MODERN MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
by DOODS A. AMORA, PEE
by DOODS A. AMORA, PEE
BACKGROUNDER
What has Maintenance got to do with the global competitiveness of the electrical practitioner? This question cropped up because even in the modern times, maintenance is not understood universally…
For instance, in Germany, Sir John Peter Koss in the Beverage World International February 1999 Issue said, “THE FUNCTION OF MAINTENANCE STILL MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE”. The issues & major problems as he continued are the following:
1) Inadequate Definition & Documentation of the Maintenance System,
2) Improper Organizational Structure,
3) Incompetent & Insufficient Personnel,
4) Insufficient Funding for Required Work,
5) Inconsistent Management Comprehension & Attitude.
At the other side of the globe, in America, Sir Jean-Pierre Wolff, a NETA member (interNational Electrical Testing Association), & Vice President of Electro-Test, Inc., Pleasanton, California in one of his EC&M articles said: “Common Maintenance problems can be summarized as follows:
a) Insufficient Proactive Maintenance,
b) Frequent Problem Repetition,
c) Erroneous Maintenance Work,
d) Unnecessary and Conservative PM,
e) Poorly Defined Rationale for PM Action,
f) Maintenance Program Lacks Traceability and Visibility,
g) Blind Acceptance of OEM Inputs, and,
h) PM Variability Between Like or Similar Units”
In the Philippines? Oh, sure, we have all the above!
INTRODUCTION
The challenge to survive the hard times of the new millennium has not spared the area of maintenance. It can be recalled that the decade of the 90's saw the manufacturing business sector in serious search for radical changes to catch up with the demands of world-class competition aggravated by the effects of the region's economic meltdown. With the dim economic recovery scenario, maintenance engineering is no longer an innocent bystander in the dead corner of plant environment but now seen as an active participant in dampening the effects of the national debacle.
Management experts say that the ingredients of today’s competitiveness are: quality, efficiency & productivity. To help attain this goal, several old inefficient plants in the 90's were replaced with high technology lines giving way to modern techniques and processes in manufacturing. On top of this, organizations were restructured to meet new synergistic requirements. Several companies in the country sought for ISO certification - showing to the world that these companies are at par with world class standards. The mood in the 1990’s therefore was modernization to meet global competition. But modernization is in fact going back to basics, again to: quality, efficiency and productivity.
Physical modernization does not exempt maintenance from modernizing itself. Old & obsolete concepts in maintenance are seen slowly fading out as we enter into the new millennium. For instance, many businesses realize that production alone is not a guarantee to survival. In the 70’s & 80's, the mood of manufacturing business was production, production, and yes, production. Somewhere along the way, we did what North American managers were preaching, "that high production volume (large lot size) is where profitability is”. The Japanese on the other hand, later reinvented the concept that “production can best be done in smaller lot sizes while instituting built-in process-to-process quality control to ensure perfect products at the end of the line”.
Thus the concept of “zero defect” to the product and the concept of “zero breakdown” to process equipment became loud and very visible in the 90’s.
In the scene of plant maintenance, the concept that maintenance is nothing but a service unit has now been changed to the concept that “maintenance is a function of production, and conversely, production is a function of maintenance”.
Whether or not these new concepts are practicable is one question this paper seeks to answer.
HISTORY OF MAINTENANCE
The reason why the previous mind-sets and the need to shift to these new paradigms can be traced back to history…
Once upon a time, work for instance as in farming, was performed all by hand - without any machines or the benefit of technology. Some time later, tools were developed, and it then became very important to keep them intact and sharp otherwise the work can not be carried out efficiently. The demand for maintenance this time started to grow. Many years later, as electricity was invented then hastened by the Industrial Revolution of the West, production equipment started developing. The tools, implements and simple equipment at the beginning were not sophisticated enough such that a lot of people were required to keep production on stream. Production at this point was more or less, a handicraft.
Maintenance activities could not influence productivity so much (although it was important to keep the equipment running) because the quality and quantity of production were to a large extent decided by the skills of men and their capacity to work fast. All through a long period of time, from generation to generation, maintenance had been thought of as a service department - not a condition to production.
Times had changed. The quality and quantity of production now do not depend on man but on machines. With the increasing degree of automation and robotization in most manufacturing plants today, it is now appropriate to recall Mr. John Moubray a British expert on Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) when he said, "that product quality & quantity now depends on equipment". At the other side of the globe, Mr. Seiichi Nakajima, a Japanese guru on Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) preached: "that productivity, cost, inventory, safety, health and production output - as well as quality - now all depend on equipment”.
