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130 E&MJ; • JUNE 2014 www.e-mj.com O P E R AT I N G S T R AT E G I E S World-class Maintenance: An Ambitious Worthwhile Goal By Paul D. Tomlingson Numerous worthwhile benefits accrue to the industrial organization that is supported by a maintenance organiza- tion performing at the world-class level. That organization will be favored with consistently reliable production equip- ment. They will be assured of meeting production goals. Their product will exceed marketplace standards. Their customers will see them as a quality organization. Their employees will enjoy job satisfaction, and the plant will realize continuing profitability. Every industrial installation aspires to "world-class" status knowing they can compete favorably with the best, most profitable organizations in the world. The trick is to achieve the attrib- utes that qualify the organization for world-class status. But there are no world-class maintenance organizations. Rather, there are world-class industrial organizations that include a world-class maintenance organization. Mainten- ance, by itself, is a service provider dependent on the support and coopera- tion of other departments. When that service is exceptional, it is made that way because maintenance is operating in an environment that requires it to be exceptional. Managers have created an environment in which maintenance can be exceptional. The plant, mine or facility manager must acknowledge from the start that maintenance is not a "stand-alone" effort of a maintenance department. It will require the joint efforts of all plant departments. Quality material support and full cooperation from operations, for example, are among the essential requisites for effective maintenance and achievement of world-class maintenance status. When attributes such as these are rein- forced by dedicated plant managers, profitability soon follows. Making the journey to world-class maintenance status is a six-phase process. Start with an Evaluation The first step of any improvement effort, and the journey to world-class maintenance, is an evaluation to identi- fy improvement needs and their priori- ties. Only then can a meaningful improvement effort be launched. An evaluation is the first step of improving maintenance. It is the road map of the journey to world-class maintenance. It is the plan of action for accomplishing needed improvements. Without an ini- tial evaluation, the improvement effort lacks direction and purpose. When improvement needs are based on guesswork rather than a solid evalua- tion, the results are invariably frustra- tion, confusion and no improvement. When an evaluation determines the fac- tual improvement needs, the resulting action plan is realistic and attainable (see Figure 1). Assure Effective Support for Maintenance As the world-class journey starts, create a positive maintenance working envi- ronment to assure full cooperation and support by all plant departments with strong plant management reinforce- ment. With the realization that the entire plant (or mine) is behind them, maintenance commences the journey with purpose and enthusiasm. Progression toward world-class maintenance is unlikely to be made unless plant managers get heavily involved from the outset. When plant managers, for example, have a produc- tion strategy spelling out the mutually supporting responsibilities of each department in support of maintenance, this is a good start. If they have policies specifying how departments are to interact in support of the production strategy, even better. If they require all departments to produce a solid program specifying and documenting internal Figure 1 – After evaluating current maintenance performance: (1) Identify improvement needs and their priorities to develop an action plan. (2) Create a supportive plant working environment to ensure support and cooperation from other departments. (3) Develop and implement a quality maintenance program. (4) Based on the actions required in the program, select and implement the best information system to support the program. (5) The pro- gram prescribes the what, how, who, when and why to carry out maintenance services properly. Using these guide- lines, implement the type of organization that can best meet the program requirements. (6) Evaluate again to verify that improvement needs established in (1) have been achieved and that they can be sustained. EMJ_pg130-133_EMJ_pg130-133 6/2/14 3:20 PM Page 130