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New Year’s resolutions for improving maintenance

So, let’s assume we have an average plant and the economy is tight. We can’t travel, and we must save money. What should our New Year’s resolution be? Here are some suggestions:

1) If we are going to cut maintenance cost, we cannot focus on cost itself, but rather on what DRIVES cost. Perhaps use an analogy in safety. We can’t just send out a memo or shout “improve safety”. We need to fundamentally change the way we behave. Another analogy is energy cost. How would you reduce energy cost? We have to focus on things that save energy and drive that cost such as leaks, insulation, etc. When it comes to maintenance cost, we often just slash it without having a clue to the effects of that cost cutting. Again, focus on what DRIVES maintenance cost, not the cost itself. More reading.

2) Get a common understanding between operations and maintenance on what constitutes good maintenance. I recently worked in a plant that has tried for years to improve reliability. But when we asked what constituted good maintenance, operations answered (on average) that “75 percent of the work is executed the same day”, while maintenance (on average) answered that “good maintenance is when 4 percent of the work is executed the same day.” A plant must sit down and define “what good looks like”; otherwise, you will never be able to drive improvements in the right direction.

3) Only request maintenance jobs to be done today or tomorrow if it is absolutely necessary. This is a principal that makes sense, that most people understand, but few actually do. It is the classic know-do gap. It is also often triggered by not trusting the maintenance department. If it is not submitted as an emergency, it will not be done. In the past, people have started to scream louder and louder to get jobs done; eventually, everybody is screaming. Managers must take charge and enforce a meaningful priority system.

4) Inspect equipment with detailed look, listen, smell, feel inspections together with a minimum of an IR gun, flashlight and a stroboscope. There is no way we can plan for next week if we don’t know what is about to break down, right? Many plants are in a Catch 22. “There is no time to do inspections because we have too many breakdowns” is something I hear several times a month. Management has to take charge and break out of the circle. It will initially cost some additional time that will be saved in both maintenance cost and uptime later. There’s no magic. It’s very simple. There’s no need to start a big RCM project to get going. Collect the tools and get a craftsperson that is highly skilled and willing to do the inspections and send him or her off to start. Detailed documentation is necessary at some point, but it is more important to get started. Detailed instructions using color pictures for how to inspect are available.

I think the above is a good list to start on for the average plant. Most plants do some of this already; however, they just have to improve. There is no capital cost - just the cost for doing repairs that has to be done anyways earlier and cheaper.

 

 

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Filed Under: Featured, Maintenance Excellence    |  Tags: maintenance, maintenance management

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