preventive maintenance

David Landry and Joe Mikes

Executive Summary

Downtime tracking can leave a leadership group with fractured data that makes decision making difficult. By shifting the emphasis from which equipment is "down" to "the reasons why we are not performing well," the data at the end of the cycle becomes much more meaningful. By fixing the top causes of production losses, businesses are steadily achieving better results. This article details how Joe Mikes, Production Loss Elimination SME, and David Landry, Chief Production Engineer at a uranium processing facility, led the change from downtime tracking to a robust production loss elimination process that is delivering monthly improvements to the facility's operation.

Authors: William Boothe and Steven Lindborg
Reviewed by: Ricky Smith

When I read the first page of Handbook to Achieve Operational Excellence by William Boothe and Steven Lindborg, it pulled me in because of the initial statements about enterprise-wide management and alignment. These are serious topics that are well laid out in this book. Most companies either do not understand these two topics or they do not want to be successful.

Creating a value stream-based plant organization structure

Drew D. Troyer

We've all heard the saying, "couples that play together stay together." But does this concept have any bearing on the management of plant reliability? I think it does. In this article, we'll explore a reorganization of the plant maintenance structure to focus on what's really important, creating value for the shareholders and other stakeholders of the organization.

By Nicholas E. Maki, Jack T. Croswell and Dean A. Weiberg

Just as there is always a change in seasons, the journey to reliability excellence will continuously be changing and adapting.

Maintaining a facility the size of Hibbing Taconite, a mining and natural resource company, is and always will be challenging. It is an endless cycle of preparing and repairing; continuously moving from one project to the next. It can be rewarding one minute and frustrating the next. As anyone involved with the process can attest, it is harder than it may appear to maintain equipment at its original designed capacity and efficiency. From the moment a piece of equipment is put into service, the clock starts and wear begins. It never seems to end and there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. You move from one project to the next, over and over again, seldom taking time to reflect and appreciate the work you have accomplished because the next project is waiting. This is how it is in the maintenance process. We execute repair after repair, continuously planning for the next shift, day, week, month and year, seldom taking time to look back and appreciate the work that has been accomplished.

What is a Proactive Maintenance Technician?

A proactive maintenance technician is a highly- trained professional who is an expert in his or her skills area, has knowledge of other skills areas, including safety and production, and has a desire to learn more. This professional knows and can implement a failure modes driven maintenance strategy for any piece of equipment. A proactive maintenance technician uses knowledge and experience to ensure the maintenance process is optimized by making constructive recommendations to management concerning improvement areas.