tisdag 29 juni 2010
söndag 20 juni 2010
onsdag 9 juni 2010
Maintenance manager’s biggest challenges!
Maintenance world has expanded during the last decades due to the increment of maintenance knowledge within industry regarding its necessity and significant impaction on company’s profitability and competitiveness, the huge technology development through automation and machinery, customers and marketing demands. However, it’s still unclear what maintenance strategy should be used and what metrics should be chosen to achieve a reliable plant and stay steady in business, therefore maintenance manager’s challenges have became bigger and broader. Thus managers should think outside the box and not be satisfied by only establishment continuous improvement strategy but also striving for implementing continuous change strategy to be able to meet the demand by considering all important and related factors and elements. I think the biggest challenges could be summarized as shown below:
Identifying an effective metrics
A successful and efficient maintenance system depends strongly on metrics selection that should consider every single factor and element which is related to and or could affect company´s profitability and competitiveness such as machines, equipment, CMMS & EAM, building, plant culture, operator’s knowledge, leadership, finance, quality, reliability, products, safety, environment, productivity, efficiency, customer’s satisfaction, goals, problems type, vendors, foreign currency, supplier etc.
The interaction among different factors/elements or between two or more processes must be considered. For instance companies which face technical problems cannot eliminate or reduce them by only implementing high technology tools or systems at plant, without considering people training, motivation, and clear direction and framework. Additionally, trained and motivated operators do normally less faults and experience less stress when performing the job required compared with untrained and unmotivated operators. Although, all decisions should be based on LCCA when implementing new systems or tools, starting any improvement project or getting rid of some staff. Also, safety, quality, environment, economic and other important aspects should be taken into account when decision making.
Getting management and operator’s commitment and support
The resistance that can face maintenance manager is varying depending upon the level, because it maybe occurs from front line due to the 3P-losses Pride, Power and Profit as well as from the bottom line. Generally people are scared for any change especially when the change comes in touch with things that they have done in many years.
Motivation, loyalty and moral among plant’s people just cannot be appeared naturally, because companies need to implement a culture, set up rules and strategy which include all people from top management to the work floor in order to create a defect free working environment. Furthermore empowerment, incentive, brainstorming, partner relationship etc are also powerful methods which can capture crew’s attention and maximize their support. It’s a kind of reciprocal relationship among the different silos at the plant.
However top management awareness and support enables maintenance managers to perform maintenance best practices even during the recession time. For example, cost reduction strategy should not include essential PdM activities and resources which uses for failure prediction that could damage assets. In some cases the loss becomes bigger than the costs of activities and resources that had been cut. Further by getting rid of some staff or resources it’s not always the reasonable and cost effective method to save money.
Additionally, the time is very important factor and its equal to money, but in some cases companies have to face their destiny and accept the time required to reach a significant target, especially when implementing a new culture or trying to change people behaviors and attitudes that they have done in many years. Some case studies have shown that some people require from 3 months to two years to change their behaviors and attitudes. Therefore it’s important that companies implement non blame environment in order to minimize the amount of stress and to maximize people’s engagement to perform the right thing on the right way. That would also make people feel safe even when they make mistakes.
The partner relationship approach among plant silos simplifies maintenance work performance. For example recording, documentation, and integration of information's flow among plant departments enables maintenance manager/staff to minimize the time, money and energy required to stocking in significant spare parts, plan and schedule maintenance work, scope preparing, having control over production’s rate, raw material, logistics and transport etc and providing basis data in which can be useful when doing business with supplier, customers, vendor and subcontractors.
Best regards
Hamid/
Identifying an effective metrics
A successful and efficient maintenance system depends strongly on metrics selection that should consider every single factor and element which is related to and or could affect company´s profitability and competitiveness such as machines, equipment, CMMS & EAM, building, plant culture, operator’s knowledge, leadership, finance, quality, reliability, products, safety, environment, productivity, efficiency, customer’s satisfaction, goals, problems type, vendors, foreign currency, supplier etc.
The interaction among different factors/elements or between two or more processes must be considered. For instance companies which face technical problems cannot eliminate or reduce them by only implementing high technology tools or systems at plant, without considering people training, motivation, and clear direction and framework. Additionally, trained and motivated operators do normally less faults and experience less stress when performing the job required compared with untrained and unmotivated operators. Although, all decisions should be based on LCCA when implementing new systems or tools, starting any improvement project or getting rid of some staff. Also, safety, quality, environment, economic and other important aspects should be taken into account when decision making.
Getting management and operator’s commitment and support
The resistance that can face maintenance manager is varying depending upon the level, because it maybe occurs from front line due to the 3P-losses Pride, Power and Profit as well as from the bottom line. Generally people are scared for any change especially when the change comes in touch with things that they have done in many years.
Motivation, loyalty and moral among plant’s people just cannot be appeared naturally, because companies need to implement a culture, set up rules and strategy which include all people from top management to the work floor in order to create a defect free working environment. Furthermore empowerment, incentive, brainstorming, partner relationship etc are also powerful methods which can capture crew’s attention and maximize their support. It’s a kind of reciprocal relationship among the different silos at the plant.
However top management awareness and support enables maintenance managers to perform maintenance best practices even during the recession time. For example, cost reduction strategy should not include essential PdM activities and resources which uses for failure prediction that could damage assets. In some cases the loss becomes bigger than the costs of activities and resources that had been cut. Further by getting rid of some staff or resources it’s not always the reasonable and cost effective method to save money.
Additionally, the time is very important factor and its equal to money, but in some cases companies have to face their destiny and accept the time required to reach a significant target, especially when implementing a new culture or trying to change people behaviors and attitudes that they have done in many years. Some case studies have shown that some people require from 3 months to two years to change their behaviors and attitudes. Therefore it’s important that companies implement non blame environment in order to minimize the amount of stress and to maximize people’s engagement to perform the right thing on the right way. That would also make people feel safe even when they make mistakes.
The partner relationship approach among plant silos simplifies maintenance work performance. For example recording, documentation, and integration of information's flow among plant departments enables maintenance manager/staff to minimize the time, money and energy required to stocking in significant spare parts, plan and schedule maintenance work, scope preparing, having control over production’s rate, raw material, logistics and transport etc and providing basis data in which can be useful when doing business with supplier, customers, vendor and subcontractors.
Best regards
Hamid/
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