Making Maintenance Work
| Published date | 01 May 1982 |
| Date | 01 May 1982 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057249 |
| Pages | 6-7 |
| Author | Nick Robinson |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Making Maintenance Work
by Nick Robinson
With many engineering companies
now
fighting hard
for
orders,
the
priority
on
production
is to
keep existing
customers happy, with prompt deliveries. This means that
maintenance, which
has
traditionally been second place
to
the urgent need
to "get the
goods
out", now
risks being
neglected.
One
maintenance manager puts
it
clearly.
"We
are always getting requests from production
to
keep
machines operating, mainly
on
catch-up work.
But I
have
to explain that inadequate maintenance
can
mean
a
machine breakdown which might result
in
lost orders."
The secret
of
successful maintenance
is
close control,
because that's
the
only
way of
ensuring
the
work
is
cost-
effective, according
to
Lance Secretan, managing director
of Manpower,
the
international work contractor which
specialises
in
plant maintenance
and
installation.
"Maintenance should
be
shown
to
give value
for
money
like anything else,
and
many maintenance plans
can be im-
proved through closer control, provided enough flexibility
is built
in for
the special needs
of
a company."
Control should start
at the
beginning with budgetary
allocation,
he
says.
"The
budgetary process that
any
organisation goes through
at
least once
a
year should
be
used
as a
systematic basis
for
allocation
of
resources dur-
ing
the
next year. When
it
comes
to
maintenance,
I
think
you have
to
apply
the
principle
of
zero budgeting—asking
not what
it
will cost
to
have
but
what
it
will cost
to do
without." Often the difference between running your plant
90 per cent
of
the time and
95
per cent
of
the time
is
the
dif-
ference between just covering your overheads
and
making
money,
he
explains. Tighter controls
on all
stages
of
maintenance
can
often bridge that
gap.
"Maintenance should
be
shown
to
give
value
for
money like anything else,
and many maintenance plans
can be
improved through closer control"
Virtually
all
maintenance managers operate from
a
maintenance plan whether
it be a
manually operated rota
of resources available,
or a
sophisticated computerised set-
up.
But the system must be adapted
to
the need.
Often
in a
process industry, which
has to
operate
168
hours
a
week,
52
weeks
of the
year,
the
textbook solution
of planned maintenance
is
necessary
to
operate.
The
most
cost effective solution
in
this case
may
prove
to be the
pragmatic one—gearing maintenance
to
production
re-
quirements. Rather than have
a
permanent night time shift
of maintenance workers,
a
company
may run a
voluntary
rota
of
maintenance employees
who
live close
to the
fac-
tory.
As
skilled personnel
are
sometimes reluctant
to
work
nights, this
may be the
best system. Planned shut-down
plus weekend work
is
another solution. Maintenance
demands, perhaps
for
plant overhaul
or
structural work
can
be met by a
company's
own
staff through shutdowns
during summer and Christmas. Minor repairs can occupy a
weekend, ready
for
Monday morning.
The closer that schedules
are
pre-planned, the more flex-
ibility
can
usually
be
built into them, including
the use of
outside contractors
to
lighten
the
strain
on
in-house
resources. Says Secretan "There is
a
great deal
of
room
for
the 20-year engineering services contract.
It
will come,
because
it's a
commercially effective way
of
doing things,
but hardly
any
companies
in
this country have made such
arrangements."
"Supplementary labour contractors
should
be
regarded
as
integral with
the permanent labour force
and
planned
for
accordingly"
He believes "Supplementary labour contractors should
be regarded
as
integral with
the
permanent labour force
and planned
for
accordingly."
But if
the use
of
contractors
in balance with
the
in-house team is
to
show benefits
in the
long term, contractors must
be
regarded
as a
continual
part
of
resource allocation,
and not
simply
an
emergency
measure.
According
to
Secretan "Many
of
our clients contract
out
maintenance work where
it
calls
for
specialist skills,
or
relieves
the
strain
on
their
own
people,
or
involves short
term projects where
the
client could
not
guarantee long-
term employment
if he
were
to
take
on
extra
staff. But
most
of
all clients find that contracting
out
gives them that
margin
of
flexibility
on an
ongoing basis within which they
can meet both preventive
and
breakdown maintenance
needs with acceptable downtime."
How does
a
company
set
about improving
its
maintenance planning? The best answer
for
each company
will
be
quite different,
but
Manpower offers
the
following
nine point check list
of key
areas where contractors
can
also play a valuable role.
1.
Have
we
a full
up-dated register
of
our assets?
The first essential
in
asset management
is a
register,
whether held
in
ledgers, card file
or
computer. Financially,
the register allows cost
of
ownership
and
appreciation
to
be calculated, while technically,
it
provides data
and
iden-
tification
of
the asset—a vital basis
for
planning.
2.
Do
we
know our
ownerships
costs for
each asset?
Costs
can be
extracted from records
by a
contractor,
who
can then
be
phased
out
when
the
project ends
and the
records up-dated thereafter in-house.
3.
Are
our stocks
correctly valued?
Over
a
period, stocks increase
and
inflation affects their
value. Regular stock reviews are vital
to
planning,
but may
require extra resources.
A
contractor
can
handle this pro-
ject under his own supervision,
but
early planning is vital if
an appropriately specialist contractor
is to be
appointed.
6 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT
+
DATA SYSTEMS
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