Maintenance Has Changed
The world of equipment maintenance changed dramatically during the second half of the 20th century and it continues to do so today.
Several major influences have been responsible for driving these changes:
- An enormous increase in the number of physical assets (such as buildings, factories, public and personal transport) that require maintenance
- Equipment has become extremely complex - for example, it is now rare to find anything that does not contain a computer or some electronics
- Industries (such as manufacturing and mass transport) now put a much greater emphasis on safety and on operating without damaging the environment
- We now have a much better understanding of how equipment behaves, from installation to the point at which it fails.
Plant pros often talk about the importance of a maintenance, operations and engineering partnership. In my experience, the discussions commonly center on very general terms such as better communication and understanding. Those issues are important, but we need precise rules and actions to drive that partnership long term.
When IDCON works on reliability improvement projects, we often start by working with operations and maintenance leadership to lay down the law and agree upon the work process and the rules of the partnership. Once we agree, we create a "rulebook" that all employees can keep in their pocket. I want to share some of the rules I think help drive the partnership behavior in an organization.
A range of linear recirculating roller bearings and guidance systems are now available with special lubricant metering valves, which provide precise doses of lubricant to the linear guides, reducing lubricant consumption by more than 25 per cent compared to standard designs, reducing maintenance and servicing costs and preserving resources for the customer.
Why is it that, in so many different industries and market sectors, there are a myriad of all-singing-and-dancing high end products, swathes of simple, low end, single-function products, but very little in between. Take, for example, the monitoring of fluid systems in various processes. At one end of the scale, there are simple indicators to show pressure or flow – barely more than a dumb display with an alarm output or two.
But what ever the situation this short check guide from MCP will help you look at the macro questions which effect correct maintenance activity and asset management.
1. Are all the assets your computerised maintenance management system identified registered, and recorded, and how many are not being used?
2. Do you know which assets present the greatest risk to your business in terms of: