0 5 16 32 45

3 0 19 30 44

0 0 47 40 13

0 0 11 0 75

Should maintenance workers be consulted before introduction of new equipment? Yes

97.5

89

96

80

89

Does the type of equipment you maintain allow you to do any modification on it to improve its performance? Yes

97.5

21

56

93

96

Have you ever initiated modifications on the equipment to make it more adaptable to the working environment? Yes

73

11

44

80

68

Do you think that you will have the capacity to carry out more modifications for the long-term improvement of the machine if your workload is lighter? Yes

63

8

56

80

61

Are you encouraged by the management and colleagues to carry out modifications? Yes

81

18

37

87

50

*Questions selected here formed part of the questionnaire survey on plant maintenance in the five case study firms.

impractical to carry out alteration on site. In addition, the industry is under the tight regulation of the electricity authority and any modification has to be approved by authority at higher levels. For SaltCo and PrintersLtd, although employee suggestion schemes did exist after a fashion, they were not taken seriously by management and therefore by employees. Maintenance workers interviewed in these two firms felt that management only targeted a few ‘key individuals’ who they considered to be more competent than others for any plant improvement projects. Although in some firms line managers actively encouraged shopfloor innovation 44



to improve plant efficiency, this wider role of the maintenance craftsmen often start only after the new equipment has been handed over to them and stop at the gate of the shopfloor. Major plant modifications come from the engineering people in R&D Department. We do the minor modifications

is a common remark from the maintenance workers in GlassUK and PrintersLtd. Things are no different in SaltCo, We have the Engineering Department to do this (modification) and the shopfloor will just concentrate on the day-to-day operation (Operations Director).

These comments indicate that the functional demarcations between the maintenance department and the designing/R&D department remains obvious, especially when they are not situated on the same site. This problem may be more acute for multinational firms like GlassUK in which a trans-continental audit is needed in order for the corporate to share the benefits of innovations taken/taking place in all the site countries. The reasons for the lack of maintenance involvement in the decision-making concerning technological change are manifold. While management may foresee some technical or economic problems associated with the technological change and make preparation for them, they may fail to envisage (or less interested in) problems at operational level, resulting in less attention being paid to the areas. Some of the managers interviewed believed that maintenance workers did not need to be consulted when introducing new technology because ‘they have no knowledge of new equipment’. Instead, the company obtained information from other user companies. This perception shows that management only focuses on the ‘new’ aspect of the technological change process and fails to see the continuity of the ‘technological trajectory’ and therefore the need for plant integration of the new and old equipment/technology. It is at this integration point that the maintenance workers can play a central role. The absence of consultation and feedback severely affects the opportunity for maintenance employees to contribute their knowledge and firm-specific know-how to the firm. Yet, this phenomenon is by no means confined to the firms researched in this study. As Martin (1988) points out, ‘In practice, consultation is rare at the project planning stage, whereas it is more frequent at the implementation stage’ (p. 107). Interestingly, when decisions are made on the choice of new technology, maintenance managers are not always consulted either. In fact, they were often not consulted in the case study firms. ‘The decision was made by the accountants above or someone else at the senior level’ was a common remark by maintenance managers interviewed.

The important role of tacit skills in the maintenance function A major factor that enables the maintenance workers’ involvement in plant improvement is the tacit skills which they have accumulated through their on-the-job experience. A substantial part of the skills and knowledge of the new equipment is developed only by working with the machine and learning from its breakdowns in the workplace. Individuals and organisations learn from mistakes and from experience in general. With novel and untried technologies and systems, getting it right the first time is going to be rare and applications need to be managed in a developmental frame of mind (Boddy and Buchanan, 1986: 227).

On-the-job learning provides an ideal opportunity for maintenance workers to develop their tacit knowledge. Tacit skill and knowledge, or ‘know-how’, is ‘the ability to perform a task without being able to explain how it is being done’ (Marchington and Wilkinson, 1996: 161). ‘Tacit knowledge is contextualised, personal and hard to communicate’ (Willman, 1997: 49), the specific kind required dependent  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003


on the particular job (Manwaring, 1984). It is typically acquired through experience rather than formal instruction (Polanyi, 1966). Tacit skill is, therefore, job specific. In depth knowledge of a plant or a piece of equipment is developed only through operating experience, intuition, judgement, and the development of a feel and discretion of how equipment works (Boddy and Buchanan, 1986). This means that on-thejob learning is vital for the maintainers to develop the appropriate tacit knowledge. As Arrow (1962) observes, technological change is a vast and prolonged process of learning about the environment. The importance of tacit skills in maintenance work is often recognised on the shopfloor. It is not unusual to hear an operator say John is the one that knows the job’ or ‘I hate to think what would happen if Ian is gone. Nobody else will know what to do with this damn equipment.

This indicates intimate understanding that individual maintenance workers have developed by working closely with the equipment, often through breakdowns. As modification of one part of the plant may jeopardise the performance of another, the modifier need to have a sound understanding of the whole process to ensure that the newly gained efficiency of one improved part will not be compromised by impoverishing another part. In many organisations, much of the skills and knowledge of the new technology accrue as additional equipment is purchased. For example, both SaltCo and WaterCo have relied heavily on and gained great advantages from the skill and experience accumulated by the workforce through their long-standing practice of integrating the old and new plant systems. The fact that managers in the five firms shared wide consensus that fault finding (the more difficult and tacit skill intensive tasks of the maintenance function) can only be done in-house reflects the significance of tacit knowledge in maintenance work. Contractors won’t be able to do the emergency jobs because they don’t know the system. You pay dearer in the long run for outsourcing (Maintenance Manager in TransPower). Satisfying customers is about improving service standard which in our case is about improving fault response. To do this we need the in-house skills (Another Manager in TransPower).

