A FRAMEWORK for MAINTENANCE EFFECTIVENESS
by  John R. Chute, P. Eng., C.P.E., Paper Mills Maintenance Engineer, UPM-Kymmene Miramichi Inc.

This is just one of the fantastic learning zone session papers originally delivered at the 18th International Maintenance Conference.  Please click here for information about the next International Maintenance Conference.

Click here for a print friendly 204k pdf version

Maintenance and asset management for today's companies must be business-centered to support corporate productivity goals, by providing equipment availability, performance and overall minimum costs.  In spite of the development of new maintenance strategies such as Reliability Centered Maintenance, the widespread use of computer maintenance systems (CMMS) and new tools for condition monitoring, it is somewhat questionable whether maintenance organizations in general, are better able to meet the real needs of today's industry that they were a decade ago. Have we have drifted away from the "basics" of sound work practices to rely blindly on technology and maintenance-management strategies? Perhaps we are not consistently doing "the right things" with the diminishing resources available to our maintenance organizations.

This paper addresses the issue of today’s maintenance requirements with statistics to support these concerns. The essentials of maintenance are revisited, with a proposal for a new framework for maintenance effectiveness based on "Core Values". These serve as a "roadmaps" to take us to where we need to go. Without these, we in maintenance will get somewhere, but perhaps too late to play the necessary role in supporting the profitability of our Western industries.

1.  INTRODUCTION  

Our maintenance and maintenance-management practices, in the Western world, have generally failed to keep pace with the evolution of technology. Modern manufacturing and processing equipment has become much larger, faster and more technology dependent. Capital and operating costs have vastly increased, requiring near-design operating rates with less downtime for planned or unplanned maintenance. One writer [f] reports that surveys of industries throughout the United States indicate that as many as 90% of companies do not follow best maintenance practices, and as many as 70% of equipment failures are self induced. Another [d] reports that at least 17% of asset reliability problems can be attributed directly to improper maintenance, and that generally one-third to one-half of the maintenance tasks performed in a typical plant have no real benefit.

Still another [i] states in a prominent paper industry journal that approximately 25% of the money spent each year on maintenance  in the U.S. paper industry is unnecessary These statistics support my belief that we are not practising the "essentials" and doing the "right things" in an industrial world of limited time and resources.  

This situation is echoed continually in industry periodicals and books. The necessity and cost-justification for effective maintenance programs is stressed by the authors of the selected technical articles of the Reference list. Better asset management is needed to support industry productivity, and probably the very survival of some companies is at stake. Maintenance must operating economically as a “profit center”, to provide maximum equipment availability and reliability, with design or better-than-design operating performance.

The general purpose of this paper and the accompanying presentation is to challenge maintenance leaders and their organizations to stop and take a good look at the “forest”, and not just see the “trees”. It is my opinion that we tend to get caught up in a reliance on modern maintenance strategies such as RCM, TPM and Reliability methodologies, rather than build our maintenance programs on basic core “values” which will support productive asset management and utilisation. It appears that we need to focus more strongly on identifying the “right” things to do, then utilizing the “right” ways with best practices to get these things done. But, let’s not lose sight of the need for a competent workforce to achieve this end.

A View from the “Trenches”

This paper is unique in that it presents not the traditional view “from the top”, or from industry maintenance “gurus”, but rather a view “from the trenches” – that of an experienced paper-industry maintenance engineer. Front-line personnel, especially supervisors and trades people, can see things in a different light, but for a number reasons, not regularly sharing their observations and ideas on improvements. I have has seen the “programs and strategies-of-the-month” come and go, with little gain or improvement – the very paradigm of maintenance changed or even questioned.

 This Paper and Its Objectives

It is the author’s belief that we must start by first learning the “right things to do”, to assure that best use of diminishing maintenance resources – people, time and money. These are what will be called the core values which serve collectively as the road map for an effective maintenance program. Let’s first explore the very nature of the maintenance function, how maintenance has evolved to today’s situation, and then look at a proposed approach to refocus on the fundamentals for a truly “world class” program.

My objectives for this paper are:

a)      establish clearly the role of today's maintenance as a necessary element to meet industry's productivity goals

b)      justify the need to refocus on the “basics” of maintenance, to assure first that the “right things” are always done

c)      propose a new framework for maintenance improvement and effective asset management with specific tactical activities

d)      challenge you to take a serious look at your maintenance organization for improvements by building on the basics of knowledge and skills, and using 9 essential elements or “core values” as the  focal points for strategic action.

Specific background information and the statistics cited in this paper are taken from the selected references listed at the end [specific sources indicated]. Much of the information presented stems from the writer’s literature sources and personal experience. The “Core -Value” maintenance framework is essentially that of our Mill’s Strategic Improvement Plan which although somewhat still in its early stages, has already proven its potential through success. 

