Section » Maintenance Excellence
In a learning organization, you must learn needs of workforce
Before you attempt to ask people to learn something new, you should take a few minutes to diagnose their needs and how they might learn best. See, not everyone learns the same way, at the same rate, or has the same background or experiences that you do. At the end of the day, you aren’t the one learning, they are. Let me share a few experiences with
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Tips for maintaining a complete and accurate equipment registry
The equipment registry is one of the most important tools in your kit when it comes to maintenance and reliability. It can be the foundation of your planned maintenance, lubrication, training and repair programs, plus it helps with regulatory compliance and safety programs. Your spare parts management
Expert tips on successfully planning a CMMS project
A well-planned and executed computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) project can yield a maximum return on your investment (ROI). This return is realized through increased efficiency, productivity and profits. However, a poorly planned and executed CMMS project can result in a loss of revenues.
Redundancy is not a four-letter word!
In one of my first blogs here, I mentioned my nuclear submarine background. Among the things I mentioned was the redundancy built into their high-reliability designs. Many of those systems were split into two halves (port and starboard), and each system had two pumps (total of four). Each side could
Skimping on the training puts your CMMS project at risk
Training for users of a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a multiple-phase process. There are three areas of training needs: 1) Basic training - Make sure people who will operate the CMMS are familiar with computer basics and the operating system. If not, provide them with basic training
Information management is the key to maintenance performance
One area that we often overlook is that of information management. That’s actually one of the more important areas, but it lacks glamour and excitement - plus it requires steady, regular and planned effort - so we naturally gravitate toward the areas that give us the periodic rush of adrenaline
P-cards are a help that also hurts; here’s how to reverse the curse
I recently was facilitating a maintenance management seminar, and during the course of discussions, the topic of purchasing cards (P-cards) being taken away for misuse almost created a riot among the group. One of the more frequent complaints I hear from maintenance people is that they just want the
Lessons from Boulder Dam: Maintenance Achievements Begin with the Essentials
There’s a really great documentary that shows up periodically on public television. It describes the building of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam on the Colorado River back in the early 1930s. (Like many, I was never really sure if these were two separate dams.) This was a project of truly incredible size
Guidance and game plans for your maintenance shop’s special tools
We all accumulate special fixtures, lifting frames, carts, transport pallets and piping inserts that are infrequently used but save time and enhance safety when their time comes. What you do with these special tools in between determines whether you get that savings and safety boost again or if you have
The rise of autonomous operator maintenance and work redesign
My blog entry on the “White Glove Story” got close to the idea of operator maintenance. My study on the coal gasification generating plant was about the ultimate vision of the one employee who has the skills and ability to do whatever is necessary to keep the process operating effectively. What
The ‘White Glove Story’ and dirty little TPM secrets
Several years ago, a group called the Maintenance Excellence Roundtable met on the West Coast to present what it had accomplished during the previous year and where it was headed for the coming year. We were privileged to have Robert Williamson in attendance, and he told us a story that stuck with me
