Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance
Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance
Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance
Ebook620 pages5 hours

Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

This book shares the best practices, mistakes, victories, and essential steps for success which the author has gleaned from working with countless organizations. Unlike other books that only focus on the engineering issues (task lists) or management issues (CMMS), this in-depth resource is the first to give true emphasize to the four aspects of success in preventive maintenance systems--engineering, management, economic, and psychological -- thereby enabling readers to have a balanced view and understanding of what is happening in their organizations. Additionally, it blends concrete actionable steps and structures with the theory behind the steps.  

  • Includes check sheets, history of PM, stories, photographs, and case histories.
  • Contains a glossary of terms.
  • Provides sample task lists for a variety of equipment with some of the logic behind each task.
  • Offers templates for developing your own tasking.
  • Includes protocols for detailed economic analysis with examples.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 15, 2011
ISBN9780831190408
Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance
Author

Joel Levitt

Joel Levitt is known worldwide as a leading educator in maintenance management. He has trained more than 17,000 maintenance professionals from thousands of organizations in 25 countries. He has more than 30 years of experience in many facets of maintenance. Since 1980, he has been president of Springfield Resources, a management/consulting firm servicing clients on a wide range of maintenance issues. Levitt is a frequent speaker at maintenance and engineering conferences, has published dozens of articles on the subject, as well as a number of successful books, including The Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance;The Handbook of Maintenance Management;Lean Maintenance; Managing Factory Maintenance: and Managing Maintenance Shutdowns and Outages.

Read more from Joel Levitt

Related to Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

Related ebooks

Business For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

2 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance - Joel Levitt

    Complete Guide to

    Preventive and

    Predictive Maintenance

    Second Edition

    Joel Levitt

    Industrial Press Inc.

    Copyright

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Levitt, Joel, 1952-

    The complete guide to preventive and predictive maintenance Second Edition /by Joel Levitt.

    p. cm.

    ISBN 978-0-8311-9040-8

    1. Plant maintenance. 2. Industrial equipment--Maintenance and repair. I. Title.

    Industrial Press Inc.

    989 Avenue of the Americas

    New York, NY 10018

    Sponsoring Editor: John Carleo

    Cover and Interior Text Designer: Janet Romano

    Copy Editor: Robet Weinstein

    Second Edition

    Complete Guide to Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

    Copyright © 2011. Printed in the United States of America.

    All rights reserved.

    This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers.

    A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

    10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

    Dedication

    This work is dedicated to my personal maintenance consultant Hall of Fame. These people taught me much of what I know about maintenance consulting. They also represent integrity, quality, and good value for their clients.

    These people worked (or are working) behind the scenes to make our field more robust, dignified, knowable, and useful.

    Semond Levitt, my father, was the prototypical consultant interested about any topic that came in to his attention. Jay Butler was my first consultant employer and had his own unique beliefs about fleet maintenance, many of which I now share. Don Nyman, who is both a colleague and my collaborator on a book on planning, trained me when I started in the field. Ed Feldman trained and advised me on custodial maintenance. Ricky Smith and Richard Jamison generously let me work with their consultants on larger projects and gave me insight into larger maintenance consultancies. Mark Goldstein has been an indefatigable friend—a mentor and teacher with a unique insight into the best role for maintenance. Mike Brown and his wife Tessa Marquis have contributed to me personally and to many aspects of the profession from courses and computer-based training.

    Another group has affected me because of their presence in the field. Some are my friends too. Terry O’Hanlon is one of the anchors of the whole field and leads the charge online. John Carleo has mentored and nurtured a whole bunch of maintenance management writers (myself included). One in his stable of writers is Terry Wireman, who has written extensively about all aspects of maintenance. Tom Wingenter has been the champion of the Maintenance Certificate program at the University of Alabama for 20 years.

    From Down Under, Bill Holmes and the SIRF RT Facilitators do a remarkable job in keeping their members up to date. Philip Slater, Steve Turner, and Sandy Dunn have made Australia the thought leader in the field.

