Abandoning the Adjustable

Abandoning the Adjustable Wrench Maintenance Mentality

By John C. Robertson, maintenance reliability specialist

In today's competitive business, companies fail when the costs of operating their plants become greater than they should be. In order for a company to stay competitive, its equipment reliability program must have the flexibility to embrace new technology, as it becomes available. This is not to say that there is no room for the traditional maintenance skills. Unfortunately, as technology gets more sophisticated, the traditional skills have become nearly extinct. American industry has sought degreed engineers since the 1950s with the belief that their technological skills would solve all problems; and to a large degree, industry has neglected the shop floor technicians in the process. The result is an "adjustable wrench" operational philosophy.

Why pick on the adjustable wrench? The adjustable wrench is not a precision tool; it is merely a substitution for a properly sized wrench. More than any other tool, it has been responsible for damaging nuts and knuckles and promoting an easy-way-out attitude for performing maintenance. This attitude does not belong exclusively to maintenance departments. Just go into any hardware store and ask to see some files. They will, inevitably, be lying one on top of another unprotected in a drawer, getting ruined each time the drawer is opened or shut. The files should be individually wrapped in oiled paper, or each one should be placed in its own box.

To be effective, each one of us has to wrap ourselves in professionalism in everything we do. This professionalism must be rewarded periodically by upper management. It must not be detrimental to technicians' career paths because they are so good at what they do in their current position, and as a result of their expertise, are condemned to stay there. This happens very often and those affected leave, taking their talents elsewhere, and are usually better compensated for it. What a waste of much needed talent, when a few acts of recognition and minor rewards can make a good company a better one.

Maintenance personnel really do have a good attitude toward their chosen profession, but they are often frustrated when they lack the proper tools and training needed to produce professional results. As a consultant and instructor with many years of experience in plant maintenance, I have observed how enthusiastic people become when shown how to properly align a machine or how to pack the gland of a valve or grease a motor's bearings. They are even more enthusiastic when they learn that the motor and the valve will operate ten times longer than they have ever experienced before.

There is a dire need to update conventional maintenance to the art of "precision maintenance." The wonderful thing about precision maintenance is that it is so simple to achieve because it uses a common-sense approach to resolving problems. Using this technique recently at one facility increased equipment availability from a low 80% to a high 98% in two weeks. There is no substitute for old-fashioned common sense when you know how to apply it. It takes someone to show the way; but when people master the technique, a sense of pride and ownership pervades. This shows in an improvement in equipment reliability and a reduction in overall operational costs. The savings that can be achieved can adequately fund future training needs for a progressive company.

In some root cause failure analyses conducted to determine the cause of major breakdowns, the human factor was found to be the direct contributor. This often happens because a technician has been told to do the job but has had no formal training on how to do it. He or she should not be held totally responsible for mishaps that arise from any lack of expertise. This must be shared by the first line manager, upper management, and the training group. It does not make sense to send an inexperienced technician off with a technical manual to perform a task. Most technical manuals contain only enough information to be dangerous! Just compare your copy of the machine manual with the manufacturer's technical representative's copy and this becomes obvious.

Some companies have downsized their maintenance departments by offering incentive packages for people to leave. Unfortunately, in most cases, the people targeted have been those with many years of maintenance experience. The gaps are then filled with operators who will support the maintenance technicians by performing minor maintenance tasks. This is not the cause of all of our country's maintenance ailments, but it compounds the need to have experienced people, if not to do the job, at least train others before they leave the work force. Trained operators certainly have the expertise to run equipment, and they do provide the maintenance technicians with helpful advice, such as how the machine performed before the failure. But this does not make an operator capable of bedding in a sleeve bearing and setting the oil film clearance.

The Merchant Marine certainly supports the idea of operators doing maintenance on main propulsion and auxiliary equipment. I did it for 15 years. However, I had to do a rigorous five years of mechanical engineering apprenticeship before being qualified to help operate and maintain a seagoing ship.

Operators need extensive training in order to meet the responsibilities of plant maintenance. This is not an impossible task. But to be fair to the operators, training is time consuming, and time is money. Can companies really support this form of maintenance? If it is to succeed, operators must be actively involved in maintenance, but they should initially focus on the basic skills. Repacking glands on pumps and valves, installing gaskets, checking for softfoot conditions on machinery, and correctly lubricating bearings are good starting points for operators. Their operational expertise lends itself to activities such as inspection and precision adjustments; and because of their understanding of how machines are built and operated, many operators would make good data collectors, especially in the fields of vibration analysis, thermography, and lubrication.

If good maintenance is to be consistently performed, technicians must also be trained to intimately know how their equipment is constructed, how it operates, and how it contributes to the financial wellbeing of the company. Procedures and work ethics must be developed within the plant for consistency and accuracy. If training cannot be developed within the plant, avoid those programs that have been produced by "well-intentioned spinsters writing about motherhood!" For technicians to become truly effective, training must be a mixture of classroom and formal on-the-job training. The instructional materials should be designed so that when the classroom work is finished, class materials can be taken out to the job and used as detailed work instructions. In order to earn trainees' respect, instructors must be carefully chosen for their effectiveness in the classroom and their expertise in the field.

In general, plants can have all of the most sophisticated computers and software in the world to help them try to reach their goals, but they must not ignore the hands that actually transform the computerized analyses into reliable machinery performance. Those hands hold the keys to success.

This article is provided courtesy of Strategic Work Systems, Inc.

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