Bold Group
The overhaul window was a schedule, not a property of the machine.
An industrial maintenance business that overhauls turbines for the companies that own them. Its revenue ceiling was arithmetic: the number of overhauls a crew could complete in a year.
The situation
Growth meant more crews or shorter jobs, and the length of a job was treated as a property of the machine that nobody questioned.
Looking at how the window was actually spent showed something else. Disassembly and reassembly ran strictly in series. Work paused at every inspection gate while findings were assessed. A large share of the window went on access, isolation and permits before anyone touched the turbine.
The turn
The machine set part of the window. The plan set the rest.
An overhaul takes as long as the machine needs.
How much of this window is the machine, and how much is the order we chose to do things in?
The decision: re-sequence the parts of the job that do not depend on each other, rather than shorten any single step.
Before
- Access, isolation, permits
- Disassembly
- Pause at each inspection gate
- Reassembly
Strictly in series. Preparation and decisions sit on the critical path.
After
- Preparation, access and permitsoff the critical path, where the work allows
- Disassembly
- Inspection decisionsoff the critical path, where the work allows
- Reassembly
Runs on the crew and equipment already on site.
Schematic, not to scale.
How we worked it
How the window was taken apart.
- 01
Account for the whole window
Split the window into working, preparing, waiting and deciding, so it becomes visible how much the equipment governs and how much the plan governs.
- 02
Unstack the sequence
Test which steps really have to follow each other, and move preparation, access and inspection decisions off the critical path where the work allows.
- 03
Prove it with the crew
Walk the revised sequence with the engineers who perform it, and agree what has to hold true for it to be safe and repeatable, not a one-off.
Worked through the window with the engineers who ran it, and designed a sequence that uses only the crew and equipment already on site.
Held the operating and safety knowledge, judged feasibility, and decides whether shorter jobs are turned into more work.
What came of it
The client operates the revised sequence, with the crew and equipment it already had. A full overhaul now takes 24 hours instead of 7 days.
The client measured the 7-day and 24-hour cycle times; we did not measure them ourselves. Capacity released is not revenue earned: that also depends on demand, scheduling and commercial decisions the client owns.
How we label evidenceIs this your situation?
Signs
- A duration is treated as a technical property that nobody has actually tested.
- Growth is capped by how much work can be completed, not by demand for it.
What it needs from you
- The people who do the work in the room while it is redesigned, because they hold the knowledge the redesign depends on.
Start here
Bring the result you need, and the thing you have been told cannot change.
One hour with a founder. You leave with a first view of where the answer may sit, and which engagement, if any, fits.
Teerasak WongpiyaCo-Founder and Managing Director
1 hour, in Thai or English, online or at your office.