    Then there are some young’uns like Darrell Mather, the Linked-In thought leader (who may be anywhere) and author/consultant, and Joel Leonard, the maintenance crisis song guy.

    Finally Peter Todd of SIRF provided a wealth of information for the PdM sections. I’m sure there are more people who are in this role that don’t come to mind immediately. This work is dedicated to them too….

    Joel Levitt

    June, 2011

    Table of Contents

    Cover

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Dedication

    List of Figures

    Usage of Terms

    Introduction

    Preface

    1.The Goal of Maintenance

    Reliability: The Prime Directive of PM

    The Path

    Proactive Maintenance (PrM)

    2.Selling PPM to Management: Battle for a Share of the Mind

    Cycles of Maintenance

    Selling PM to Management

    The Real Benefits of PM

    Identifying Priorities

    Starting New Conversations in PM and Maintenance

    3.P/PM Economics

    Three Levels of Economic Analysis

    How Much PM Can You Afford

    Six Sigma

    Macro View of PM: PM Budgeting

    Costs of a PM System

    Breakdown Costs

    Economic Modeling

    4.Groundwork

    P³, PM, PdM Defined for this Book

    Mandatory versus Discretionary Preventive Maintenance

    Have Stakeholders Look at Current Efforts

    Rate Your PM Effort

    How Much PM is Enough?

    History of the PM Movement

    5.PM Basics

    PM is Four-Dimensional

    Six Misconceptions About PM

    Task List for P3

    A Special Kind of Failure: Hidden Failures

    Six Patterns of Failure

    Proposition

    6.PM Details for Effectiveness

    Four Types of Task Lists

    Where to Get the Original PM Task List

    Thoughts on the OEM Task Lists

    PM Frequency: How often do You Perform the PM Tasks?

    PM Levels and Resetting the Clock

    7.Simple Statistics and PM Frequency

    How to Calculate the Standard Deviation (SD)

    Using MTBF for Failure Analysis

    Other Uses of MTBF Statistics

    8.TPM (Total Productive Maintenance)

    Who Is TPM For?

    What Does TPM Do?

    Elements of TPM

    What Really Is TPM?

    TPM Intersects with PM at TLC

    9.Iatrogenic Failure

    Facts of Life

    Why Did This Happen?

    Protection from Iatrogenic Failure

    10.Advanced Concepts—PM at the Next Level

    Let’s Look at a Real Example

    P/F Curves

    PCR (Planned Component Replacement)

    Case Study: Comparing Breakdown with PCR Costs

    PM and RCA

    11.Predictive Maintenance

    What Is Predictive Maintenance?

    How is Condition-Based Maintenance Related to Predictive Maintenance?

    How is Condition Monitoring Related to Predictive Maintenance?

    12.Chemical and Particle Analysis Predictive Tasks

    Basic Types of Chemical Analysis

    What You Need to Understand

    Wear Particle Analysis, Ferrography, and Chip Detection

    13.Mechanical Predictive Tasks

    Vibration Analysis

    Tests, Training, and Certifications in Vibration

    Ultrasonic Inspection

    14.Energy-Related Tasks and Miscellaneous Tasks

    Temperature Measurement

    Advanced Visual Techniques

    Other Methods of Predictive Maintenance

    15.Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) Approach to PM and PdM

    A Unified Way to Look at a Potential System

    Specific CMMS Training

    Thoughts on Installing a PM Program

    Shop Floor Automation

    16.Management of PM Activity

    Urgency

    Just in Time (JIT)

    Plan-Schedule-Do

    Planning for PM

    17.Using Metrics or KPIs to Manage PM and PdM

    Metrics and Key Performance Indicators

    SMART

    Direct Measures of PM Activity

    Indirect Measures of PM

    18.Outsourcing PM

    Contract

    Types of Contracts

    19.Short Repairs and High Productivity

    Short Repairs

    Design a PM Cart

    Route Maintenance

    20.Psychological and Personnel Issues

    What They Don’t Know They Don’t Know

    Staffing the PM Effort

    Psychological Issues of Effective Motivation of the PM Inspector

    21.Special Case: PM in Shutdowns and Outages

    Risk

    Types of PM/PdM Inspections

    22.Reliability Enhancement Programs

    FMECA

    The RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) Approach to PPM

    PMO (PM Optimization)

    23.Task List Development

    Follow the Deterioration

    Task Development

    Analysis

    Process

    24.Task List Analysis

    Four Dimensions

    What Does Worth It Mean?