MISCONCEPTIONS ON MAINTENANCE
Some time in the 1990's, a survey was conducted in manufacturing plants in Cebu, to determine the mind-sets of personnel representing the cross-section of maintenance, operation and production workforce. Hereunder were the results with some comments and analysis:
1) "That Maintenance is an Expense, therefore a Necessary Evil"
That profit is the difference between revenue and expense. Minimizing expense is therefore maximizing profitability. This confirms the thoughts of Mr. William Bleuel of Barber Colman, Rockford, Illinois, when he wrote, “Each year, top management reviews the maintenance budget with an eagle’s eye towards making it as small as possible. Where this attitude prevails, maintenance would likely be given low priority. From this viewpoint, plant management usually takes a hard line that maintenance should be minimized”. This is what Mr. Thomas Alund, a Swedish maintenance consultant termed as “Cost Controlled Maintenance” - meaning that movements in a maintenance program are solely dictated by the money available in the budget.
The reason why maintenance is considered a cost-controlled activity is that engineers and technical men found it difficult to measure the investments on maintenance in total economic terms. It is very easy to find the cost of maintenance but difficult to quantify the results. Like an iceberg, where the biggest part is invisible under the water and only a small part visible above the surface. The visible part represents the direct maintenance expense while the invisible part silently denotes the various factors influenced by maintenance.
2) "That Good Maintenance is Repairing Broken Equipment Quickly"
The survey showed that "quick repairs on equipment" is a virtue. Restoring broken equipment back to operation in so short a time shows the mastery of maintenance men over their equipment. In any plant, there is always a guy – a technician, who always outshines his colleagues in troubleshooting equipment or system faults. Such guy, “Tarzan” the ‘trouble-shooter’ usually called out during the night has to come to the plant to make things going.
Tarzan is easily seen as the hero in the business. Because of this heroism, many Tarzans are promoted to supervisory positions but later found themselves in trouble handling managerial functions. Managerial skills are something else - a very different ballgame.
3) "That Production Group is the Adversary of Maintenance"
Observations in the past showed that production group oftentimes made maintenance the scapegoat and shock absorber whenever something in production went wrong. But it was also the same production people who always not grant maintenance sufficient time to maintain the equipment. Lording over during shifts, production people always make life of maintenance miserable.
4) "That Maintenance Men are Second Class Citizens in an Industrial World, Far Behind the Footings of their Counterparts in Production"
The belief was that, production is where revenue comes in. Production is making money while maintenance, the necessary evil. Hence, production groups are the favorites, maintenance the expense.
5) "That Maintenance Starts After the Equipment or Production Lines Have Been Commissioned"
Projects are someone else’s job. It’s not maintenance job anyway. Neither it’s production's job. But then, when the facility is in operation, people in the plant would start saying, “this should have been like this, and like that”.
6) "That It 's Very Difficult to Operate a PM System in a Plant"
“PM are nuisance activities. It only adds up workload to an already overloaded maintenance crew.” “Whether we like it or not, equipment will breakdown sooner or later. What's the fuss?”
These are just a few realities we gathered from the past perceptions on maintenance. These realities were not unique in the Philippines as they were also happening in advanced countries in Europe and the Americas.
MODERN CONCEPTS IN MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
As pointed out earlier, the name of the game in manufacturing today is automation & robotization. Why? Simply because in the global business arena, it is a must! John H. Zenger, a known American management expert in his book "Leading Teams" wrote, "In the 1960's, North America stood at the summit of world economic power. In those days, the order of the day for every manufacturing manager can be summarized by a sign that hung over his desk and that is: GOOD. FAST. CHEAP; PICK ANY TWO..!”
It means that:
"If you want quality and you want it fast, it'll cost you big bucks“.
"If you want it fast and cheap, no problem, but it won't be good enough to last through the winter“.
"If you want good quality at a good cheap price, that's fine too, but don't hold your breath for delivery. It'll probably take forever."
Then comes the customer’s cue to nod in wide-eyed agreement: "You always have to trade off one to get the other two“.
Today in the third millennium, a manufacturing company has to give out all the THREE, in order to survive fierce competition. In a customer-driven business environment, automation therefore becomes the answer to the need of efficiency & speed. Robotization where applicable, is the key to achieve large volume and uniform quality throughput especially in industries where human factor is too hazardous.
