If you can’t sell all you can produce, then reducing costs is often the only way to improve margins, but that simplistic accounting perspective is not always the case. Cost control is often thought to be key to attaining profitability but it the case of maintenance it can get you into trouble. Cost control can have a big opportunity cost if you don’t take advantage of the opportunities you have. Consider that what you might really want is greater value – more for less, no just less. [Read more…]

In 2014, at an IMEC conference organized by the University of Toronto, Art Rice of Maintenance Technology Magazine said that in many cases “Lean is a form of Anorexia”. He was right then, and he is still right today.

When I heard him, I realized that in many cases where I’ve seen attempts at “lean manufacturing” the lean really means “understaffed”. In those cases some of the lean manufacturing tools have been implemented, often with the help of outside expert help but lean results haven’t occurred. The introduction of “lean” in those companies was yet another attempt to cut costs without any deep thought as to what caused the high costs before introducing “lean”. [Read more…]

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is without doubt the most effective method to determine your failure management policies, yet it is sometimes seen as an expensive and time consuming endeavor used to produce what some (mistakenly) believe they can get from manufacturer recommendations and other sources. The naysayers see it as a “gold plated” approach to a relatively simple challenge – produce a decent maintenance program.
They couldn’t be more wrong! And that error, could get them into a lot of trouble if circumstances align against them. [Read more…]

In the field, we know that there are no “quick fixes” or “silver bullet solutions” when it comes to improvements in maintenance management. Many separate conditions and events must come together properly to achieve “schedule success” – i.e.: the high level of compliance to a schedule of planned work as produced by your planners. [Read more…]

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In the first installment of this series we described the basics behind proactive maintenance and some of the considerations users need to make.

The second installment describes RCM – the “gold standard” for reliability program development and physical asset related risk management. This article is for those who are in “panic” or “fire fighting” mode. If you don’t have a proactive program, equipment runs until it breaks and you can’t seem to get ahead of it, then this one is for you. In a few cases you may have a PM program but your not getting the results you want. You could be overdoing overhauls, not doing enough predictive work, not following up on what you find, or the maintenance actions are simply inappropriate for the failures that occur in your circumstances. [Read more…]

Do you want a PM program that really works

Reliability Centered Maintenance – Re-engineered (RCM-R®)…

… is the world’s leading method for identifying maintenance and other activities required to sustain reliable performance of physical assets. Previously I discussed the various maintenance approaches you can use. This method (RCM-R®) is a structured approach to making those choices. If you want a proactive maintenance program that really works, then Reliability Centered Maintenance is the most thorough approach you can take to get there.Since the 1970’s RCM (generic) has been responsible for huge improvements in airline flight safety – crash rates today are 1 / 120^th of what they were before RCM, and the costs of aircraft maintenance programs are way down. We are all comfortable flying in safety. That would not be the case had RCM not come along. [Read more…]

The Basics of PM Programs

Do you replace your car headlights at regular intervals of six months? Do you wait to replace your tires until they wear through? Do you check your car engine oil with some sort of oil analysis before replacing it? Each component and system in your car has a function that is prone to failure. Each of those has consequences – some with little importance and others with great importance. [Read more…]

Skilled labor is in short supply. Companies are struggling to find talent. Education systems throughout North America have done a poor job of producing ‘job ready’ graduates. Companies have cut back on training and apprentice program funding. Immigration programs did not prioritize the intake of needed and ready-to-us skills. Governments have been slow to see the problem and even slower to act on it. [Read more…]

Some organizations are poor or marginal performers, some high, and some truly great. Jim Collins, in “Good to Great” (2001) describes the differences among the latter two. Much of the difference boils down to people and the culture that is fostered within the organization. They foster learning in all forms, including learning from mistakes. They are typically “humble” and accept helpful input from outside, admitting when and where they need to improve. [Read more…]

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In my book, Uptime, I talk about doing a review or assessment to determine your current state as compared with your vision of some desired future state. This suggests to many that a formal assessment is needed. However, you might also notice that I removed the Appendix containing sample assessment questions. Here’s why… [Read more…]

Reliability Centered Maintenance is an analytical process used in decision making about how best to manage equipment and system failures, and their consequences. Much of its output comprises maintenance tasks with assigned task frequencies. Those tasks will ultimately be managed in your Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) or Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAM). You don’t need software to perform RCM analysis, but it is helpful. Given the link between RCM output tasks and the proactive maintenance program you will manage using your CMMS / EAM, it seems to make sense to link or integrate the two software tools. Integration should enable automatic updates of the PM program stored in your CMMS/EAM whenever the RCM analysis is updated and possibly feed failure event historical data back to your RCM analysis with a notification that perhaps the analysis should be reviewed. Alas, that’s not going to happen. [Read more…]

Many of you may be surprised to learn that Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was actually developed with cost cutting in mind! Aircraft maintenance costs were huge. For example the Douglas DC-8-32 aircraft (a four engine narrow body jet liner built from 1958 to 1967 that carried 150 passengers) required upwards of 4,000,000 man hours of maintenance work for only 20,000 hours of flying time! That’s 200 maintenance hours per operational revenue earning hour. With growing demand for air travel in those years, wide bodied aircraft were being designed (B747, DC-10 and L-1011). But air travel was prohibitively expensive. That limits the size of the market and growth potential. A solution was needed. [Read more…]

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was developed in the airline industry to be used for developing maintenance programs for new aircraft. There’s no doubting it – originally RCM was intended for new designs and arguably where the results of failure could be catastrophic, specifically the loss of life and where costs of maintaining had grown ridiculously high. Aircraft maintenance costs had indeed grown very high by the 1960’s and 70’s before RCM came along. In fact, one of the big drivers behind RCM was cost reduction. It worked too – in both the aerospace and nuclear power industries! Safety and other benefits were there too, but they were not primary drivers. Then, as today, cost was the problem that got the attention. [Read more…]