    Workshop for Existing Task Lists

    25.Debugging Your PM Program

    One Problem in Factories, Fleets, and Buildings...

    Case Study: Pulling Back from the Brink of Disaster

    Two Sided PM

    Debugging a PM System

    Ratios May Help You Diagnose a Problem

    26.Get It Going Right

    Steps to Install a PM System

    27.The Future of P/PM

    Let’s Predict the Future

    Common Mistakes

    Success Timetable

    Appendix A: Glossary of Maintenance Management Terms

    Appendix B: Resources

    Appendix C: Task List Library

    Index

    Disclaimer: The author and the publisher take no responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of any task list contained herein. The lists included are examples only. It is your responsibility to insure completeness. If you want to use these lists or elements of these lists, you must add the proper safety, personnel protection, and environmental protection steps for your particular equipment and operating environment. It is your responsibility to evaluate the individual risks of your equipment, facilities, and environment, and add or change tasks accordingly.

    Table of Figures

    1.1Maintenance expenditures with PrM

    1.2PM when it is working

    1.3PM system with PrM added

    1.4Three ways to manage physical assets

    2.1The vicious cycle of maintenance

    2.2The virtuous cycle of maintenance

    2.3Running manufacturing in breakdown mode

    2.4Running manufacturing with PM and CM

    2.5Real benefits of a PM system

    3.1Six Sigma

    3.2Comparing results from investments

    3.3The maintenance/reliability iceberg

    3.4Hidden costs

    3.5Summary of breakdown mode

    3.6Comparing breakdown and PM modes

    3.7Comparing breakdown, PM, and PCR

    4.1P³, PM, PdM Defined

    4.2Mandatory PM

    4.3Rating your PM effort

    4.4Lowest overall costs based on increasing PM costs to an optimum level

    5.1Sample PM Task List

    5.2Common P³ tasks

    5.3Random failure curve

    5.4Infant mortality curve

    5.5Increasing curve

    5.6Increasing then stable curve

    5.7Ending mortality curve

    5.8Bathtub curve

    5.9Countermeasures: Start-up cycle

    5.10Countermeasures: Wealth cycle

    5.11Countermeasures: Breakdown cycle

    6.1United-Based PM

    6.2Correct action for OIL LIGHT ON condition

    6.3Impact of failure history

    7.1Calculating standard deviation

    7.2Sample Maintsmart screen

    8.1TPM is very simple

    8.2Cleaning program checklist

    8.3Level 1 Machine Lubrication Technician job description

    8.4Lubrication check list

    10.1Performance/Failure curve

    10.2Multiple P/F curves

    10.3P/F curve showing intervals by technology

    10.4How common metrics are developed graphically

    10.5MTBF curve with SD

    12.1Guidelines for the origin of wear metals

    12.2Analysis information

    12.3Effect of dirt between two lubricated surfaces

    12.4Particle technique and average size of particles

    12.5Typical lubricant contamination

    13.1Vibration severity curve

    13.2How components vibrate at different rates

    13.3Different components vibrate at different intensities

    13.4Location of vibration transducers

    13.5Vibration limits for different classes of machine

    13.6Vibration causes

    13.7A handheld ultrasonic gun

    14.1Infrared scanning

    14.2Misalignment between motor and device

    14.3Comparing visible light with infrared light

    14.4Possible uses for infrared inspection

    14.5View of a tower taken with both visible light and with infrared

    14.6Infrared picture of an apartment building

    14.7Inukton Services inspection robot

    14.8Instructions for testing of lifting hooks

    15.1PM task generation screen

    15.2PM detail screen

    15.3Preventive Maintenance Work Order listing

    15.4Asset master file

    15.5Point and Shoot report generator

    16.1Possible contents of PM Planned Job package

    16.2PM intervals and labor for a future period

    16.3Interruptive and possible equivalent non-interruptive tasks

    17.1PM Measures and the University of California criteria

    17.2Planned and unplanned schedule

    18.1Common applications of outsourced PMs

    19.1Work sampling of a maintenance crew

    19.2Detailed steps of a typical maintenance job

    19.3Completing a PM

    19.4PM Cart Inventory

