Lean maintenance: Is it a new concept or another ‘acronym’?
It seems as if new weight loss programs and products come out every week. The latest I saw was a plastic wrap that you place around your stomach called “Sauna Fit”. If you strap it around your stomach, you will sweat and lose weight. Brilliant! I’m thinking that you’ll probably sweat if you wrap anything air-tight around your stomach, but what do I know? Perhaps I am being cynical.
Perhaps the more interesting thought is to wonder why “we” fall for this stuff over and over when we all know some of the basic concepts in weight loss? I don’t think they include plastic wrap.
- We all know fat can’t be burned locally on a body
- We know that less energy intake will reduce fat
- We know more exercise will burn fat
- We know more muscle mass will increase the metabolism
If you know and understand these basic principles of weight loss, you can apply them and become very successful in losing weight. You will learn that it takes hard work to improve your metabolism. You will learn it is a long-term lifestyle commitment, not a short-term project. This sounds awfully similar to reliability improvements, doesn’t it? Perhaps that is because both topics are maintenance, just with different equipment.
Lean is another new concept or buzzword around maintenance. I like the angle of lean very much. The lean philosophy encourages us to look at waste. What is waste in maintenance? Typically (not always), the largest waste is environmental and safety issues, followed by downtime of production equipment, and then there are also other losses such as damage due to catastrophic failures, wasted labor due to poor management system, high cost of parts, and much more.
The key in the lean philosophy is to answer the question, “How do we reduce waste?” The answer is that we improve equipment reliability; and as we all know, the key elements to improve equipment reliability are to have the following:
- Good leadership
- Planning and scheduling systems
- Preventive maintenance systems
- Spare parts management practices
- Technical database
- Root cause analysis practices
- Engineering and design with consideration to reliability and maintainability
- Tools and workshops
- Skills development on all levels
The concept “lean maintenance” and all other new reliability improvement concepts often provide interesting angles and viewpoints, but you will end up with the same answers. To be quite honest, there are new technologies, but not much new has happened with work practices lately. The list above has been true since we started our company in 1972. The hard part is doing the things in the list, not coming up with the list itself.
To answer the question in the header, lean is just another acronym for doing the basics, but the angle is different. I recommend reading Shigeo Shingo’s classic book “Fundamental Principles of Lean Manufacturing” and apply the basic principles to reliability.
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Filed Under: Featured, Maintenance Excellence | Tags: business management, change management, Lean Manufacturing, maintenance management, operations and production, People Management, reliability excellence
Comments
By Andy Taylor on January 21st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Good article Tor,
I completely agree, too many hypes around the latest “production trend” that some people try to convert into maintenance philosophy, but when you read the books, it is still about the basics you discuss.
Andy Taylor
By Ken Sullivan on January 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Lean is a good way to look at things, but I don’t think we need another acronym in maintenance. It is you guys (consultants) that come up with this stuff, Tor. It is good to hear that some consultants see it clearly though, thanks,
Ken
By Randy O'Hare on January 28th, 2010 at 8:07 am
Tor,
I have to do work and eat less to loose weight? I hate this idea, I rather take a pill
We know what to do, it is just sooooo hard and soooo much work, and i don’t have enough people, and… (I’m talking reliability now, not my weight)
By Joel Levitt on January 28th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I have a vested interest in this conversation having written a book called Lean Maintenance. There are a couple of things. Lean Manufacturing and Lean Maintenance are certainly first cousins or even brothers but not identical.
What is the same is that Shingo teaches how to see waste and the way to look at the shop floor. For me lean is like an attitude like the Eastern idea of mindfulness.
The other delightful idea is the idea of the normalization of deviance. That idea says if you look at something long enough it will start to look normal. That it is why seeing waste in your own plant is so hard and seeing it in someone elses is so easy.
Cheers Joel
By Tor Idhammar on January 29th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Very well put Joel.
This is exactly what I mean in the Blog. Lean is a very valuable tool for the viewpoint, attitude, or angle we look at improvement. I encourage all to read up on the Lean perspective and get energized, it opens your mind in finding the problem we don’t see as a problem. I call this plant or mill blindness. HOWEVER, when we DO take the blinders off and analyze a plant, i think 999 times of a 1000, we will get back to the same tough conclusions:
1. Have the right people for the right job
2. Improve planning and scheduling
3. Improve PM including lubrication, alignment, cleaning, inspections, etc
4. Have an organized storeroom and a complete Bill of material
5. Do your root cause on the right problems
6. Have a good technical database
SO, PLANT MANAGER OUT THERE - STAY THE COURSE, DON”T INTRODUCE NEW CONCEPTS EVERY 2 YEARS TO THE ORGANIZATION, YOU WILL CONFUSE THEM! IT’S ABOUT EXECUTING THE BASICS (ABOVE)! HOWEVER, READ NEW BOOKS AND GET ENERGIZED FROM NEW PERSPECTIVES.
I haven’t read your book Joel, I will pick up a copy and read it on my long flights, it sounds interesting.
Tor Idhammar