This view is reflected in the optimism of some maintenance employees: We become more specialised in actual fault location [fault finding]. This skill can only be accumulated through experience and knowledge. Contractors are only doing labouring and high volume jobs which are repetitious. So we become more indispensable as a specialised fire-fighting, fault finding team but still retain the basic skills (Cable Jointer in TransPower).

Most maintenance people and line managers interviewed agreed that outsourcing did/would have an adverse effect on the in-house skills and ultimately the efficiency of maintenance function. When it comes to technical work, we tend to use external people. Using contractors does not allow our people to develop their skill levels. I am sure people here are quite capable of doing some of the jobs in-house % . I think we outsource too much. Outsourcing tends to bring convenience. That is what tends to happen [here]. And in the longer term we may lose the skill. But I can’t see we will be outsourcing completely (Operations Director of SaltCo).

From this perspective, keeping the maintenance tasks in-house provides an important opportunity for the maintenance workers to develop their tacit skills which they can apply to plant improvement and technological change. It also points to the fact that the maintenance function has a much broader role in plant economics than just fixing breakdowns and that firms need to consider more carefully in organising their maintenance function. Technologies can be copied quickly, but intellectual competence takes a long time to develop. If technological change and skills are argued to be important factors in sustained and differential competitiveness, then the maintenance function will be better retained in-house. The development of maintenance skills and their effective use will be one of the key factors which will affect the ability (of firms) to make use of technical advance (EITB, 1984, p. 2).

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Conclusions Evidence from this study indicates an under utilisation of available skill and experience of the maintenance workforce in two ways: lack of consultation or feedback on technological innovation; and manpower shortage and therefore focusing on breakdown service instead of releasing people to spend time on long-term improvement of the equipment. The lack of consultation to the users (the operators and maintainers) of the new technology in the case study firms suggests a compelling need for greater involvement from the shopfloor. Technological change and maintenance skill has a two-way relationship. The inhouse maintenance workers can make a more significant contribution at an aggregate level throughout the whole process of the technological change and throughout the whole life of the asset, if they are actively involved. Unfortunately, a status quo approach in the organisations means that they focus on reductions in direct labour costs and the immediate efficiency of plant maintenance but often fail to recognise the role of people in the operation/maintenance of the new technology. If an organisation makes a great effort to introduce technological and organisational change to enhance its competitive advantages, then the wider role of maintenance skill should also be cultivated and harnessed for its business success. This needs taking into consideration in the totality of the maintenance function. A more worrying trend discovered in this study, however, is the apparent readiness of firms to give away their reservoir of in-house maintenance skills. Under increasing competitive pressure companies have become less able to bear the short-term costs of not being numerically flexible (NEDO, 1986, p. 14).

Consequently, all firms in this study were operating with a minimum number of maintenance workers covering mainly fault finding and breakdown services in which plant knowledge and availability were most important. What they tend to do (with the exception of PrintersLtd) is to outsource maintenance work that can be bundled together in batches which either requires merely labour intensive work or which is highly specialised and not practical or economical to be carried out in-house. What is left to be done by the in-house workforce is mainly the awkward, difficult and fragmented work which requires flexibility and firm-specific knowledge. As described by Hakim, (c)urrent restructuring of the labour force is brought about by the continuation and intensification of the traditional and opportunistic approaches to the use of the peripheral workforce as an extension of, or substitution for, the core workforce (1990, p.178).

The tendency is to pitch their skill towards the upper end without the semi-skill at the bottom and the specialised skill at the top end of the spectrum, which, in effect, may have redrawn the demarcation line (IDS Study 415, 1988). For example, both WaterCo and TransPower frequently re-adjust their labour strategy, i.e. whether to use contractors or in-house staff, by continuously monitoring and comparing inhouse versus contracted performances and labour costs on maintenance activities. The intention is to ensure that a competitive maintenance service is provided to their company. By dividing maintenance work into different skill levels and purchasing the skills accordingly, managers are following the principle of economy of skill. Whilst there is nothing wrong with the strategy of concentrating on core-competence, the central issue here is that should maintenance function be treated as a non-core activity that can be switched between in-house and outsourcing or should it treated as something more valuable to the firm for its long-term competitiveness? The answer is that maintenance workers are a valuable asset to their firms and they possess a wealth of firmspecific knowledge that cannot be sought readily from other sources. This knowledge should be kept firmly in-house, and more importantly, utilised by the organisation, because fundamental improvement of the plant system is unlikely to be made by  Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003


people without a deep understanding of the product and production process themselves. Innovative ideas are often ingrained in working with the problems. Unique knowledge and experience specific to the plant can only be gained through a period of interaction with the plant itself. Where, how and to what extent the modification should take place is often an empirical decision. As Prahalad and Hamel point out, The embedded skills that give rise to the next generation of competitive products cannot be ‘rent in’ by outsourcing % too many companies have unwittingly surrendered core competencies when they cut internal investment in what they mistakenly thought were just ‘cost centers’ in favor of outside suppliers (1990: 84).

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