    19.5Model 5300MP from Kennedy

    19.6Lockable maintenance cart from Strong Hold Products

    20.1A large family operation in Saudi Arabia

    21.1Tank photographed in infrared

    21.2A combination of infrared and visible light picture of a fuse connection

    21.3A misaligned mixer coupling.

    22.1RCM data sheet

    23.1Proof box component life analysis showing MTBF

    24.1PM justification for a sump pump using all four views of PM

    24.2Steps for completing task lists

    24.3Relationship between tasks and failure modes

    24.4Comparison of cots between PM and breakdown maintenance

    25.1Actions in the past determine the present

    25.2Open-cut coal mine

    25.3Ratios of work types are diagnostic of problems with the PM system

    25.4Using ratios to evaluate entire shop’s performance

    25.5Using ratios to evaluate a machine’s performance

    26.1Building your list of assets for PM

    Usage of Terms

    In this book, the words asset, unit, equipment, and machine are used interchangeably. In some industries they have different meanings. In this book, all these words mean the basic unit, system, or machine to which the PM is addressed. In process plants where all assets are tied together, we pick a cut-off (such as components valued at over $1000). To confuse the issue, some CMMS use their own special terms to refer to the same concepts or items.

    In this book

    •PM means Preventive Maintenance

    •PdM means Predictive Maintenance

    •PPM or P/PM means Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

    •CMMS means Computerized Maintenance Management System

    •PrM means Proactive Maintenance comes in a couple of flavors

    •MI means Maintenance Improvement (easier to do maintenance)

    •MP means Maintenance Prevention (remove the source of the problem)

    Activity means all types of activity to Prevent, Postpone or Predict failure that appear on the task list document itself. You could say P³ activity is all PM and PdM activity on the task lists.

    For this book, PM does not mean:

    Pencil Maintenance (where the inspector skips the inspection and pencil whips the form)

    Precision Maintenance (where protocols are laid out and people follow them)

    Panic Maintenance (actually our PM is just the opposite)

    Planned Maintenance (it’s related like a first cousin, but not even a sibling)

    Productive Maintenance (our PM can help you get there)

    Project Management (that is another book!)

    Prime Minister (this could be getting ridiculous)

    Or finally

    Percussive Maintenance (The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again)

    Introduction to the Second Edition

    I still agree with all the points I made in the first edition. That is a relief. If anything, the issues of PM have become more dire, and much more complicated in the last 10 years because organizations are fighting to survive and thrive. The unthinkable has happened between the first edition and this one.

    In the United States, General Motors and Chrysler have gone through bankruptcy. Giant insurance companies like AIG became vassals of the government. A deep-water oil well spilled 100,000,000s of gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. Toyota has had quality problems as had Johnson and Johnson. In Japan, we have a first-order magnitude nuclear disaster. As I write this short introduction, I sit in the Beijing airport (post-Olympics and it looks wonderful). We certainly live in interesting times.

    We now are facing the consequences of bad maintenance decisions of the past. Boy, is that depressing (how much pleasure do you get saying I told you so). How to manage long term maintenance in a profit-making company is still very unclear and, to my eyes, still unresolved (beyond just always doing what’s right).

    Here is the problem. Companies are designed to make a profit. We all accept that and agree with it. The question is how much should you spend from that profit—say a year—to avoid a very low probability, but high impact event?

    To make the problem more concrete, according to newspaper reports in Alaska on the oil rich North Slope, BP did not spend $22 million a year on anti-corrosives for the pipelines for about 25–30 years. Then they had a series of leaks with all the bad publicity, law suits, and environmental costs that goes along with that.

