Make the Tail Wag the Dog

When production stops, so do profits. Then maintenance gets all the attention it never wanted. Good luck trying to convince them before that point. Especially during tough economic times.

In the railroad business they talk about builder and spoiler managements. The builders build great railroads. The spoilers pay great dividends.

Ed Weldon

Rather than the monetary cost of lost production due to an equipment failure; more importantly is the human factor in which a failed piece of equipment has created lost wages, personal suffering, or even death to one or more workers.

When it is time for management to stand before a court, I'm certain that they would like to tell the court that they did all they could to reduce the chance of personal injury or death?

Well, there can not be a direct answer to the issue quoted ,on making managements understand the importance of sincere maintenance adherence..The following points could be thought over.

*It depends on how old the plant is.Very old machineris,or recommissioned plants with old machines-the chances of breakdowns are going to be more.Even if efficient operative/production staff are there, breaKdowns are bound to be there,giving sleepless challenges to maintenance technicians.On the part of engineers, when selecting such plants, ask for real breakdown histories,may be a strong reason why it is being disposed.

*Whereas prodution personnel always have the knack of blaming maintenance for break downs,the engineering team has to be vigilant on daily reports and estimation of break down and data development on frequencies.

*production and maintenance personnel are to work in hand to hand co ordination with nutual empathy to resolve issues.This is for the strong reason that production,maintenance,human resources,support services and sales/customer services all interacting elements bear a strong moral responsibility to deliver their mutual best for the organization.A well experienced matured unit head ,could be the right choice for any management.

*Presenting data based on reality economics like maintenance cost,frequeny Vs productivity improvement based on unit past peformance could be the most effective way to convince managements or towards taking up collective decision making.Every one has a moral responsibilty to feel the industry with a sort of ownwership and belongingness.Such units function with happy employees.When all brains work to gether with a common goal towards the organization,enrgies become synergies.

*Long term based training need of operatives,maintenace technicians on par with changing technologies and mutidisciplinery training on periodic basis is another important strategy including choice of machinery.The machinery supplier should also have a rapport with customers on performance criteria/improvement inputs.

*Unforseen breakdowns, inspite of good maintenance are also part of the game,that maintenance engineers has to face the challenges,but brain storm and enrich experience.

*To end up let me say the maintenance team leader bears lot of responsibilty as a key role player for unit's productivity.HATS OFF TO ALL SUCH DEDICATED ENGINEERS.

any discussion might start with the benefits of preventative maintenance..

"because maintenance is considered a cost center"

Sure Maintenance has a cost associated to it, but in our company it forms parts of the P&L for that section and must be budgetted for. It is essential that preventitive maintenance be carried out on a regular basis and to a prescribed timetable to maximise machine "up-time".

We use a maintenance program for all machines and fixed plant called MEX (Maintenance Experts software systems) which enables a scheduled production flow to occur while a particular machine in a section is "down" for prearranged maintenance.

Managements thoughts are simple, it's easier to guarantee and meet dead lines if all machines are in operative condition, with machines that are "down" for known scheduled maintenance withdrawn from the availability matrix.

It's less stress for the maintenance crew also, who can plan ahead and have all the parts available before the machine goes "down" or "off-line".

We still have some day to day problems but the repitition is so minimal now it hardly has any effect on production volume or targets.

I am still a believer in "Planned Maintenance", even after over 40 years after I was taught it in the RN. I have never been convinced to the contrary by anyone up to now....

Also, Planned Maintenance brings to light, the possible reasons for future failures early enough so that measures can be taken to avert a disaster. In a military environment, very important, but also in a business environment.

The fly in the ointment are always the financial people who see it only as a drain on resources.....but blame the maintainers for all failures.....they can have their cake and eat it!!!

The inevitable problem for maintenance organizations is that the accountants see that which is repeatable, predictable and most especially measurable in numbers. These are the characteristics of a smooth running enterprise. That includes preventive maintenance programs.

Where the accountants lose their clear vision of the business is in the case of anomalies. In the equipment maintenance area the cost of unpredicted repairs can be measured as far as labor, materials and even many effects of lost productivity. What can't be easily measured is the impact on the well ordered business operations as well as the loss of good will when the situation affects commitments to customers.

Then there is the problem of the effect of "demon randomness" that clouds the accuracy of past history when catastrophic failures are infrequent. How do you convince the new boss of the pain that comes from a specific major equipment failure that he/she has not yet experienced?

This natural inequity makes for a biased comparison when the level of preventive maintenance in the enterprise needs to be decided on. The well qualified and experienced executive must be able to "account" for the intangibles and give a balanced decision. Given this era's fad of recruiting senior executives from outside the organization as well as investors insistence on short term gains it is easy to see how the accountant's data can prevail in determining the extent of a PM strategy.

The accountants themselves will often be the first ones to stand up and speak of the limitations in their tools and abilities to produce complete cost numbers. They do what they can. It has been my experience that well run companies will tend to select their senior accounting managers from the ranks of people with a well rounded knowledge of their operations to prevent the power of their methods from prevailing when it is not in the company's best interest.

Bottom line here; you've got to have the operations boss fully on board with your PM program or it will be an uphill battle against the numbers.

Ed Weldon

it's been my experience that company's hire yes men who won't step outside of the corporate line..as far as planning for failure ( of mechanical components )

the safety meeting is always held after the incident

This is the part of the problem when accountants refuse to have spares on hand, not allowing the minimum reccommended maintaince (cuts into production for no good reason), refuse to send maintainers to special focused training courses (leading to inaccurate or false repairs or even additional machine breakage!) and then blame the maintaince people for not doing their job and "not being Team Players". I see it time after time and frankly as an ouside contractor/trouble shooter all of these accountants keep me in business. When their machines do breakdown, production is the priority so $$$ go as fast as possible to fix the problem. Unfortunatly the fix is done in hurry and some times not as well as could be done with a very little bit of extra planning and time to actually do some maintainence.

The way I have accomplished the change in view point was to use the 1% MTBF for equipment on the line. Basically, I used the 1% time to failure point Then, estimated the profit loss for 4 hour, 8 hour, and 24 hour down time. If your line is a mature line running at a min of 74% total yield. A 4 hour down time will reduce the effective yield to ??.

In general a loss in effective yield below 73.3 % is a loss of profit for the line. Then calculate what the loss oportunity cost for the 1%, then add it up. You will see that for a non scheduled down time a very small change in effective yield for the time frame results in very large profit loss.

You can also work the same issue using COS. Also, get with the controller on this one. When you show him how long it takes to make back the profit loss then you have your champion.