Top 6 Reasons for Stupid Maintenance

8/3/2019 Top 6 Reasons for Stupid Maintenance

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You Can Fix Stupid Maintenance

What do you think when you read story afterstory of accidents or disasters that causethe loss of human life or destroy our en-

vironment? Some accidents are unavoidable, some

are acts of nature for which we have no defense forand some are just the result of being maintenancestupid.

Sadly, stupid maintenance goes well beyond highprole accidents. You can see it every day in vir-tually all industries including schools, plants, ofcefacilities, hospitals and government facilities justto name a few.

My denition of stupid maintenance is the indif-ference or incompetence of business owners, go-vernment leaders, senior executives, managers andstaff to ensure that adequate maintenance on assetsis performed in order to safeguard the health andwell-being of people and the environment.

Efects o Stupid Maintenance

The effects of poor maintenance planning andexecution go well beyond the high prole list ofdisasters such as the BP Deepwater oil spill or anylist that can found using quick internet searches.Poor maintenance programs have a direct impacton everyday businesses and operations. The mostcommon effects are:

Increased operating expenses for labor,repairs and energy. This occurs as a resultof unexpected asset repairs, overtime andan increase in energy usage by assets strug-gling to maintain production output.

Increased asset downtime for assets. Ran-ging from heavy industry assets to oceequipment. This results in idle staff, dissatis-ed customers and lost prots.

Higher capital budget expenditures as aresult of the shortening of an assets lifecycleor the need for emergency asset replace-ments.

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Higher risk of liability and fatal or injuryaccident. Insurance is no excuse for the lossof life or livelihood and it rarely covers com-plete damages amounts.

Environmental damage risk. Every industryhas waste and waste disposal issues. It doesnot take much to contaminate the environ-ment whether it is a mining tailing pondfailure, a gas buildup or an electrical re.

As an example, I wrote about my sons school havinga cooling tower used for their HVAC system that wasmaking loud noises earlier in the year. The schoolsystem (nations 5th largest) is in nancial distressand was not performing adequatemaintenance onassets. The unit subsequently broke down soon afterthe article was written leaving a high school andmiddle school without HVAC for the school year.

The school system must now replace the unit (so-

metime next year) at a cost of over a million dollarswhich is many times more than the cost of preven-tive maintenance would have been. Stupid mainte-nance is paying millions and making children/staffsuffer to save a dollar in the short-term.

Causes o Stupid Maintenance

As an experienced operations manager it is not dif-cult to see the causes of poor maintenance programs.It is more difcult to assign accountability and eventhe best made plans are subject to human error,poor hiring practices or a lack of training.

However, in general it is the administrators, seniorexecutives and business owners who must bear theresponsibility of their organizations. With this inmind, the top 7 causes for stupid maintenance are:

Top 6 Reasons for Stupid Maintenance

1. Financial risk assessment: The mostvisible reason for stupid maintenance isthe one that the press and the public havethe most problem with. It is choosing not toperform maintenance on assets either as aresult of a:

Risk assessment analysis that calcu-lates a benet/cost ratio. This type ofprogram is only effective for smallmotors or inexpensive assets that are

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truly cheaper to replace than repair. Short-sighted objective of improving

immediate cash ows by cutting backon overhead/maintenance.

Conscious decision to gamble that amajor accident or catastrophe wontoccur. From airline disasters to miningdisasters these decisions put peopleslives and our environment in jeopardy.

It is most commonly called greed, oneof the 7 Deadly Sins of Asset Manage-ment.

2. Dependency on one technology or solu-tion: Dependence on technology comes inmultiple forms but the most common are:

Poor management no real mainte-nance planning: Maintenance is notoptional for any asset intensive organi-zation. Maintenance just like budgetsand sales should be planned with ob-

jectives, action plans, benchmarks andrewards. The rst step to successfulmaintenance is a good maintenanceplanner and plan.

Reliance on spreadsheets or a manualsystem to schedule and record mainte-nance activity. Not taking advantage ofavailable technology such as an EAMCMMS system or advanced predictivemaintenance technologies will resultin organizations having exceptionallyhigh operating expenses.

An over reliance on one solution suchas a maintenance plan that incorpo-rates only reactive or condition basedor preventive maintenance or reliabi-lity centered based maintenance. Anygood maintenance plan will incorpo-rate a mixture of maintenance metho-dologies for optimal results.The over reliance on only one type ofmaintenance program is often gene-rated by a decision maker with expe-

rience or strong beliefs in a particulareld. This type of maintenance mind-set is narrow minded and leaves thedoor open to unexpected events.

3. The building of organizational silos: Buil-ding organizational silos refers to the deve-lopment and separation of an organizationsdepartments, divisions etc. In a typical sce-nario, maintenance management has a very

low visibility with a low nancial priority ascompared to sales.In larger organizations the silo affect can beseen as the functional departments battleeach other over resources and territory.Maintenance, which serves all units is lostin the shue and not heard from untilsomething breaks. As a result maintenancebudget requirements are pushed aside set-ting the stage for a disaster.

4. Fire-fghting mentality: This is more

common in poorly managed organizationswhere a lack of time, knowledge, techno-logy and maintenance planning results inmaintenance staff ghting one re afterthe other. Fire-ghting is called reactivemaintenance in that work orders andmaintenance/repairs are only done whensomething breaks down.It is a negative cycle that never gets betterand is always more expensive than institu-ting a computerized maintenance manage-ment software program (CMMS). Yes I diduse the words never and always because Ihave yet to run across an organization thatwas able to move away from reactive main-tenance without the help of an experiencedmaintenance manager or CMMS type pro-gram.

5. Lack of training: Accidents often occur as aresult of inadequate training. Just like usingaCMMS program the cost of training is mi-nimal compared to the consequences of an

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accident.6. Lack of accountability: When mainte-

nance management has limited visibility itbecomes dicult to determine the under-lying cause of accidents. It also becomesdicult to prove that proper maintenanceis being performed and that assets are notbeing neglected. The result is problems slipthrough the cracks until they blow up into

major issues.

Changing Stupid Maintenance

If, after reading this post you become inspired tomake changes in your organization there are a fewthings that you can do to help your cause. They arelisted in generalities here because every industryand organization is different and each should nda solution that works for them.

Implementing maintenance change requiresthought, planning and an understanding of howto achieve buy-in from critical resources (staff, exe-cutives etc.). Some starting goals may be to:

Hire or consult a professional maintenanceplanner.

Decide which technology and maintenancemethodology mix best suits your organiza-

tion and needs. Set out short, medium and long-term goals

such as reducing backlog by 75%, reducingenergy costs by 25% or eliminating over-time and so on.

Construct an action plan that will achievethe desired results.

Promote or hire open minded people whoare will to accept change and can executethe plan.

Make stupid maintenance a non-option.

Wow, I look at this post and see one of my longerarticles because better operations are one of mypassions. No one has all the answers but I hope thatyou come away with the idea that poor maintenanceis a choice but great maintenance is a better choice.

If you liked this article you may also enjoy reading:

EAM CMMS, facilities management, maintenancemanagement

Did you like You Can Fix Stupid

Maintenance?

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Other Articles Written by stuart smith

Stuart Smith is Minteks InBound Marketing Specia-list. He works hard at creating compelling contentto keep Minteks customers and prospects informedwith relevant information.

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Top 6 Reasons for Stupid Maintenance

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