    Here is the crazy issue. It could be, from a profit point of view, that $22 million a year saved (that was not paid for corrosion retardant) is worth more profit to the company than the cost of fixing and cleaning up after the leaks! Say $20 million annually if invested over the 25–30 years at 5% is about $1.4 billion in today’s dollars. BP’s actual costs were considerably lower than $1.4 billion. The decision was more profitable even after paying for the repairs, lawyers, settlements and environmental clean-up.

    So, if we were shareholders of BP or managers whose bonus was higher, we could be saying jolly good job to the CFO who made that decision (if the decision was even made at level).

    Against the backdrop of decisions like the one on the North Slope was the meeting in Davos. I was very gratified when at the Davos World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2011, company executives recognized that organizations can be respectful to people and the environment and make a profit.

    Getting back to the companies that failed during this last great-recession, would any of them have stayed in business if they had ultimate precision maintenance? I think not. The rest of this argument is worse in a way. It is worse because it makes us the party responsible for the business decisions.

    As maintenance professionals, we should be asked by management which of the low probability, high impact events (such as a failed blow-out preventer) we should spend money on. Every single low probability that we fund takes a little away from profit (and everyone around the table’s bonus). When the event doesn’t happen as you predicted, because it was prevented, who is there to pat you on the back?

    Of course, if in your judgment the event should be accepted and not funded, what do you think will happen if the event does take place? After all, it was a business decision.

    The best decision must be in alignment with the goals of the organization. Without the focus of the goals, bad decisions will continue to be made. A business-based society like ours has to design solutions for problems that cannot be handled within the current short term framework. As maintenance professions, our little bit of this is to fairly present the risks and consequences to our decisions today as best as we can.

    The profession of maintenance is also in a transition. Look around; there are certificates, courses, professional programs, and even university programs. More are being born by the year. This is great news because the programs will teach an orthodoxy and people will learn the rules. As a result of the creation of a recognized body of knowledge, people will learn what they need to know efficiently. They will go from first grade to twelfth much faster than the last generations.

    There is a dark side to this upbeat story. For that I have to go back to the cold war. It was about 1975; I was responsible for a small division that made large gymnasium equipment. We sold to the General Contractor for construction of schools and community centers. I needed a draftsperson or engineer because each job had to be designed for the building it was going into.

    I heard on the grapevine there was a Russian émigré engineer looking for work who spoke passable English. In his interview, he came across well. He was older than the typical draftsman we usually hired, but had 15 years of experience designing train stations. Boy, did he know a lot about railroad stations. Apparently in Russia at the time, you really specialized. I was thrilled because of all I imagined he brought to the team.

    The experience was torturous for both of us. He was looking for the manual that would give him the answer like he had in his old job. I would explain that it was his job to engineer the superstructure; he was aghast. He was completely competent within the orthodoxy of railroad stations, but where everything is different and the rules were more fluid, he was overwhelmed.

    We had to part company after about six months. I heard his next job was in a field nowhere near engineering. I didn’t understand at the time how learning a body of knowledge quickly makes you competent within that realm, but only experience makes you a master of the larger field.

    We have gone the route of degrees, certifications, classes to partially replace the old timers (who have been leaving in droves since the baby boomers started to retire). This is the wholesale method of replacement (apprenticeship is the retail method—a few at a time).This new group will know the rules, and it is the sacred duty of everyone left who has been around for awhile to help build their mastery.

    Preface

    Is PM Like Life?

    Life can be said to be a challenge and a struggle. Like equipment, humans wear out. Some of the modes of wear can be impacted by our habits (smoking, overdrinking, and overeating) and others are random events (accidents, sicknesses). We all struggle to a greater or lesser extent with our good and bad habits. To some extent, your quality of life is related to your habits. It seems like humans without willpower tend to accumulate more bad habits than good ones.

    One way to look at habits is that the challenge is to design your life so that you are pulled toward good, healthy habits. For example, if you could ride a bicycle to work for 30 minutes that would be a habit that would consume extra calories and build endurance. Your life would be pulled toward better health from that change in habit (assuming you avoid the random occurrence of a collision with a car or the ground!).

