AAOM Handbook

WE.38 Diagnosis Time above Threshold Context

In every business area is inevitable that some urgent work needs will arise, although the frequency of such needs may vary significantly. It is also important that these urgent needs be assessed, prioritised and dealt with in a consistent and timely manner, without causing unnecessary disruption to the regular scheduled activities of the business area. The first step in appropriately dealing with urgent work is to ensure that there is one, clearly identified, and easily reached, contact point for urgent work. All urgent work requests must be directed to the nominated contact. The urgent work point of contact will either investigate, or assign a person to

investigate, the issue reported and make the initial diagnosis. The time taken to complete the initial diagnosis will depend on:  The number of urgent calls in the queue  The relative impact of the calls  The complexity of the issues that have been identified

The role of the urgent work process is to promptly control, contain and (where possible) remove the immediate cause of an urgent safety, environmental or operational threat. It is not the role of the urgent work process to try to find and remove any underlying common cause issues that are inherent in the business area design, operation or maintenance. For most urgent work requests the immediate cause of the request will be fairly obvious and the person investigating will quickly identify it. In some cases the diagnosis of the immediate cause of a request may be more difficult and may therefore take longer. In order for the urgent work process to work, and hence to avoid un-necessary disruption of the rest of the business area, the people assigned to investigate an urgent issue must be given the opportunity and time to diagnose it. This must be balanced with limiting the potential impact on the business area if response to, or diagnosis of, a request takes excessive time. Hence for every urgent work case there must be a clear specification of what is the ‘reasonable’ time to respond to and diagnose each request before it must be escalated to obtain assistance. As soon as it is determined that the agreed time is likely to be exceeded this must be escalated so that action can be taken to speed the diagnosis.

© McAlear Management Consultants 2004

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