Maintenance

A Question:a

What is the best method for our Preventive Maintenance activities? a  

During preventive maintenance system implementation in a factory, I received a lot of questions and criticisms after new work procedures explanation for personnel. “How can we follow this procedures when there is an emergency work?”; it was their main question because: as per new procedures, operation unit supervisors should send their maintenance requests to maintenance department and technical unites were receiving work orders from that department. a

For this regard I explained that “there is one shortcut for urgent causes and production line emergency shutdowns which as per this shortcut, operation units have permission for direct connection to technical units, and technical units should have urgently acting in this causes. But all the history of work should be recorded and transferred to maintenance department after work finishing. a

“As per actual situation, we should used only this shortcuts of procedures for our job!” one of technicians said. a

Maybe he was true when all of their activities were only emergency causes as per previous work procedures. Those procedures mentioned that factory equipment should operate till breakdown happening and only in the breakdown causes the work of technical group was starting. a

“Zero present of breakdowns is one of the main goals for preventive maintenance system which this goal is achievable as per Toyota Company experience for several years” I said to them. a

But do you think, there is no any activity for maintenance units in Toyota if there is no any breakdown in the factory? Of course, maintenance groups in Toyota are busy with corrective maintenance activities which they are capable for time and work planning. a

I released this experience as per article introduction because some one asked me “Reducing of breakdowns can be a goal for a preventive maintenance system?!”  a  

Operation conditions and operator skills, technical supports, equipment and facilities, logistic and procurement procedures and efficiency and maintenance system abilities can be affected on factory and machines productivity and reducing breakdowns and emergency shutdowns and also affected on quality of work and products. But there is an important point: “Which quantity and quality of these services could be efficient with optimum status?!” a

For example, employ maintenance experts and maintenance special tools and equipment for an small factory with very simple machine can not be economy which the cost of breakdowns and opportunity for this factory will be lower that the cost of maintenance services, also if there is a local market and easy access for parts and materials beside a factory, it will not be economy if that factory goes for a wide department of logistics. But of course, specialist and expert personnel in maintenance department, special equipment and tools for maintenance and a great system for maintenance are necessary and economy for a high technology factory with special machines. For this kind of industries, the cost of breakdowns and the cost of production line shutdowns and opportunity are very high and maintenance services should be equal with needs. a

What is the best method for our Preventive Maintenance activities? a

Before answering to this question, I explain my definition of PM as below: a

“All planned activities (Inspections, Services, Replacements and Repairs) along with operation situations for keeping machines in normal situation and prevent of faults and breakdowns is PM.” a

I don’t think there is no difference between Predictive maintenance (PDM), Total productive maintenance (TPM) , Condition monitoring(CM), Reliability (RCM),….  And PM for comparing but they are different methods for preventive maintenance. a

Preventive maintenance, especially in the field of inspection has different levels of activity which they are based on five human senses and continue to high technology equipment and tools such as vibration analyzers or oil analysis and data analysis systems. a

Difference of this methods and levels is distance between fault recognizing and breakdown. If machine fault recognizing with human visual or hearing inspection is very near to breakdown but result of high technology inspections shown the fault when it is just starting and machine is very far from breakdown situation. The benefit of this method of inspection is having enough time for planning and preparing maintenance work necessaries and also removing the fault with lower cost and lower activity along with high reliability for machine operation. a

But after this introduction now we refer to main question which it is: “What is the best method for our Preventive Maintenance activities? “ a

Best method for your maintenance activities is related to which kind of industry and machine you are maintaining. For selecting the method and level of maintenance, at the first you should calculate the cost of breakdowns and emergency maintenance plus opportunity cost for production then estimate the cost of maintenance level which you want to used, if you compare these costs then you will understand is this level of maintenance suitable for your machines or not. With comparing costs of breakdown maintenance with costs of different levels of maintenance you can find optimum point and best level of maintenance for your industry. a

For example, maybe high level of maintenance with maintenance analyzer equipment could not be economy for a small factory with simple machines but maybe this level of maintenance is not enough for a high-tech industry with special machines. a

Reza Tajvidi

www.mwm1.blogfa.com

September 2009

My Remarks about a Maintenance Book

“Small group activities for TPM”

