Precision maintenance is an approach to how work is identified/determined; planned for an improved state; executed with discipline, precision and control; and audited for reliability. It carries on postwork to include machine performance and identifies achieved dynamic improvements. The improvement results are audited over time to identify what actions can be applied to similar assets.
The assembly and installation of machinery is where we can have an immediate impact. It begins with, "What failures do you wish to control?" The work also needs to include how machines that are not failing can be improved before entering the failure cycle.
Precision maintenance alters the performance of machines and manufacturing in a most positive sense. It begins with a focus on reducing problems associated with early failure and mediocre performance and is:
- Incrementally controlled (with knowledge in experience).
- Sequentially applied with the discipline to known and proven standards.
- Always performed in the most precise manner possible.
- Documented to maintain exactly what improvements were performed.
- Audited with dynamic condition measurements.
In the past few years, there have been many improvements made on everyone's operating and maintenance floors, but universally we continue to be faced with interesting challenges. First is the erosion of skill sets and of people who perform training. If we are going to improve reliability within our manufacturing workforce, we need to begin to encourage the development of "hands-on, hard skills" activities. The excitement of discovery resides not only in understanding the value of the work, but also in being able to do it well and put that understanding to work right now.
Asset lifecycle extension improvement
Precision maintenance should be applied within a reliability process initiative. What matters? Four real, practical deliverables impact the bottom line:
- What is your reliability and overall equipment effectiveness?
- What is your cost of maintenance?
- What is the impact on production skill sets to improve production excellence?
- What is the effect on energy consumption?.
Incidentally, precise techniques may take less time to apply than your current approach. If precision techniques are executed in a controlled, incremental and sequential manner, where people understand what they're doing and why they' re doing it, the work tends to go faster and with more success. Note there will be times when production needs require that we get the machinery up and running before work is complete. Work execution discipline means that at the earliest opportunity, we return to the asset and continue the improvement work.
'Precision' organization characteristics
Leaders are sponsors and own the strategies of the work. Trades and operations own the process and the assets. They work together, seeking consensus to drive profitability further, while pride and morale are front and center. Each is appreciated, and leaders realize how each influences the bottom line. Maintenance is realized not as a program but as a process. For mature organizations, reliability improvement is the responsibility of all, and when this process is captured, improvement moves forward faster.
It has become very important today for people to "certify." It is just as important to ensure the information is accepted and approved by respective bodies for accreditation. Certification without "qualification" (correctly performing the work) to get the "completed" checkmark does not do it. What good does it do to place a machine in a precise performance state, if we fail to operate it "precisely"?
There are many who believe that obtaining "precision maintenance" amounts to "Take a course and you're there" or "Buy some cool instruments and you are guaranteed to achieve." Achieving precision is worth the effort and the struggle to achieve, and those who capture it correctly reap huge rewards. Precision maintenance is a key element to move from survive to thrive!
For more information, visit www. reliabilitysolutions.net or call (251) 490-2999.