2.  A SHORT HISTORY of the EVOLUTION of MAINTENANCE

In the early years of the twentieth century, equipment was relatively simple. Downtime was not the dominant issue that it is today, since the cost of production interruption was not as high in relation to the value of the equipment and its preservation. Maintenance was basically "reactive", with repairs carried out as required. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”  Asset preservation and failure prevention were not established maintenance objectives.

By the 1950’s, production rates of the post-war years had increased significantly in response to increasing demands for consumer and industrial goods. In the early 1960’s, the concept of Preventive Maintenance (PM) was introduced – maintenance to prevent failure. Some machinery started to be designed, built and installed with the concept of PM in mind. The accepted thinking of the time was that the failure of machinery and production equipment was generally time and service based – parts replacement and periodic overhauls would essentially eliminate failure and unplanned production outages.

The early years of PM proved somewhat disappointing as failure rates did not decrease as expected. It was discovered that the scheduled maintenance action did not always prevent pre-mature failure, often because the very action of replacing parts and dismantling/re-assembling introduced defects previously not present. The very maintenance action itself was “intrusive” and often had the opposite effect of actually increasing the failure probability.

It was then suggested that if the “health” of operating equipment could be assessed, then it would be possible to detect early indications of failure for timely repair. Hence, the concept of condition monitoring and trending  was introduced in the 1970’s. This became widely know as Predictive Maintenance (PdM). The maintenance action arising out of PdM is probably best termed “on-condition maintenance” or Condition-based Maintenance. (CBM). When integrated with good PM (especially essential care including cleaning, inspections  and lubrication), PdM through the 1970’s and into the 1980’s began to prove effective in preventing unexpected failures and their costly production.

In the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s Western industry began to be aware of the need to improve quality in manufacturing and processing in response to the “global” challenges of Japanese and European industry. Industry leaders became aware of the need for production machinery to be more reliable in both operation and consistent in performance. It became obvious to many that maintenance would largely dictate the degree of improvement possible. Maintenance’s role would no longer be that of a “servant” to Operations, but a true “partner” responsible for providing equipment availability and performance,; at the same time Operations would be responsible for its ownership and correct operation.

The 1990’s brought stiff global competition with the ongoing need to reduce costs without sacrificing quality. Failures, both functional and physical, could not be tolerated because of their impact on production and quality. Maintenance began to embrace the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) strategy developed years earlier for airline maintenance and reliability. As well, Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) began to gain popularity as industry attempted to deal with failures and implement failure-prevention measures.

In the early part of the new century the idea of being “proactive” began to take on new meaning for maintenance. This concept entails a combination of all available strategies into an approach which purposes to prevent failure, maximize asset life and reliability, and assure that equipment performs as intended or better. This strategy requires that we utilize the best of "high-technology" methods and maintenance strategies, but built upon a solid foundation of quality equipment, good installation, proper operation and application of maintenance best practices by a dedicated maintenance force. Hence the evolution of maintenance into today’s Proactive Maintenance.

 Simplified Overview of  the Classes of Maintenance

3. TODAY’S MAINTENANCE REALITIES and the NEED to REFOCUS

With the evolution of Maintenance and the changes to companies have arisen major concerns and challenges for maintenance operations:

a)      The ability to detect faults early and allow corrective action (PdM) tends to instil a sense of confidence against surprise failure. However, this does nothing to address the fact that some of these failures are the result of incorrect or inadequate maintenance action itself!

b)      With industry-wide cutbacks in operational budgets and numbers of maintenance personnel, it becomes more necessary than ever to do the “right things”. What is more, if resources are used for PM inspections and failure-prevention action that really have little or no value, other maintenance areas will further suffer.

c)      Much of the valuable skills and experience in industry at large has been and is being lost as senior personnel (staff and labor) are offered early retirement, "going out the door" without adequate provision to capture their knowledge. Reduced budgets further restrict already insufficient training efforts.

d)      As maintenance has become more sophisticated in an attempt to accommodate today’s modern machinery, there is a tendency to not place the justifiable attention on the basic tasks of “walk-about” inspections and routine lubrication. This is unfortunate, since these activities support the essential care which is more-than-ever necessary for operational reliability.

e)      Our failure to widely develop and utilize “best practices” results in having to carry out “preventable” maintenance (Example: misalignment can be traced as the root cause of nearly 50% of all rotating equipment breakdowns).

f)       Attempts for quick fixes to improve maintenance effectiveness by simply allocating high-technology and lots of money have generally not been successful. We are simply attacking the symptoms, not the real problem [b].

 The real dilemma is that we in maintenance are mandated to do more but with less:  less money, less skills, less experience and less people!

But take heart! One effective way to reduce maintenance costs and stretch resources is to  reduce the need for maintenance itself [h]. Some enlightened companies have addressed the issue of "self-induced" failures and actually increased production capacity by as much as 20% [f].