    PM routines are good habits for maintaining machinery. Of course, like any habit, you can go overboard with PM. Your inspections can be too intrusive, your intervals could be too close together, or you could be overanxious to replace slightly worn components.

    Great PM is like great exercise and eating habits. Good/great habits are not a guarantee of health (either machine or human); they just increase the probability of health.

    The challenge for those managers who take on PM is to design a shop environment that draws people toward good habits in equipment usage and maintenance. What are these good habits?

    •Labor with appropriate skills available for PM activity

    •Operators and equipment users are fully trained

    •PM people follow the task list, carry it with them, and make notes

    •Using a reminder system to alert you that PM is due (and staying on schedule)

    •Having reserved downtime for PM activity well in advance

    •Materials, tools, and other resources available for PM activities

    •Higher management interested in PM outcomes and they ask questions

    •Information on failure modes is shared among maintenance, engineering, operations and the OEM

    How to view PM (Preventive Maintenance) and PdM (Predictive Maintenance)

    In prior works by this and other authors, PM has been treated as an engineering issue (identifying tasks that have the greatest impact?) or as a management issue (procedures and preparation for TPM). Other writers have considered PM as a combination of ways (RCM-engineering, and economic aspects).

    In fact, PM is even more complicated. Effective PM or PdM is like a skyscraper with four sides. PM initiatives commonly fail to meet expectations or just gradually fade out of existence when one side is neglected. If the program is to be successful and long lasting, it needs to be solid like a building with strong supports. PM needs integrity in all four areas of engineering, economics, psychology, and management.

    Engineering

    The tasks have to be the right tasks, being done with the right techniques, at the right frequency. Many PM systems have elaborate PM tasking, but breakdowns occur anyway because the wrong things are being looked at in the wrong frequency. In other words, the tasks have to detect or correct critical wear that is occurring. Analysis of statistics of failure, uptime, and repair is included in the engineering pillar of PM.

    Economic

    The tasks must be ‘worth’ doing. One measure of worth is that doing the tasks furthers the business goals of the organization. Is the value of the failure greater than the cost of the tasks? Spending $1000 to maintain an asset worth $500 is usually a waste of resources unless there is a downtime, environmental, or safety issue. This economic question is critical. The RCM approach includes in the ‘worth doing’ equation those tasks where failures could result in environmental catastrophe or loss of life or limb. Many PM initiatives ignore the consequence of failure and are discontinued (properly) because they are not worth the risk

    People-Psychological

    The people doing the PM have to be motivated to the extent that they actually do the designated tasks properly. Without motivation, PM rapidly becomes mind numbing. PM people also need to attend to the level of detail generated by a PM system and they must be properly trained to know what they are looking at and why. It is not an area that lends itself to improvisation so the people have to be convinced to do the task the same way each time.

    Management

    PM has to be built into the systems and procedures that control the business and these systems must be designed so that good PM is the result. W.E Deming, the quality guru, said that quality was in the system of production, not in the individual effort. A tacked-on PM system is rarely effective for the long haul. Information collected from PM has to be integrated into the flow of business information. PM data has to be reported to the Plant Manager or Director of Operations so that there is a structure outside maintenance asking questions, demanding answers, and demanding accountability.

    This book is designed to address all four aspects of PM.

    One more thing, we will lose the war—Because of Entropy!

    Entropy is a great term that says that systems always go from higher order to lower order. We observe that energy always flows spontaneously from regions of higher temperature to regions of lower temperature.

    Entropy is also a measure of the tendency of a process to proceed in a particular direction. The word has been applied to our entire universe and extended to all kinds of systems. In this sense, entropy is an expression of disorder or randomness (more entropy equals more disorder). High energy is more order and low energy is more disorder.

    Think of a turbine, spinning and almost perfectly balanced. You could say that in that state the system has the most order. But the natural tendency of all matter and all energy is to move toward greater entropy or greater disorder. Sooner or later, something will happen and the turbine will break. Broken machines are more disordered than working machines. It could be said that the natural state of machinery is to be broken!

