Your maintenance procedures can be valuable assets that save time, reduce costs, improve accuracy, and provide consistent use of best practices. All too often, however, maintenance procedures simply get in the way. They often read like someone’s poor attempt at legalese. Another common problem is they have so much detail they are overwhelming or they to go the other extreme; either way, people end up ignoring them.
You have to account for the fact that qualified personnel are doing the work. The maintenance procedure is not the place to provide a training tutorial. What it primarily needs to do is list the major steps.
It should also provide application specifics (e.g., torque to 30 ft-lbs), as appropriate. A checklist is often helpful in a procedure, and sometimes making the procedure itself into a checklist is not a bad way to go. Adding STOP points for safety items or quality checks may also be appropriate.
The goal of the maintenance tech is to correctly perform the job. Make the procedure fit that goal.