That in a nutshell, is why so many companies are putting themselves through so many agonizing internal changes, including the parting away of the traditional maintenance management styles. For until a manufacturing plant becomes "good, fast and cheap", it's an easy prey for any competitor that figures out how to deliver on all three.
In the past, responsibilities of maintenance are to concentrate only in making machines and equipment run in service to the production department. Today, maintenance is already included in the ownership of the quality and quantity of the products produced, because after all, it is maintenance’s job to make the process capability of the plant fit to produce such products.
Again, automation & robotization bring the equipment or machines to the center-stage. When we say equipment, it means maintenance. Maintenance now plays a much bigger role in production. Along with the shift in philosophies in maintenance, new concepts in modern management had been developed in Europe, among them are as follows:
ROLES OF MAINTENANCE IN MODERN MANAGEMENT
1) Achieve Target Production Outputs by Making the Process Equipment & Machineries Available,
2)Maintain Product Quality by Making Manufacturing Equipment Process Capable to Produce Such Product,
3)Implement Maintenance Services Imposed by Production Group,
4)Implement Systems & Routines to Sustain Equipment Effectiveness (e.g., PM),
5)Maintain Availability of Spare Parts & Materials,
6)Participate in the Conception & Implementation of Projects.
The first two roles of maintenance seem to be encroaching into productions group’s domain. But before anything else, a look at the roles of production in modern day management concept becomes necessary.
ROLES OF PRODUCTION IN MODERN MANAGEMENT
1) Achieve Target Production Outputs at Specified Quality Levels Through Process Efficiency (Zero Process Error), While Optimizing Utilization of Resources (man, machine, materials, method and time),
2) Operate, Clean, Align, Lubricate the Machines, Tighten Bolts, & Fix Simple Faults,
3) Monitor the Health Condition of Machineries & Equipment Leading to Imposition of Major Maintenance Schedules and the Eventual Preparation of the Plant for Maintenance,
4) Ensure Availability of Raw Materials and Finished Product Inventories,
5) Participates in the Conception & Implementation of Projects.
The first role of production focuses on process, practices and techniques in manufacturing. But items 2 & 3 can be perceived as maintenance functions. Seiichi Nakajima’s Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) confirmed this concept when machine operators in Japan became the first line of defense in the maintenance of the equipment. The new management concept in maintenance therefore runs like this:
“50% OF MAINTENANCE JOB IS PRODUCTION" &
"50% OF PRODUCTION’S JOB IS MAINTENANCE”
Radical as it may seem, but this can be aptly understood when applied to our own homes. Putting out a fire in our home is not supposed to be our job because it is the job of the city fire department. Extinguishing the fire as quickly as possible by the fire brigade speaks of its efficiency. But no amount of this type of efficiency can justify the job because in the first place, the fire should have not happened at all.
Exactly the same principle works in the plant. Modern Maintenance Management is not to repair broken equipment as quickly as possible because in the first place, it should have not happened at all. In other words, Tarzan must now be extinct because:
“GOOD MAINTENANCE IS NOT DOING THE WRONG WORK EFFICIENTLY”
There must be no fires. How to fight fires by preventing them to happen is from the very beginning the concern & responsibility of the “Taong Bahay”. Taong Bahay yes, are the production people.
But Mr. Nakajima’s TPM philosophy of “we operate, we maintain” does not really mean that full maintenance has to be accomplished by the operating personnel. In real life scenario, a person has to do maintenance of himself and to some degree performs some autonomy.
Personal maintenance activities like: taking a bath everyday, brushing of teeth, making oneself spic & span, eating the right food, daily exercises, etc. are just some maintenance activities that don’t need some neighbors to do it. To some extent, a headache, a stomach ache or muscle pains can be healed by self-medication, but then, if the problem needs an operation of the kidney or an organ transplant, or correction of an infection, definitely professional doctors are required to do it. In the same manner that annual physical/medical examinations can not be done by just anybody else except the doctors and their clinical staff.
Items 2 & 3 of the Roles of Production in Modern Plant Management, showed maintenance activities by the operators are limited to cleaning, lubricating, aligning, bolt tightening and finally, to fixing simple faults - all in the end view of preventing & controlling deterioration. Monitoring the health condition of the machines they tend, scheduling and preparation of the equipment for the eventual maintenance service are in modern management, obligations of the operating department. Teardowns are to be given to the surgeons - the maintenance department.
