"Maintenance Miscues"
Industry Week
April 2007, pp. 29-32
A recent study found that 87% of respondents consider asset maintenance to be either very important or extremely important to their organization's success. However, in the same study, only 7% said they are completely satisfied with their maintenance performance.
As with most major initiatives, a key factor in maintenance reliability is top management interest and involvement. Being willing to shut down equipment for a while for massive cleaning, inspecting, and tagging-for-repair efforts is one way to demonstrate top management commitment.
Maintenance should not be just the job of a specialized maintenance department. Data from the 2006 Industry Week Best Plants Statistical Profile finds that machine operators performed preventive and routine maintenance in 80% of the best plants from 2002-2006, and this indicates that a bottom-up approach is needed in addition to the top management involvement approach.
Key maintenance performance indicators employed by top-performing companies include:
- Asset reliability
- Asset productivity
- Frequency of unexpected downtime
- Cost of servicing and maintaining assets
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), or "the percentage of time equipment is producing quality product at an acceptable rate" is a measure used by many companies. The 2006 Industry Week Best Plants Statistical Profile found a median OEE of 85.7% (for major product lines) for the best plants from 2002-2006.
This article also provides a good case study of the Total Productive Maintenance program at Alcoa. Alcoa's rolled products business has held a "friendly" annual reliability competition among its plants. Alcoa feels this has helped spread best practices, which are put on display.
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