Maintenance Management 101: Part 1

Maintenance Management 101: Part 1

Introduction:

You’ve just been named Maintenance Manager of a large manufacturing plant. You have the responsibility of maintaining the plant equipment at a high level of reliability within a severely constrained budget. How in the world do you get your arms around this beast we call Maintenance and get it under control?

The good news is that there is a wealth of information in books, magazine articles, internet articles, and conference proceedings concerning the subject of Maintenance Management. It’s also the bad news, because there is so much out there that it’s overwhelming. It really doesn’t tell you where to start. This article will explore ten of the most basic concepts that every maintenance manager must know to put into practice. These will provide a springboard to more advanced concepts that will provide increasing value to your organization.

• Failures don’t have to happen.
  This is an attitude; a philosophy; a way of thinking. Reactive organizations expect failures to occur and position their resources to repair the failures as quickly as possible. This typically means lots of spare parts in stores and maintenance coverage around the clock. Although it sounds logical on the surface, it is the most expensive management philosophy you can have.
  
  Proactive organizations realize that the fastest repairman in the world is not as fast as the craftsman that did not allow the failure to happen in the first place. They do not expect failures to occur; if one does, they seek to understand why it happened. --Something had to cause it, whether a design problem, a faulty part, an error by an operator, or a problem with the maintenance strategy. The important point is that you should not accept an equipment failure without asking that most powerful word, “WHY”.
  
  Failures represent the most expensive information you can get, and therefore the most valuable. Not only do you incur the cost of the repair, but also the cost of downtime. Perform “post-mortems” on failed components and perform root cause analysis to learn the causes of failures so that this money is not spent in vain.
  
  
  
  
• The work order system is your best friend.
  Your work order system, and the entire work management process, is your most valuable management tool. It allows you to manage the daily work load, manage your resources, and create asset history as well as providing the information that you need to identify opportunities for improvement. However, it’s not much good to you if you don’t have the discipline to follow it. If it’s only partially used, you won’t be able to trust the data collected.
  
  Your process should be mapped in a process flow diagram. This will allow you to show everyone how it’s supposed to work, which is the key to ensuring it’s followed with the right level of discipline. No maintenance work should be allowed to be done without a work order to cover the labor and material costs. By the same token, no inventoried storeroom materials or outside purchased items should be purchased without a work order to capture the costs.
  
  Just as the Production Manager needs a production management system to track production, and the Finance Manager needs an accounting system to track money, the Maintenance Manager needs a work order system to track maintenance. And, like those other critical systems, it should be audited periodically as well. This serves two purposes – it illustrates the value you put on it (which makes it more likely to be followed), and identifies any potential flaws that will require a modification to it’s design.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Maintenance Management 101!