What Is Wrench Time? (And How to Improve It)

Maintenance managers constantly seek ways to improve team productivity and reduce operational costs. One crucial maintenance metric that can help is wrench time, or the total time technicians spend completing hands-on maintenance tasks. Understanding wrench time can reveal inefficiencies, guide resource allocation and improve maintenance performance.

Read our guide to find out everything you need to know about wrench time, including common causes, the pros and cons of measuring this key metric and how to use it to improve operational effectiveness.

What Is Wrench Time?

Wrench time, also known as tool time, is a key performance indicator (KPI) for measuring maintenance team efficiency. The concept refers to the actual time technicians spend hands-on, “wrench in hand” repairing equipment with tools. When technicians tighten bolts, replace parts or adjust machinery, they’re engaging in wrench time activities.

Importantly, wrench time excludes other necessary maintenance tasks. These non-wrench time activities include traveling to job sites, gathering tools and parts, reading instructions or completing paperwork. While essential, such tasks don’t count as productive maintenance time.

Monitoring wrench time offers a practical starting point for optimizing maintenance department operations and ensuring smooth work order management. It can help managers identify inefficiencies in maintenance processes, so improving this metric can mean a significant boost in team productivity and a reduction in maintenance costs. 

Common Causes of Low Wrench Time

It’s important to note that wrench time often sparks debate between maintenance managers and technicians. While managers use it to gauge maintenance productivity, technicians point out factors beyond their control that affect this metric. Common causes of low wrench time include:

Inefficient Planning & Scheduling

• Lack of coordination: Technicians need to know when and where they need to be to complete a task. If work orders are missing information, this can lead to excessive travel time and unclear task priorities, meaning technicians spend less time on actual maintenance work.
• Ineffective scheduling: If you overbook or underbook your maintenance team members, this can have a negative impact on wrench time.

Reactive Maintenance

• Unpredictability: Organizations primarily responding to breakdowns face unpredictable schedules. 
• No prioritization: Planned tasks get interrupted by urgent repairs, creating a chaotic work environment. 
• No procedural structure: Operating in constant firefighting mode leaves little room for structured, planned maintenance activities that could have a positive affect on wrench time.

Resource Shortages

• Unavailable parts or tools: Waiting for spare parts or specialized tools causes frequent delays. Forced work pauses due to unavailable resources add up quickly. 
• Budget constraints: Inadequate inventory management or budget constraints can exacerbate this issue, leading to chronic shortages and ongoing efficiency problems.

Inadequate Training

• Lack of skills: Not knowing how to perform specific tasks slows technicians down. Not only will they require more time to complete a task, but mistakes may require rework, further reducing efficiency and directly impacting wrench time.
• Consistent training: Without ongoing education, technicians may struggle to keep up with new technologies or best practices, decreasing efficiency over time. Regular training and skill development can help address this issue and improve maintenance productivity. 

Communication Breakdowns

• Insufficient information flow: Maintenance teams unaware of current production schedules or equipment availability face unnecessary delays and idle time. 
• Poor documentation: Lack of maintenance history or unclear standard operating procedures (SOPs) can also contribute to confusion and wasted time.

Outdated or Poorly Maintained Tools and Equipment

• Inefficient tools: It takes longer to complete tasks when technicians struggle with malfunctioning equipment. 
• Outdated technology: This can also make diagnostics and repairs more time-consuming, further impacting productivity. In other words, regular tool maintenance and timely upgrades are essential for maximizing wrench time.

Key Factors in Wrench Time

Wrench time analysis involves several important components and industry standards to enhance maintenance efficiency. Focusing on these key factors can lead to significant gains in productivity and cost savings for your organization.

Internal vs. External Wrench Time

Internal wrench time measures how long your in-house maintenance team spends on hands-on repairs, evaluating efficiency and identifying areas for improvement. Analyzing this can lead to streamlined processes, reduced downtime and increased productivity for your maintenance team.

External wrench time tracks the duration third-party contractors spend on maintenance tasks. It applies to outsourced services for specialized jobs or when your team needs additional support. Measuring external wrench time can help you determine whether or not you’re receiving good value from your contractors. It helps to compare the efficiency of your in-house team with external service providers, guiding decisions about which tasks to keep in-house and which to outsource.

Average Wrench Times to Consider

On average, maintenance technicians spend only about 35 percent of their time on actual hands-on work. The remaining 65 percent goes to non-productive activities like traveling, locating tools or managing paperwork. Top-performing maintenance teams, however, aim for a 55 percent wrench time rate. Achieving this goal can significantly boost your operational efficiency and overall maintenance performance. 

While ambitious, reaching this target can improve your facility’s upkeep and cost-effectiveness. Striving for higher wrench time percentages involves implementing better planning, scheduling and inventory management practices.

How to Measure Wrench Time

Measuring wrench time accurately helps you understand your maintenance team’s efficiency. Several methods exist, each with its own strengths and limitations:

• Self-reporting: Technicians record their own wrench time, which is simple but potentially inaccurate due to human error or bias. To improve reliability, consider using a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) with a built-in time tracker. The software helps track the amount of time spent on activities, providing more precise data. Periodic audits of self-reported time can also help ensure consistency and identify areas for improvement.
• DILO (“Day in the Life Of”) method: DILO offers a detailed look at a technician’s typical day, but workloads can vary significantly daily. So, it’s important to conduct DILO studies over multiple days and with various technicians for best results and a more understandable view. 
• Work sampling: Visit your facility randomly to check how many technicians are actively working. Work sampling provides a statistical estimate of wrench time, but it might miss technicians on breaks or working out of sight, potentially skewing the results. Increasing the frequency of observations and varying observation times can help improve accuracy.
• Statistical method: Observing workers at different times over a longer period can provide highly accurate results, but it demands more resources and effort than other methods. It’s particularly useful for large facilities or organizations with complex maintenance operations. It allows for detailed analysis of wrench time across different job types, skill levels and equipment categories.

