November 02, 2005
The Cost of Maintenance Part 5
This is Part 5 of ‘The Cost of Maintenance.’ We are going to continue from where we left off this past summer. To date we have covered a number of the reasons why maintenance and reliability programs fail, why equipment is left on the shelf and some of the general training issues that relate to the downfall of a potentially successful maintenance program. We have also covered maintenance entropy, a condition where a successful program fails just because of its success and the lack of understanding of management as to the business model for maintenance.
Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP
President
SUCCESS by DESIGN
http://www.motordoc.net
Let us start by discussing what is required to initiate a successful program. In our next sections, we will look at reviving a program, selecting technologies, defining different types of maintenance philosophies and working towards keeping it all together.
Initiating a Successful Program
I have been asked, many times, how to start a program. My answer is always the same: “From the beginning.”
When starting any maintenance program you should follow a specific pattern:
1. Know your equipment – perform a census of the equipment that exists at your facility;
2. Determine Criticality – determine what equipment and systems are critical to the following:
--a. Personnel Safety
--b. Law/Regulations
--c. Production
--d. Expensive to Repair/Replace
3. Determine Existing Condition – evaluate the existing condition of the critical equipment
4. Gap analysis of implementing the program;
5. PM Optimization: Start by reducing the obviously redundant or unnecessary PM’s;
6. Develop maintenance strategy using logical process (ie: RCM):
--a. Understand the functions required;
--b. Understand what consititutes a functional failure;
--c. Understanding the failure Modes;
--d. Understanding the failure effects;
--e. Understanding the failure consequences and risk;
--f. What proactive tasks and intervals can detect or prevent;
--g. What can be done should a task not be identified.
7. Maintenance Effectiveness Reviews: Periodically review and update the maintenance program based upon history, RCA, etc.
Of course, such items as servicing, lubrication, scheduling, root-cause-analysis, etc. all play a part in the program, as do inspections and testing.
With the program in place, the average facility can expect an industry average improvement of:
- Maintenance costs of 24-30%
- Elimination of breakdowns by 70-75%
- Downtime by 35-40%
- Throughput by 20-25%
- Reduction in PM’s by 33-66%
- Man-hour utilization improvements of 40-50%
These are significant improvements in any program, which usually result in immediate returns on investment following the implementation of gap.
To be continued….