4.  A SIMPLIFIED but POWERFUL MAINTENANCE STRATEGY

The focus of this paper is on first finding the "right things to do", then on " how to do them right". Rather than relying on "magic" strategies and technology, let's start with the basics of maintenance, clearly define where we want to go, and then build a framework to guide our action. This framework is not something to “get-and-forget”, but a "live" document that will be used constantly to guide maintenance action and decision-making. The goal is to develop an effective asset management program, not just a maintenance program; let's think of the term "maintenance" from this point as implying asset management. Our target is Proactive Maintenance, not just maintaining equipment, but continually improving all aspects of our business in support of the company's productivity and profitability.

Purpose and Building Blocks of the Maintenance Program

The purpose of the maintenance function is of course, to preserve the physical assets and make them available to perform the required functions, in a manner as good or better than originally required, all; the while doing this with an adherence to effective cost management. Because as we have established, the effectiveness of the overall maintenance function can drastically impact the company's productivity and profitability, we must now think of Maintenance as a "profit" center, and bury the traditional view of it's being a "cost area and necessary evil". Note however, that the view of Maintenance by top management and other functional groups within the company will not change simply by the use of fancy terms and slogans. Maintenance must work hard to establish a clear purpose-driven identity, by striving strategically to achieve its goals. Then, we must clearly report our successes to upper management who often are not fully aware of the very nature of the asset management function and the overall environment. Specific performance and effectiveness goals for Maintenance must, of course, be integrated with those of the overall organization.

To build and sustain an effective program requires establishing carefully the following: 1) a statement of the maintenance Mission; 2) the Principles (or beliefs) on which operation of the maintenance organization will be based; and 3) specific Core Values which, as Stephen Covey suggests in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People [k], will serve as the “roadmaps” to keep the focus on the “right things” to do.

Mission and Principles

Let's start with establishing clearly the maintenance Mission, which is essentially a more specific statement of the purpose of a maintenance organization. A suggested Mission Statement is: to provide the operations group (equipment owners) with maximum equipment availability, performance to meet or exceed requirements, asset preservation to maximize life-cycle value, and related support services, all at overall lowest-possible cost. An effective maintenance program must have a vision of success [l].

Specific achievement goals can also be established to quantify the ongoing degree to which the Mission is satisfied, and to provide for continuing progress toward a Vision of perfect compliance. These goals are time-based, with provisions to track progress of maintenance effectiveness. As previously noted, Maintenance's goals must be integrated with corporate plans and targets for production and productivity.

It is next necessary to establish and convey to all employees the Principles on which the maintenance program will be based and operated. A suggested list should include: good leadership and management, sharing of responsibility for the Mission between labor and staff personnel, respect for all employees and their desire to gain a degree of self satisfaction through work well done, a constant goal of quality workmanship supported by training and competency, and open, honest communication between labor and staff.

5.  CORE VALUES – the FRAMEWORK for MAINTENANCE EFFECTIVENESS

The Core Values represent the areas for strategic action which, if constantly made the focal points of the maintenance effort, will assure that the “right” things are done, and in the “right” way. Out of each Value comes tactical action to allow Maintenance to satisfy its Mission, meeting specific performance and achievement goals. Proposed in the following (tabular format) are nine Core Values, not necessarily listed in an order of importance. Each Core Value is presented with suggested Action areas for tactical activities. These activities lists are by no means complete, but are intended to indicate those with the greatest benefit.

These Core Values follow from the Mission and Principles presented above, and will serve as the strategic building blocks for an effective asset management program. However, remember that success and effectiveness comes only from building on a continuous effort to acquire the fundamental knowledge and skills  -  by management, support personnel and crafts.

Each maintenance organization must ultimately establish and detail Core Values to suit its own corporate environment. However, the important thing to remember is that there must be a commitment by the entire maintenance workforce to endorse and act on these Values, with a constant emphasis on the "basics". Management personnel must continually lead by example.

Value 1 – Preventive Maintenance and Maintenance Prevention

The emphasis here is asset preservation through basic Preventive Maintenance, and in so doing, eliminate unnecessary maintenance resulting from equipment neglect and poor maintenance practices.

(Value 1 – continued)

Value 2 – Continuous Improvement (Equipment and Processes)

Continuous effort to improve equipment, as well as maintenance processes and practices, is essential to find “hidden” resources and equipment capacity/performance.  All maintenance personnel must be made aware of the importance of this effort, and be empowered by training and leadership to make this a “way of life”.

Value 3 – WORK Management (Doing the “Right” Thing)

The management of maintenance work is separate from overseeing actually how the work is done. The latter is the focus of Value 4.

 (Value 3– continued)

Value 4 – JOB  Execution  (Doing things “Right”)

Maintenance jobs and work must be done in a quality manner, with efficiency and timeliness. A job "well planned" is well on the way to being a job "well done". Time is costly in both labor and materials, and especially machine downtime. It is vital that maintenance jobs and tasks are done correctly and efficiently the first time, without any need for rework.