    Want some evidence? Take a look at any abandoned factory. Have you ever seen the machines get more repaired by themselves over the years after everyone left? Of course not; if anything, they fall into greater and greater states of disrepair (disorder).

    What about those 5S programs that clean everything up and give everything a place? Did you ever wonder why they are difficult to sustain? 5S is a high state of order. Due to this idea of entropy, we know the natural tendency is toward disorder. As long as energy is invested, the work place will be clean and ordered, and everything will be in its place. The moment that energy is withheld or diverted elsewhere, decay is the inevitable result. With increased entropy is increased disorder and lower energy levels.

    Where Does PM Fit In?

    PM is the addition of energy to the system to restore order. The restored order represents a higher energy state. PM is like a tragic wrestler who wrestles with the fundamental laws of the universe and will always lose. PM might win this battle, but is destined to always, ultimately to lose the war. That is fine because all we have to do is win the battles while our organization needs the asset. We can afford to walk away losers when we no longer need the asset.

    If we want to take this model even further, we can see the function of TLC tasks. These Tighten, Lubricate, and Clean tasks are simply designed to reduce the loss of energy or slow the flow of energy toward disorder. Tight bolts prevent vibration. Vibration eventually accelerates destruction. Tightening the bolts slows down and postpones the destruction and disorder.

    The function of inspection is to identify items at risk for blowing off huge amounts of energy by breaking. If we can replace them before failure, we can maintain the energy and the order in the system.

    Practically speaking, what does this mean?

    There is no such thing as a completed PM journey! There is only the path we take. We could say the path is moving toward or moving away from a more highly-ordered place. Therefore, don’t worry so much because there is only a direction, not a destination.

    The Goal of Maintenance

    The critical aspect of effective maintenance is that is it justifiable by the business, culture, and fundamental ideals of right and wrong. Ouch, once we talk about right and wrong we leave our cozy domain of management and maintenance and go into the complicated, sticky, and ambiguous land of morality and ethics. Although I’m not qualified to speak in depth on these issues, it is clear that right and wrong must enter the equation. This news is very bad for maintenance professionals because we may be given budgets that are too thin to reasonably guarantee safety and environmental integrity.

    Our position is very tenuous. Do we quit in disgust, suck it up and do what is asked, become the proverbially wild-eyed prophet in the wilderness, or find a new mode of expression? Of course, we are looking for the new modes of expression that deliver the message effectively and protect everyone from short-term stupidity and avarice.

    Reliability: The Prime Directive of PM

    We will revisit the right and wrong part of PM several times in specific areas of this work. Let’s get back to the discussion on reliability. We could be (and certainly would be) champions of equipment reliability. One could argue that reliability is the prime directive of the PM effort and not be wrong. Even knowing the prime directive, there are several completely different situations.

    If you run a nuclear power plant, you might have all work inspected and conduct video surveillance. You might keep all NDT (Non Destructive Testing) records for decades and require all documentation to be signed and verified. You might be audited by federal agencies as well as your companies and insurance carriers, Nevertheless, you and your task lists will be subject to intense scrutiny by the press, public, and politicians who have no training and understanding of the issues.

    If you are an airline, you might have all work inspected, with all procedures validated, checked out, designed by qualified engineers (on the aircraft side), and so on. If a mistake is made, it is a public event; your integrity will be questioned even if you followed every procedure to the T.

    If you run a manufacturing plant, you might have the computer system printing out PMs that take four hours to do properly, but are being done in an hour because people are so busy with the blessing of management. If something goes wrong, management will be staring over your shoulder and exerting pressure to get the line back up—and even if someone dies it would only be local news.

    The Path

    Effective maintenance is not a destination, but the name of a path—a robust path. The path to effective maintenance includes preventive and predictive maintenance but also more than that. PM maintains the status quo. Effective maintenance aligns a company’s needs for increasingly efficient maintenance effort, realistic resources, and doing the right thing by the employees and the environment.

    One way to accomplish these goals is to add a specific category for improvement called Proactive Maintenance (or PrM) to the traditional pie chart of maintenance expenditures (see Figure 1.1).

    Figure 1.2 shows what PM looks like when

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1