Maintenance Processes - A Framework for World Class Maintenance

 

     In general terms, the Maintenance management process can be considered as having six phases, as illustrated below.
     This can be recognized as being similar to the familiar control loops, where plans are put in place, actions take place, and then the outputs are compared with the original plan and appropriate action taken.
     In our experience, at most sites where few or no benefits have been obtained from the CMMS implementation, the prime reason is that these feedback and control loops are either missing, or ineffective. 
     In these cases, the CMMS becomes little more than a sophisticated (and expensive) work order printer. 
     The specific feedback loops and processes that are required in a successful Maintenance Management process include:
Daily Scheduling and Job Control
     This covers such areas as how work is allocated to the workforce, and how expectations are generated regarding a "reasonable" time for job completion. It also includes how daily priorities are set, and decisions made regarding the deferral or cancellation of planned work in order to incorporate daily breakdowns.
     Much of this is outside the scope of a CMMS to influence, but a good CMMS would facilitate this process by providing a quick and easy way for front-line supervision to schedule work on a daily basis, including the use of time-line type bar charts which allow them to easily allocate work to tradesmen, and rapidly assess the impact of changes to the day?s schedule. It would also allow them to record data that permits future analysis of job delays with a view to eliminating or reducing those delays.
     Currently, most CMMS do not easily facilitate this process, and as a result, much of this work is performed using manual log books and worksheets.
Effective Weekly Scheduling Control and Management
     This incorporates the development of a Weekly Schedule, but more importantly, also includes control loops that ensure that the Weekly Schedule is realistic and achievable, and also works towards a steady increase in the amount of scheduled work, relative to unscheduled work. 
     An effective Weekly Scheduling system permits the allocation of jobs to specific days, so that parts can be delivered to the job site "just in time", and so that equipment can be shutdown and cleaned prior to the tradesman arriving to perform the maintenance task. It also compares the labour requirements of the schedule with the labour available from the work crew for each day of the schedule, and allows effective decision-making regarding the need for supplementary labour or the need to reschedule work before the schedule is finalised. Finally, it also permits the collection of data on a timely basis to permit effective comparison of "actual" with "schedule" in terms of job timing and duration.
     Some CMMS have the facility to perform some of these functions, but often the biggest gap is the capability to collect data and analyse it with regard to Weekly Schedule completion. On many sites where we have implemented CMMS, we have needed to supplement the CMMS with spreadsheets or other tools that permit this analysis. 
 
Job Planning Improvement
     Almost all mine sites these days "plan" some work. However, the quality of the planning varies enormously. In some cases, what is described as "planning" is little more than scheduling - a task is allocated to a specific time period, but little or no forethought has gone into the job procedure, the labor requirements (by trade type), any parts or special resource requirements (such as cranes, tools etc.). Furthermore, few mine sites compare actual labor hours or costs incurred with those that were initially estimated for the jobs, either on an aggregate basis, or on a job-by-job basis.
     Almost all CMMS these days provide the facility to report on this type of analysis. What is frequently missing are the formal processes, disciplines and allocated responsibilities to make this a routine Maintenance Management task. 
Maintenance Budgeting and Cost Control
     It is a motherhood statement that Maintenance costs are generated by Maintenance Activities. While some mine sites prepare Maintenance budgets that are based on a bottom-up assessment of the Maintenance activities that they expect to perform, how many then report actual costs against those budgeted activities? Most CMMS only permit the reporting of actual costs against budgeted amounts, and so an essential element of cost control is lost, because the manual effort involved in reconciling the budgeted activities with those actually performed means that this task is not performed.
     It is also a motherhood statement that costs are actually generated at the shop floor level, and that the decisions made on a daily basis by trades staff and foremen can greatly influence Maintenance costs. This being the case, the budgeting and cost control procedure should clearly be "owned" by these people, with people at this level being held responsible for preparing Maintenance budgets, and controlling costs to within those budgets.
Maintenance Effectiveness Improvement Processes.
     Of all the processes listed, this is the process which most separates World Class maintenance operations from the remainder. While the other processes focus on improving Maintenance efficiency - doing things right - this focuses on Maintenance effectiveness - doing the right things.
     Included in this process are activities such as failure analysis and Reliability Centered Maintenance analysis.
     CMMS can provide valuable information to assist with these analyses, yet we often see that the Maintenance history recorded is virtually unusable for these purposes. To make informed decisions regarding Equipment Maintenance Strategies and equipment design modifications we need to record information about:
  • The number of failures
  • The root causes of those failures
  • The Maintenance costs associated with those failures
  • The Production costs associated with those failures - note that these may incorporate more than just downtime costs.
  • Any Safety or Environmental implications associated with those failures.
     Most of these items are missing from the history records of most CMMS. 
The key with all of these processes is to: 
     First, establish your control processes and determine their information requirements, and then, and only then, establish the systems, codes and procedures within the CMMS to provide that information.
     In almost all CMMS implementations, the first step is either not performed at all, or the steps are performed in reverse order.
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