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4 Steps to Manufacturing MaintenanceExcellence

Maintenance as a percentage of productioncosts remain a major expense for manu-facturing and production facilities. The

expense percentage will vary depending upon the

type of industry, age of equipment, sophisticationof maintenance programs as well as general ma-nagement skills. The commonality is that everyorganization has an opportunity to improve theirprocesses and the lifecycle of assets. Some peoplefocus on management, others on maintenance anda few believe that technology holds all the answers.The best method of lowering maintenance expensesis a combination of all of these.

The critical elements for developing a plan for main-

tenance improvement in order of importance are

1. Management comprehension

Management and maintenance management buy-in is absolutely crucial in order to execute change.Prehistoric mindsets for example this is how wehave always done things, we tried that once beforeand it didnt workplus an aversion to technology

must all be challenged. EAM Change is rarely asimple process and requires planning, knowledgeand a willingness to work together for the benetof a company. Change is a team effort and anyone

suggesting differently should be replaced.

Lots of consultants will tell you that you need a for-mal planning group, assignment of accountability,benchmarks etc. and this is all true. However, thebottom line is an organization can not be afraidto take a nancial step backwards (invest in newmethodologies or tools) in order to remain compe-titive in a global economy. Buy-in starts at the topand does not stop until the workers go along with thechange. To accomplish this task, management needs

a complete understanding of the manufacturingworkow BEFORE they think through the changes.

Thinking through the changes means understandingthe who, what, why, where and how the organizationcurrently operates as well the details of how goalswill be achieved. This information is knowledgebased and best of class of manufacturers are sureto engage multiple departments, line managers andemployees for feedback in order to ascertain enoughinformation to progress forward.

1. Knowing Your Assets Historically, theMean-Time-to-Failure (MTTF) curve hasindicated that during the lifecycle of anasset, equipment is most likely to need re-pair in the rst few weeks after installationand again toward the end of its lifecycle.Although very important, the age of yourassets is only one component of asset detailthat needs to be collected. Other signicantdata collection includes

Location, description, designated use,

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4 Steps to Manufacturing Maintenance Excellence

expected useful lifecycle and initialcosts to establish a baseline and dis-tinguish operational environments.Knowing the operational environmentis important especially if assets aresubject to harsh weather conditions orcorrosion.

The annual cost of corrosion in the production

and manufacturing category is $17.6 billion,which is 12.8% of the total cost of the sectorcategories examined in this study.

Source: DNV Production and Manufacturing

1. Vendor information, contract data, ven-dor analysis. Identify all vendor contracts,terms, conditions along with cost structure.How well do your vendors perform in theeyes of the maintenance team?

2. Work order history how many times, bywhom, what work was performed, why,costs. The history of maintenance activitywill enable management to determine acost/benet analysis and project the expec-ted retirement or replacement date of as-sets. Accurate forecasting allows cash owsto be better utilized for capital equipmentpurchases.

3. Inventory needed for operation such asspare parts, lubricants, lters etc. Alongwith the carrying costs associated withinventory, tracking the movement of in-ventory may lead to additional signals thatmaintenance costs are starting to rise. Inaddition, no one wants to have downtimebecause the parts arent available. Manage-ment should know how many times this hasoccurred and why.

4. Record of work orders separated as a resultof failure (unplanned downtime), inspec-tions, preventive maintenance, predictivemaintenance. This is necessary to unders-

tand the correlation between reactive reghting which often involves overtime andproactive scheduling which costs much less.

TheDUHfactor here is if you can not put togetherall this information, then you have a problem. Butdo the best you can and proceed. The solution is atthe end.

1. Technology and Existing KnowledgeWith the information and support collectedin the prior steps it is time to take a lookaround and see what technology is avai-lable to ease your pain. Technology comesin various forms which includes everythingfrom software to mobile handheld devicesto cutting edge diagnostic tools. Becausetechnology is often industry specic it is notpossible to provide an in-depth discussionfor all manufacturing in this article. Some

technology keys to consider are Is the technology proven or bleeding edge?Bleeding edge technology can be easilydened as technology that cost more thanexpected to keep operating as a result ofunexpected bugs, undeveloped/untestedprocedures and so on.

Combine technologies for best results ifnecessary. As an example, in manufactu-ring, there are several schools of thoughtregarding the value of preventive, predic-tive and other condition based maintenancesolutions. The reality is, any maintenancesolution that can decrease your reactivework orders is good. How much preventivevs. predictive maintenance depends on thetype of equipment in use, its ability to haveissues detected remotely and skill of yourreliability engineers. It is ok if the best solu-tion is to use multiple technologies.

Which technology will allow you to concen-trate your resources on the core business?Bells and whistles are great but only if they

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