Benefits of Measuring Wrench Time

Tracking wrench time offers valuable inputs that can significantly improve maintenance operations. These benefits include:

• Increased productivity: Accurate time measurements help identify inefficiencies in daily routines. Maintenance teams can pinpoint time-wasting activities and focus more on hands-on tasks. Awareness often leads technicians to work more efficiently, prioritizing their efforts to maximize productive time, resulting in an increase on overall team productivity, leading to more completed tasks and improved equipment uptime.
• Improved budgeting and cost savings: Wrench time data provides a clear picture of resource allocation. Managers can spot areas where time and money are being lost, enabling them to make informed decisions about staffing levels, training programs and equipment investments. It often leads to better budgeting practices and substantial cost savings. 
• Predetermined priority levels: Measuring wrench time reveals which tasks consume the most resources and time. The information helps managers prioritize maintenance activities more effectively. Issues can be identified and addressed promptly, while less urgent tasks are scheduled appropriately. It ensures that limited resources are always directed toward the most important maintenance needs, improving overall equipment reliability and performance.
• More effective task assignments: Understanding wrench time patterns allows managers to match tasks with the right technicians. They can identify which team members excel in specific areas and assign work accordingly. Strategic task distribution enhances team performance by applying the right skills to the right jobs. It also helps identify areas where additional training might be beneficial, further improving team efficiency.

Disadvantages of Measuring Wrench Time

While wrench time measurement can provide improvements, it also comes with potential drawbacks:

• Minimizes other maintenance work: Focusing heavily on wrench time can lead to undervaluing important non-tool activities. Tasks like gathering materials, waiting for parts or handling paperwork contribute significantly to effective maintenance but fall outside wrench time calculations. Overemphasis on wrench time metrics may lead to the neglect of essential preparatory work, reducing overall efficiency. The narrow focus overlooks important planning and coordination tasks necessary for effective maintenance operations.
• Negative connotation among maintenance techs: Technicians often view wrench time measurement with suspicion. Many perceive it as a performance metric that could threaten job security. The resulting anxiety can lead to inaccurate self-reporting and reluctance to discuss productivity openly. Pressure to meet specific targets may also foster a culture of fear rather than collaboration and improvement. Such an environment can hinder honest communication and problem-solving between technicians and management. Over time, this can lead to decreased morale and potentially higher staff turnover.
• False sense of staff productivity: High wrench time percentages can create an illusion of productivity without reflecting work quality or effectiveness. Technicians might appear busy while engaging in inefficient practices or unnecessary tasks. The misrepresentation can impair management’s ability to assess true operational efficiency. Basing resource and process decisions on misleading data can lead to counterproductive maintenance changes. Excessive focus on wrench time may cause technicians to skip proper diagnosis and thorough preventive maintenance, resulting in more frequent breakdowns.

How to Improve Wrench Time (Using a CMMS)

A CMMS software is a powerful tool that can help boost wrench time in maintenance operations by streamlining processes, reducing inefficiencies and helping technicians focus more on hands-on work. Here are key ways that a CMMS can improve wrench time:

Automate Inventory Management

A CMMS software helps with parts inventory, sending alerts when you’re low on parts, enabling inventory updates and triggering automatic reorders. Automated management keeps essential components stocked, letting technicians focus on repairs while also preventing excess inventory.

Streamline Communication Using In-App Messaging

In-app messaging features enable real-time team communication, reducing any delays caused by misunderstandings. Technicians can message within work orders to help clarify issues and update work statuses, maximizing maintenance time and addressing unexpected problems quickly.

Create a Maintenance Strategy & Schedule

A CMMS enables advanced maintenance scheduling and strategies. Planning preventive maintenance reduces reactive work and keeps technicians consistently engaged in productive tasks. Well-planned maintenance routines reduce unexpected breakdowns and emergency maintenance, which almost always disrupts scheduled work. The system can also help balance workloads across the team, preventing overwork or underutilization of staff.

Implement SOP Checklists for Critical Assets

You can attach SOP checklists to your most critical assets, ensuring consistency and thoroughness no matter who’s completing the work order. Technicians can complete tasks more efficiently by following standard procedures, allowing them to move on to the next project quicker. You can also keep track of finished work with digital checklists, which helps with quality control.

Track & Analyze Maintenance Workflow

A CMMS tracks maintenance workflows to help pinpoint when delays occur. Managers use this data to spot patterns and optimize operations, revealing root causes of low wrench time. Regular analysis helps improve processes and increase technicians’ hands-on maintenance time, driving continuous improvement in operations.

Boost Your Maintenance Efficiency Now

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Improving wrench time enhances maintenance efficiency and reduces costs. Measuring and optimizing this metric presents challenges, but the rewards of increased productivity, better resource allocation and improved task prioritization make it valuable for maintenance managers.

A CMMS like Coast addresses the key factors that often limit wrench time, including inventory management and real-time communication. With a CMMS, you can streamline various aspects of your maintenance operations, which, in turn, will help increase wrench time. Sign up for a free Coast account today to do just that!