Best Maintenance Repair Practices

Best Maintenance Repair Practices

 Best Maintenance Repair Practices

 
This article focuses on “Best Maintenance Practices—Mechanical”  
If principle principles and techniques of "Known Best Maintenance Repair Practices" they will result in a serious reduction in “self-induced failures.” A number of surveys conducted with industries throughout the United States have found that 70% of equipment failures are self-induced. Maintenance personnel who are  not  following  what  are  termed  “Best Maintenance  Repair  Practices”  substantially affect  these failures.  Between 30%  and  50%  of  the self-induced  failures are the result  of  maintenance personnel not knowing the basics of maintenance. Maintenance personnel who,although skilled,choose not to follow best  maintenance  repair practices  potentially  cause  another  20%  to  30%  of  those  failures.The existence of  this  problem  has  been  further validated through  the skills assessment process performed in companies throughout the State of Georgia.

This program evaluated the knowledge of basic maintenance fundamentals through a combination of written,  identification, and  performance assessments of thousands of maintenance  personnel  from a wide  variety  of  industries. The  results  indicated  that  over  90%  of maintenance personnel lacked basic fundamentals of mechanical maintenance.“Best Maintenance Repair Practices” are necessary for maintenance personnel to keep equipment operating at peak reliability and companies functioning more profitably through reduced maintenance costs and increased productivity and capacity. 

The potential cost  savings can often be beyond the understanding or comprehension of management. Many managers are in a denial state regarding maintenance."The  result  is  that  they  do  not  believe  that  repair  practices directly impact an organization’s bottom line or profitability" More  enlightened  companies  have  demonstrated  that,  by  reducing  self-induced  failures, they can  increase  production capacity by  as much as 20-30%. Managers accept lower reliability standards from maintenance efforts because they either do not understand the problem or they choose to ignore because it has become the "New Norm".A  good  manager  must  be willing  to admit  to  a  maintenance problem and actively pursue a solution.You may be asking, what are the “Best Maintenance Repair Practices”?  Maybe the following charts could be a great place to answer this question.

What is the root cause of "Maintenance Induced Failures?

1. Lack of knowledge or knowing what good look looks like and value it represents if a plant follows best maintenance repair practice. 
2. Maintenance  is  totally reactive and does not follow the definition  of maintenance,  which  is  to  protect,  preserve,  and  prevent  from  decline (Reactive Organization) 
3. Maintenance personnel do not have the requisite skills.  
4. The  maintenance  workforce  lacks  either  the  discipline  or  direction  to follow best maintenance repair practices.  
5. Management is not supportive, and/or does not understand the consequences of not following the best practices (real understanding must involve a knowledge of how much money is lost to the bottom line). 

Here are a few numbers known throughout industry:
This post was taken from Keith Mobley and my book, "Industrial Maintenance Repair", and is published in e-book or hard copy and can be purchased at: https://www.elsevier.com/books/industrial-machinery-repair/smith/978-0-7506-7621-2
 
About: 
To all my friends, The Maintenance Community on Slack is an incredible free space where over 1,500 maintenance and reliability professionals like myself share real life experiences with each other.   
 

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