By David Hicks, John Alford, Ralph Canale
Embarking on a journey towards enhanced facility maintenance begins with a thorough evaluation of current practices and performance. A comprehensive maintenance diagnostic not only compares your current activities to those of world-class performers but also illuminates the path to bridging the gaps, thereby potentially reducing your maintenance costs.
When we analyze underperforming manufacturing operations, we not only quantify the potential for performance improvement but also estimate the costs of rectifying poorly maintained equipment. These costs, which can be substantial across a wide network of facilities, underscore the significant savings that a comprehensive maintenance diagnostic can potentially bring.
Companies operating in capital-intensive industries with a heavy reliance on industrial equipment often face significant costs related to facility maintenance. This is especially true for businesses where raw materials make up a large percentage of direct costs. Industries that suffer from poor quality, excessive scrap, rework, downtime, or an inability to meet customer delivery needs are also at risk of incurring high maintenance costs. Additionally, maintenance leaders who have strong technical skills but lack leadership, employee development, and planning abilities can exacerbate the problem.
If you have noticed any warning signs that suggest your organization is struggling with industrial maintenance, it may be time to conduct a comprehensive maintenance diagnostic.
If you’re seeing some of the warning signs that industrial maintenance is becoming a problem, a comprehensive maintenance diagnostic could be in order.
Total productive maintenance (TPM) and autonomous practices may also be assessed.
The purpose of the industrial maintenance diagnostic is to determine if a maintenance organization has the capabilities, leadership, and process discipline required to meet operational deliverables. Each area needs to be evaluated based on maturity, talent, tool usage, process ownership and performance.
The diagnostic of a facility’s maintenance program starts with a review of current metrics. The performance metrics used will vary based on the organization’s level of maintenance maturity.
Common metrics include:
We look at how sophisticated the metrics are, how frequently they are updated, and how they are used and communicated to team members.
The duration of the diagnostic will vary depending upon the scope, complexity and available data. The final analysis quantifies the negative impact of current performance levels. We then identify improvement opportunities, the potential cost savings and performance gains (in quality, productivity, asset utilization, etc.). A go-forward plan will detail next steps and estimate the remediation time, external resource requirements and any other expenses. The first step in turning around a struggling maintenance team is understanding the current state and improvement potential. A comprehensive diagnostic will detail current opportunities for improvement and the bottom-line benefits of investing in a more effective equipment and facility maintenance department.
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