CONCLUSION
Modernizing maintenance management first needs top management’s re-thinking and realignment of beliefs. Seiichi Nakajima is telling us that if top management is not convinced of the true benefits of maintenance, then Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) can never take off. Modernizing maintenance must start from the top to bottom and includes all personnel in the plant. As a summary, among these beliefs are as follows:
That Maintenance is Not a Necessary Evil But a Condition to Production,
That Maintenance is 50% Production Job and Production is 50% Maintenance Job,
That Maintenance Should be Seen as a Results-Controlled Enterprise”, Not a "Cost-Controlled Service Department in the Corner“,
That Equipment Breakdown Should Not Happen at All, Because Good Maintenance is Not Repairing Broken Equipment But By Executing Planned Activities,
That Production Group is Not the Adversary of Maintenance But Partners Sharing the Same Objectives,
That Preventive Maintenance With Emphasis on Condition Monitoring is What We Need to make Maintenance More Effective,
Systems Make Things Possible but It’s People Who Make Them Happen,
That Honest-to-Goodness Maintenance is Needed to Achieve Good, Fast & Cheap products.
After all the modern concepts are understood, the next move is to define how maintenance performance must be measured. Basing on these measurements, attempts must be done to establish past performances. This will become the baseline reference. All future performances will be based on these baselines.
Target dramatic improvement as specific objective. Aim "zero downtime" first, later "zero breakdown".
Thirdly, is to overhaul existing maintenance management system with emphasis on planned maintenance imbedding the principles described herein this paper. This move normally needs changes in internal organizations.
Develop a new system and implement it in manual mode. It is important to feel the success or failure of the new system. This will also open up opportunities for changes and improvements. Implement changes before deciding to embark into computerization.
Next, is to computerize the entire system. Caution: Do not attempt to computerize your system when not ready. The last but not the least, management must look at maintenance as a new source of profit. A company with a good & effective maintenance program has a competitive edge over the others.
Remember:
In the past:
[COST + PROFIT] = [SELLING PRICE]
Today:
[SELLING PRICE] – [COST] = [PROFIT]
DAA/July 2, 2007
What has Maintenance got to do with the global competitiveness of the electrical practitioner? This question cropped up because even in the modern times, maintenance is not understood universally…
For instance, in Germany, Sir John Peter Koss in the Beverage World International February 1999 Issue said, “THE FUNCTION OF MAINTENANCE STILL MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE”. The issues & major problems as he continued are the following:
1) Inadequate Definition & Documentation of the Maintenance System,
2) Improper Organizational Structure,
3) Incompetent & Insufficient Personnel,
4) Insufficient Funding for Required Work,
5) Inconsistent Management Comprehension & Attitude.
At the other side of the globe, in America, Sir Jean-Pierre Wolff, a NETA member (interNational Electrical Testing Association), & Vice President of Electro-Test, Inc., Pleasanton, California in one of his EC&M articles said: “Common Maintenance problems can be summarized as follows:
a) Insufficient Proactive Maintenance,
b) Frequent Problem Repetition,
c) Erroneous Maintenance Work,
d) Unnecessary and Conservative PM,
e) Poorly Defined Rationale for PM Action,
f) Maintenance Program Lacks Traceability and Visibility,
g) Blind Acceptance of OEM Inputs, and,
h) PM Variability Between Like or Similar Units”
In the Philippines? Oh, sure, we have all the above!
INTRODUCTION
The challenge to survive the hard times of the new millennium has not spared the area of maintenance. It can be recalled that the decade of the 90's saw the manufacturing business sector in serious search for radical changes to catch up with the demands of world-class competition aggravated by the effects of the region's economic meltdown. With the dim economic recovery scenario, maintenance engineering is no longer an innocent bystander in the dead corner of plant environment but now seen as an active participant in dampening the effects of the national debacle.
Management experts say that the ingredients of today’s competitiveness are: quality, efficiency & productivity. To help attain this goal, several old inefficient plants in the 90's were replaced with high technology lines giving way to modern techniques and processes in manufacturing. On top of this, organizations were restructured to meet new synergistic requirements. Several companies in the country sought for ISO certification - showing to the world that these companies are at par with world class standards. The mood in the 1990’s therefore was modernization to meet global competition. But modernization is in fact going back to basics, again to: quality, efficiency and productivity.