Author: JIPM (Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance) a 

As per my experience I found that many good theories are not successful in execution phase. Also when we are talking about maintenance methods, I am not agreeing with allocating special maintenance activities to operation group. (Unprofessional maintenance activities such as simple machine checklists are not included in this opinion). a

Above subjects were introductions for what I want to say about this book which I think “Small group activities for TPM” is recommending ideal methods and these recommends are not easy accessible in execution phase. a

“Small group activities for TPM” has 8 chapters. In the first chapter we can find definitions of “TPM” and “work groups”. In second chapter, author is trying to explain how establish and organize TPM work groups. In this chapter we can find a paragraph as below: a

Meeting for groups should not disturb working hours and its better if meetings scheduled for rest hours, after working hours or in holidays!!! a

This recommended about timing of meeting is very wonderful for me. It is huger when we read in the end of book asking why members of group are not interested to participate in the meetings?! a

Continue ….. a

Audio - Maintenance Function

3Recommended for Lubrication 

1Organizing an independent lubrication group

Ordinary, lubrication work orders will be done by technicians which they are belong to mechanical department but as the experience we know that lubrication activities will not be done as well with this situation because usually mechanical department has many jobs in the factory and they will allocate these technicians for other jobs than lubrication

Reference to importance of factory lubrication, the best solution for lubrication programs is an independent lubrication group in your organization 

2Independent lubrication filing

 With preparation of separated lubrication cards and work orders and spying on equipment’s operation, work hours and lubrication manuals and periods, you can have more attention and more control of lubrication in the factory 

3Safety first

Reference to equipment locations and access for lubrication, during lubrication activities the safety is very important Pay attention and read carefully all safety manuals before lubrication activities and attach safety manuals and equipment condition in lubrication work orders

The present Economic Crisis in World-Wide forced almost all the companies to review their management and financial policies as part of reducing the cost of expenses for improving profitability to be model in the crisis. In this article, I would like to suggest the following simple methods to face the economic crisis very successfully.

A.     Maintenance and Break Even Point:

Some industrial organizations draw their attention to increase the efficiency and effective management of their Maintenance Team & System.  It would be better to think on the following questions:

.

a.       Did we have any pattern for this regard?

b.      What is company policy for allocating maintenance budget?

For example, please look into the company which allocates 3% of income of sales for maintenance services. This is a policy because that company knows; increasing of sale is related by efficiency of machines work in hours and its maintenance activities.

As we know, we have to study all the cost of production to determine a unit cost. Product can be a goods or a service. Generally, the costs of Raw materials, utilities as electricity power, water, diesel, gas, …, administration, salary and cost of HRM, depreciation and cost of maintenance activities, etc are considered to determine the costs of production. In order to analyze the cost of production, it would be better to have tender / quotations / proposals for each services / activities better than the estimating the cost.

In the other side, we should know about the income details of the company.  All income of the products & by products is calculated based on selling price. It helps to identify the financial feasibility of the organization. It also leads to have management decisions in future.

Finally, there can inequality in the cost and income of the product.

Consider, “I” be a parameter of Income then we will have maintenance budget as “3% of  I“ . Also, as per the behavior of market structure, we know that 28% of the price of main product is the cost for raw materials. With this assumption, we make cost/income inequality to an equal formula:

For example:

Cost for one unit product:

Cost of raw materials: 28% of  product Value

Cost of Maintenance:  3% of Income

Other costs: App. 200$

 Income from sale of one unit product:

Main product: I, By products: 70$, Then:

I+70$ = 28%   I + 3% I + 200$  => I = 188$

This result show us that 188$ is Break Even Point. It means, benefit for the production is related to world market price for main product. If it is more than 188$ in the market leads to more benefit for the company and under 188$ means loss.

Improvement of maintenance could be a policy to reduce the cost of emergency shutdowns and longer life of machines with more efficiency.

Many companies got surprise with the world economic crisis and falling down the prices of their products. In this situation, they do not spend enough time to balance their costs with their income in new market. History shows us that in this situation, fast action on human resource management is a target for the companies!

