Best Maintenance has its
foundation in Best Maintenance Practices. Those practices include
the following twelve areas:
1. Leadership and Policy Deployment
2. Organizational Structure
3. Inventory Control
4. Computerized Maintenance Management Systems
5. Preventive Maintenance
6. Predictive Maintenance
7. Planning and Scheduling
8. Work Flow
9. Financial Control
10. Operational Involvement
11. Staffing and Development
12. Continuous Improvement
Leadership and Policy Deployment
Let's look at the first of these, Leadership and Policy Deployment.
World Class Maintenance relies on leadership providing direction,
focus and support. This involves management establishing a clear
mission and vision supportive of the organization's direction
and goals.
Leadership is also responsible for establishing the policies
and expectations that serve to guide maintenance and the total
organization in supporting maintenance activities. Once policies
are developed, they must be deployed, communicated and monitored.
Part of the responsibility of leadership is to set the framework
for maintenance to improve its effectiveness and efficiency. This
may often be in the form of a formal improvement effort or program.
Leadership should help to identify and address resource issues
that could prevent improvements from taking place. This may often
be accomplished through auditing or other forms of monitoring
to ensure successful implementation.
Organizational Structure
Maintenance organizational efficiency depends upon many interdependent
variables. Some of these include: organizational structure, goals
and objectives, communications processes, policies and procedures,
work processes (methodologies) and employee systems. Maintenance
organizations function at three major levels: organizational level
(functional and structural relationships), process level (work
activities) and job performer level (individual worker).
The ineffectiveness of one level could negatively impact another
level. For example, poorly defined work activities, such as the
lack of planning and scheduling, can hinder an individual's performance
and attitude.
One element is to develop a process to conceive and communicate
the maintenance philosophy including the refined mission, goals,
direction, focus, purpose, etc.
An often-used strategy may involve allocating maintenance resources
closer to the actual work area such as "zone" or "area" coverage.
This maximizes familiarity with the equipment, the operations
personnel in that area, and encourages "ownership."
It may or may not include the decentralization of maintenance
to partial or full control by operations personnel. Regardless,
maximizing productivity and labor utilization is key.
Inventory Control
The purpose of this practice area is to refine the maintenance
stores and acquisition process to streamline parts appropriation.
It is focused on the right parts in the right place at the right
time.
This may involve studying the existing flow of requested parts
and improving the process to reduce wasted effort and inactivity.
This would involve standardized stores and inventory practices.
Minimizing poor use of the company's assets can be accomplished
through many ways. These may include improved turnover, cost control,
efficient purchasing practices, judicious inventory counts, vendor
stocking, recorded issuances, secured access, staffed coverage,
close monitoring of min-max levels and reorder points, as well
as minimizing unofficial stocking or "squirreling" of parts can
go a long way to ensure best use of spares and materials.
Computerized Maintenance Management Systems
Successful maintenance practices depend a great deal on a robust
information system. This involves having a CMMS program that is
capable, well supported, and fairly easy to use.
Modules should be consistent with industry standards. These areas
included: equipment data management, work-order control, preventive
maintenance, inventory control, documentation control, system
security,
ease of use, reports, user configuration and metrics.
This also includes maximizing the usage of the CMMS capabilities.
Although most companies have a CMMS, poor utilization is quite
common.
Preventive Maintenance
PM is often defined as "those timed or meter-based service activities
used to extend the life of equipment and identify potential problems
through inspection and early detection."
PM may include work performed on selected equipment through service
contracts, inspections, cleaning activities, testing, lubrication
efforts, and scheduled shutdown service. The most significant
activity to occur in PM is inspection, which should lead to early
detection and correction.
PM is a major component in moving from reactive to proactive
through early detection and early correction.
Predictive Maintenance
A sound description of PDM is "the application of technologies
and early detection processes to monitor and detect changes in
condition to allow more precise intervention."
PDM may include vibration analysis, shock pulse methods, ultrasonics,
thermographic analysis, oil analysis, electrical surge comparisons,
coolant analysis, wear particle analysis, and performance trending.
Planning & Scheduling
Planning is devising a process for doing, making or arranging
maintenance work. It involves preparing job plans and other resources
to enable the craftsperson to perform the work quicker and more
efficiently. It often deals with the "what" and "how".
Scheduling is creating a schedule for when the work is to be
performed. Where planning dealt with the "what" and "how", scheduling
deals with the "when" and "who."
The lack of organized processes and standardized procedures can
significantly restrict a maintenance operation from meeting its
objectives of servicing the needs of the organization.
The majority of maintenance work can be planned and, for the
most part, should be. Increasing productivity or value-added work
of maintenance personnel depends a great deal on properly planned
activities.
Work Flow
The work order is an integral part of an effective maintenance
operation. It serves to:
1. Identify work
2. Request work
3. Prioritize work
4. Schedule work
5. Activate work
6. Track work
7. Analyze work
The importance of this paper or electronic document is to allow
us to control and monitor work activities. One of the most significant
purposes is to analyze work that has been performed to identify
costs, losses, and trending of problems.
Financial Control
This practice area deals with the fiscal control procedures of
the maintenance organization. It may include budget control, contractor
cost monitoring, and overall labor and material cost control.
It may also include monitoring and affecting decisions on asset
repair/replacement.
Operational Involvement
It is becoming rarer to find organizations that have not broadened
their level of operator involvement in basic care type activities.
The logic includes having operators assume some basic responsibilities
such as routine cleaning, lubrication tasks, adjusting/tightening,
inspections, and minor repair/replacement.
This may be in the form of Total Productive Maintenance or some
other structured process to encourage ownership, involvement and
improve equipment reliability.
Staffing & Development
To support the "new" maintenance organization, jobs will have
to be redefined to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Traditional
views of restrictive job requirements and duties will have to
be replaced with more flexibility and higher levels of skills.
People will perform successfully if they are capable, have well
defined job roles, know what is expected of them, have the skills
and knowledge as well as the tools and resources to perform, and
receive feedback and rewards for good performance.
Training and skill development is a key component as it enables
people to meet the expectations that face in their changing jobs.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is best described as constantly striving
for better ways to do things. It is creating discomfort with the
status quo and striving toward excellence through small, incremental
change.
This often involves comparing one's operation to others to find
those better ways. This is referred to as benchmarking.
It also involves auditing and monitoring one's activities to
reduce the possibility of slippage and not following standards.
Reliability's greatest enemy is variation. Finding a consistent
process to follow but continuing to look for ways to improve the
process is one of the ways good companies become great companies.
Summary
Poor planning, improperly trained staff, unclear goals and objectives,
lack of leadership, poor historical records, and inefficient manning
can cause work to take longer, cost more, and produce poor results.
This outcome is an organization that is inadequately postured
to compete effectively.
Solid maintenance practices supports a strong maintenance system
geared toward proactive activities involving the total organization.
Improving those practices requires patience, management commitment
and dedication, as well as the willingness to make it happen through
well-conceived plans and actions.
Measuring these practices is important to see how well they perform.
However, the ultimate indicator is how well maintenance enables
the rest of the organization to meet its goals and objectives