Physical modernization does not exempt maintenance from modernizing itself. Old & obsolete concepts in maintenance are seen slowly fading out as we enter into the new millennium. For instance, many businesses realize that production alone is not a guarantee to survival. In the 70’s & 80's, the mood of manufacturing business was production, production, and yes, production. Somewhere along the way, we did what North American managers were preaching, "that high production volume (large lot size) is where profitability is”. The Japanese on the other hand, later reinvented the concept that “production can best be done in smaller lot sizes while instituting built-in process-to-process quality control to ensure perfect products at the end of the line”.
Thus the concept of “zero defect” to the product and the concept of “zero breakdown” to process equipment became loud and very visible in the 90’s.
In the scene of plant maintenance, the concept that maintenance is nothing but a service unit has now been changed to the concept that “maintenance is a function of production, and conversely, production is a function of maintenance”.
Whether or not these new concepts are practicable is one question this paper seeks to answer.
HISTORY OF MAINTENANCE
The reason why the previous mind-sets and the need to shift to these new paradigms can be traced back to history…
Once upon a time, work for instance as in farming, was performed all by hand - without any machines or the benefit of technology. Some time later, tools were developed, and it then became very important to keep them intact and sharp otherwise the work can not be carried out efficiently. The demand for maintenance this time started to grow. Many years later, as electricity was invented then hastened by the Industrial Revolution of the West, production equipment started developing. The tools, implements and simple equipment at the beginning were not sophisticated enough such that a lot of people were required to keep production on stream. Production at this point was more or less, a handicraft.
Maintenance activities could not influence productivity so much (although it was important to keep the equipment running) because the quality and quantity of production were to a large extent decided by the skills of men and their capacity to work fast. All through a long period of time, from generation to generation, maintenance had been thought of as a service department - not a condition to production.
Times had changed. The quality and quantity of production now do not depend on man but on machines. With the increasing degree of automation and robotization in most manufacturing plants today, it is now appropriate to recall Mr. John Moubray a British expert on Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) when he said, "that product quality & quantity now depends on equipment". At the other side of the globe, Mr. Seiichi Nakajima, a Japanese guru on Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) preached: "that productivity, cost, inventory, safety, health and production output - as well as quality - now all depend on equipment”.
MISCONCEPTIONS ON MAINTENANCE
Some time in the 1990's, a survey was conducted in manufacturing plants in Cebu, to determine the mind-sets of personnel representing the cross-section of maintenance, operation and production workforce. Hereunder were the results with some comments and analysis:
1) "That Maintenance is an Expense, therefore a Necessary Evil"
That profit is the difference between revenue and expense. Minimizing expense is therefore maximizing profitability. This confirms the thoughts of Mr. William Bleuel of Barber Colman, Rockford, Illinois, when he wrote, “Each year, top management reviews the maintenance budget with an eagle’s eye towards making it as small as possible. Where this attitude prevails, maintenance would likely be given low priority. From this viewpoint, plant management usually takes a hard line that maintenance should be minimized”. This is what Mr. Thomas Alund, a Swedish maintenance consultant termed as “Cost Controlled Maintenance” - meaning that movements in a maintenance program are solely dictated by the money available in the budget.
The reason why maintenance is considered a cost-controlled activity is that engineers and technical men found it difficult to measure the investments on maintenance in total economic terms. It is very easy to find the cost of maintenance but difficult to quantify the results. Like an iceberg, where the biggest part is invisible under the water and only a small part visible above the surface. The visible part represents the direct maintenance expense while the invisible part silently denotes the various factors influenced by maintenance.
2) "That Good Maintenance is Repairing Broken Equipment Quickly"
The survey showed that "quick repairs on equipment" is a virtue. Restoring broken equipment back to operation in so short a time shows the mastery of maintenance men over their equipment. In any plant, there is always a guy – a technician, who always outshines his colleagues in troubleshooting equipment or system faults. Such guy, “Tarzan” the ‘trouble-shooter’ usually called out during the night has to come to the plant to make things going.
Tarzan is easily seen as the hero in the business. Because of this heroism, many Tarzans are promoted to supervisory positions but later found themselves in trouble handling managerial functions. Managerial skills are something else - a very different ballgame.
3) "That Production Group is the Adversary of Maintenance"
Observations in the past showed that production group oftentimes made maintenance the scapegoat and shock absorber whenever something in production went wrong. But it was also the same production people who always not grant maintenance sufficient time to maintain the equipment. Lording over during shifts, production people always make life of maintenance miserable.
4) "That Maintenance Men are Second Class Citizens in an Industrial World, Far Behind the Footings of their Counterparts in Production"
The belief was that, production is where revenue comes in. Production is making money while maintenance, the necessary evil. Hence, production groups are the favorites, maintenance the expense.
5) "That Maintenance Starts After the Equipment or Production Lines Have Been Commissioned"
Projects are someone else’s job. It’s not maintenance job anyway. Neither it’s production's job. But then, when the facility is in operation, people in the plant would start saying, “this should have been like this, and like that”.
6) "That It 's Very Difficult to Operate a PM System in a Plant"
“PM are nuisance activities. It only adds up workload to an already overloaded maintenance crew.” “Whether we like it or not, equipment will breakdown sooner or later. What's the fuss?”
These are just a few realities we gathered from the past perceptions on maintenance. These realities were not unique in the Philippines as they were also happening in advanced countries in Europe and the Americas.
MODERN CONCEPTS IN MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
As pointed out earlier, the name of the game in manufacturing today is automation & robotization. Why? Simply because in the global business arena, it is a must! John H. Zenger, a known American management expert in his book "Leading Teams" wrote, "In the 1960's, North America stood at the summit of world economic power. In those days, the order of the day for every manufacturing manager can be summarized by a sign that hung over his desk and that is: GOOD. FAST. CHEAP; PICK ANY TWO..!”
It means that:
"If you want quality and you want it fast, it'll cost you big bucks“.
"If you want it fast and cheap, no problem, but it won't be good enough to last through the winter“.
"If you want good quality at a good cheap price, that's fine too, but don't hold your breath for delivery. It'll probably take forever."
Then comes the customer’s cue to nod in wide-eyed agreement: "You always have to trade off one to get the other two“.
Today in the third millennium, a manufacturing company has to give out all the THREE, in order to survive fierce competition. In a customer-driven business environment, automation therefore becomes the answer to the need of efficiency & speed. Robotization where applicable, is the key to achieve large volume and uniform quality throughput especially in industries where human factor is too hazardous.
That in a nutshell, is why so many companies are putting themselves through so many agonizing internal changes, including the parting away of the traditional maintenance management styles. For until a manufacturing plant becomes "good, fast and cheap", it's an easy prey for any competitor that figures out how to deliver on all three.
In the past, responsibilities of maintenance are to concentrate only in making machines and equipment run in service to the production department. Today, maintenance is already included in the ownership of the quality and quantity of the products produced, because after all, it is maintenance’s job to make the process capability of the plant fit to produce such products.
Again, automation & robotization bring the equipment or machines to the center-stage. When we say equipment, it means maintenance. Maintenance now plays a much bigger role in production. Along with the shift in philosophies in maintenance, new concepts in modern management had been developed in Europe, among them are as follows:
ROLES OF MAINTENANCE IN MODERN MANAGEMENT
1) Achieve Target Production Outputs by Making the Process Equipment & Machineries Available,
2)Maintain Product Quality by Making Manufacturing Equipment Process Capable to Produce Such Product,
3)Implement Maintenance Services Imposed by Production Group,
4)Implement Systems & Routines to Sustain Equipment Effectiveness (e.g., PM),
5)Maintain Availability of Spare Parts & Materials,
6)Participate in the Conception & Implementation of Projects.
The first two roles of maintenance seem to be encroaching into productions group’s domain. But before anything else, a look at the roles of production in modern day management concept becomes necessary.
ROLES OF PRODUCTION IN MODERN MANAGEMENT
1) Achieve Target Production Outputs at Specified Quality Levels Through Process Efficiency (Zero Process Error), While Optimizing Utilization of Resources (man, machine, materials, method and time),
2) Operate, Clean, Align, Lubricate the Machines, Tighten Bolts, & Fix Simple Faults,
3) Monitor the Health Condition of Machineries & Equipment Leading to Imposition of Major Maintenance Schedules and the Eventual Preparation of the Plant for Maintenance,
4) Ensure Availability of Raw Materials and Finished Product Inventories,
5) Participates in the Conception & Implementation of Projects.
The first role of production focuses on process, practices and techniques in manufacturing. But items 2 & 3 can be perceived as maintenance functions. Seiichi Nakajima’s Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) confirmed this concept when machine operators in Japan became the first line of defense in the maintenance of the equipment. The new management concept in maintenance therefore runs like this:
“50% OF MAINTENANCE JOB IS PRODUCTION" &
"50% OF PRODUCTION’S JOB IS MAINTENANCE”
Radical as it may seem, but this can be aptly understood when applied to our own homes. Putting out a fire in our home is not supposed to be our job because it is the job of the city fire department. Extinguishing the fire as quickly as possible by the fire brigade speaks of its efficiency. But no amount of this type of efficiency can justify the job because in the first place, the fire should have not happened at all.
Exactly the same principle works in the plant. Modern Maintenance Management is not to repair broken equipment as quickly as possible because in the first place, it should have not happened at all. In other words, Tarzan must now be extinct because:
“GOOD MAINTENANCE IS NOT DOING THE WRONG WORK EFFICIENTLY”
There must be no fires. How to fight fires by preventing them to happen is from the very beginning the concern & responsibility of the “Taong Bahay”. Taong Bahay yes, are the production people.
But Mr. Nakajima’s TPM philosophy of “we operate, we maintain” does not really mean that full maintenance has to be accomplished by the operating personnel. In real life scenario, a person has to do maintenance of himself and to some degree performs some autonomy.
Personal maintenance activities like: taking a bath everyday, brushing of teeth, making oneself spic & span, eating the right food, daily exercises, etc. are just some maintenance activities that don’t need some neighbors to do it. To some extent, a headache, a stomach ache or muscle pains can be healed by self-medication, but then, if the problem needs an operation of the kidney or an organ transplant, or correction of an infection, definitely professional doctors are required to do it. In the same manner that annual physical/medical examinations can not be done by just anybody else except the doctors and their clinical staff.
Items 2 & 3 of the Roles of Production in Modern Plant Management, showed maintenance activities by the operators are limited to cleaning, lubricating, aligning, bolt tightening and finally, to fixing simple faults - all in the end view of preventing & controlling deterioration. Monitoring the health condition of the machines they tend, scheduling and preparation of the equipment for the eventual maintenance service are in modern management, obligations of the operating department. Teardowns are to be given to the surgeons - the maintenance department.
CONCLUSION
Modernizing maintenance management first needs top management’s re-thinking and realignment of beliefs. Seiichi Nakajima is telling us that if top management is not convinced of the true benefits of maintenance, then Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) can never take off. Modernizing maintenance must start from the top to bottom and includes all personnel in the plant. As a summary, among these beliefs are as follows:
That Maintenance is Not a Necessary Evil But a Condition to Production,
That Maintenance is 50% Production Job and Production is 50% Maintenance Job,
That Maintenance Should be Seen as a Results-Controlled Enterprise”, Not a "Cost-Controlled Service Department in the Corner“,
That Equipment Breakdown Should Not Happen at All, Because Good Maintenance is Not Repairing Broken Equipment But By Executing Planned Activities,
That Production Group is Not the Adversary of Maintenance But Partners Sharing the Same Objectives,
That Preventive Maintenance With Emphasis on Condition Monitoring is What We Need to make Maintenance More Effective,
Systems Make Things Possible but It’s People Who Make Them Happen,
That Honest-to-Goodness Maintenance is Needed to Achieve Good, Fast & Cheap products.
After all the modern concepts are understood, the next move is to define how maintenance performance must be measured. Basing on these measurements, attempts must be done to establish past performances. This will become the baseline reference. All future performances will be based on these baselines.
Target dramatic improvement as specific objective. Aim "zero downtime" first, later "zero breakdown".
Thirdly, is to overhaul existing maintenance management system with emphasis on planned maintenance imbedding the principles described herein this paper. This move normally needs changes in internal organizations.
Develop a new system and implement it in manual mode. It is important to feel the success or failure of the new system. This will also open up opportunities for changes and improvements. Implement changes before deciding to embark into computerization.
Next, is to computerize the entire system. Caution: Do not attempt to computerize your system when not ready. The last but not the least, management must look at maintenance as a new source of profit. A company with a good & effective maintenance program has a competitive edge over the others.
Remember:
In the past:
[COST + PROFIT] = [SELLING PRICE]
Today:
[SELLING PRICE] – [COST] = [PROFIT]
DAA/July 2, 2007