Consideration of cost in maintenance

-         Cost of  human resource

-         Cost of spare parts

-         Cost of repairing and reclaiming the parts

-         Cost of modifications

-         Cost of planned maintenance activities

-         Cost of corrective maintenance activities

-         Cost of emergency maintenance activities

-         Cost of overhaul activities

-         Cost of general materials

-         Cost of tools and equipments

-         Cost of transportation

-         Overhead cost

-         Contingency

Indirect cost

-         Production missing

-         Quality

-         Lag in delivery time

-         Depreciation

-         Events at work

-         Personnel motive

It is difficult for maintenance department to find out exact time of failures in equipment but it would be possible to have a probable time for awareness of failures in equipment with statistic formulas

In this regard, if there is some similar equipment with various times of failures, we can collect data in regarding of failures in each machine. If the failures were happened between times T1 & Tn, then we can divide this duration to “n” equal parts. Now “Nij” is the number of failures which they happened in duration between times “Ti” & “Tj“ , then

Aij= Nij/N

“Aij” is the probable failure in duration between “Ti” to “Tj”

“N” is the number of equipment

For example if there are 20 similar machines and the duration between first and last (latest) recorded failures is 60 days and If for example there are 4 failures in 20 days (1^st to 20^th days) then probable failure in this duration will be

A (1^st to 20^th days) = 4/20 = 0.2

On the other hand it means that up to 20% of failures in our machines can be estimated in this duration

Different Strategies of Maintenance 

If you aim to organize your Company and looking for the best solution for maintenance in organization, it would be better, first you study about maintenance strategies before making any decision 

Outsourcing Contract  

Advantages

   Beneficiary of Contractor’s facilities and proficiency. (Usually, Maintenance     Contractors are mobilized by special equipment, tools and utilities which preparation of them is not economical only for a factory.)

    There is more ability for responsibility of maintenance problems in this strategy which it would be possible with control the contractor by client supervision and contract conditions 

Disadvantages

  Non availability of a good contractor with enough capability

  Risk for contractor abilities

   Extra cost for maintenance because of contractor benefits

Non integrated maintenance

In this strategy, maintenance services are not integrated and most of works of maintenance will be done by operators and personnel of production units 

Advantages

Least number of personnel to handle the works.

Minimum cost for human power in maintenance. 

Disadvantages

Reduced quality of technical services

Reduced quality of operation activities

Increase in production costs because of using technical technicians for operation jobs 

Note: this strategy is proper for very small industries or workshops

Integrated Maintenance

In this strategy, all activities regarding maintenance will be supported under technical management and its organization which it is separated from production Management. 

Advantages

Integration on maintenance services with more quality

Capability to evaluate the quality of maintenance

More convenience to manage the technical services

Keep the experiences inside the organization 

Disadvantages

Increase the number of personnel in comparison with first and second strategies.

 Necessary for recruitment of specialist and experts 

Note: The best strategy will be achieved with the proper combination of different strategies

Which points of a contract with regard to the preventive maintenance are necessary ﹖to be considered by a maintenance expert 

Last week when I reviewed a contract with regard to the preventive maintenance, I found one party of contract is only considered that through which contractor profits will be supported whereas the other party's advantages are neglected by the terms of the contract 

 You as a maintenance expert should pay more attention to some points as follows 

Term of contract

Firstly, when contract have been prepared with regard to new equipment, there is an important issue to be considered. Usually, new equipment are working with the best performance and minimum failure in the first year(s) of their operations; while in this time it would be better you have a prospect for a long term contract and to be aware of the proposal in the contract that whether and when the contractor would weight more risks for maintenance 

Maintenance activities coverage

         Some contracts for preventive maintenance have only covered some periodically activities same as inspections and services in a fixed period (for example: every 1000 hours operation). In these types of contracts, responsibility for other preventive maintenance activities is important. For regarding this point you should know either your abilities in organization or other sources which you can use. Also, in this case, cost study is an important issue 

Non operation time of equipment

Responsibility for non operation time of equipment because of maintenance problems should be clear in the contract. Non operation time for the service, lubrication or normal preventive maintenance is not included in this case while emergency shutdowns or unplanned repairs should be included

Reza Tajvidi

November 2008

“The act of maintaining or the state of being maintained”

“The work of keeping something in proper condition; upkeep”

؟Are these complete definitions for Maintenance

:Or

Maintenance is: Any activity, such as tests, measurements, replacements, adjustments and repairs, intended to restore or retain a functional unit in a specified state in which the unit can perform its required functions.

:But I draw definition for maintenance as below

Maintenance is set of planned and operational activities targeting on prevent or eliminating the failures for operation of machines with high efficiency and more safety and also high quality in production