Maintenance Skills Training - the “Missing Link” for Success?

Maintenance Skills Training - the “Missing Link” for Success?

 Maintenance Skills Training - the “Missing Link” for Success?

 
Maintenance Skills Training is a noble cause however without Maintenance Procedures, which contains step by step instructions, specifications and tolerances, are not developed and utilized as a requirement a company would never reap the results one expects from maintenance skills training. Think about yourself, have you ever misplaced your car keys or forgot an appointment? You are not alone, I know. What I have found through managing and working with hundreds of maintenance organizations around the world is:
  • We as humans do not possess an unlimited memory or infallible memory
  • Human Error is as high as 70-80% based on past studies.
  • Most people believe they can remember everything which I ask them, “have you ever misplaced your car keys or forget an appointment?”
  • Most organizations face the same type of equipment failures (partial functional and total functional failures) many times over the course of time costing organization large amount of lost capacity and money.  
The best solution for this problem would be to:
1-Get everyone’s attention first:  
2. Post one line graph (yes, line graph) showing capacity only or loss runtime, do not post numbers or words on the graph or title for the first few days. When people ask, “what you are measuring”, let them know you will talk about it later to the “group”. On day 3 let them know the chart represents how much variation we have in our process and what it means in dollar losses. (let this become a rumor so everyone will pay attention when you talk about this issue)  
3-Update the graph daily and meet with managers at the chart daily (become creative). Please share what you learn on this post so we can all learn from each other.  NOTE: You must not give up, pay attention to what the numbers are telling you.
4-Begin tracking number of partial and total functional failures  
  • a Failure is an unsatisfactory condition which is unacceptable to a particular user) 
  • a Functional Failure is the inability of an item or equipment to perform a specific function and usually identified by an operator, ie. Production line is not running to specification or quality losses are occurring 
  • The consequences of a functional failure determine the priority of maintenance effort. These consequences fall into four categories: 
  • Safety consequences, involving possible loss of the equipment or personnel  
  • Operational consequences, which involve an indirect economic loss as well as the direct cost of repair  
  • Nonoperational consequences, which involve only the direct cost of repair
  • Hidden-failure consequences, which involve exposure to a possible multiple failure as a result of the undetected failure of a hidden
  •  Cost of lost capacity ($$$) and minutes of equipment downtime
  • Waste
  • Overtime
5-Educate everyone at your site the value of repeatable operational and maintenance procedures with specifications and step by step procedures. This should be a condition of employment. (ok, maybe a little harsh but it depends on how much money you are truly losing, remember the money you lose will never be recovered)
6-Work with your local community college or a training company who knows how to transfer maintenance knowledge and skill to your employees and yes, they need to be tested, these test scores should only be known by your local college or training provider (if you are located in the State of Georgia all community colleges have the ability to assess legally knowledge and skill, knowledge can be measured through written test and skill through “hands on” testing).
7-Never give in to the moaning and whining about “this is too hard”, or “this isn’t the way we work here”. Working in a proactive environment is fun and energizing once everyone gets on board. Some people may need to relocate to other companies but 99.9% will comply once they see management is committed (remember many programs have been introduced in companies so over time employees are skeptical of new programs). Patience will be critical however quick results I am not patient. Quick wins can be achieved and sustained as you build the long-term strategy for success. 

8-I worked at Alumax Mt Holly in the 1980s and 1990s, the first plant in the world to be certified as having “World Production enabled by World Class Maintenance”. Doing the right thing was not a directive, it was a condition of employment, no one that I was aware of was fired but some did leave the plant because they could not work in this type of environment. John Day created this proactive environment and I will offer you with a copy of John’s article if you like, just email me at [email protected]. I put no one on a list or anything. The only time you will hear from me is if you ask a question and remember I am semi-retired so I may off hiking or hunting so please be patient.
9-In conclusion, knowledge and skill training along with repeatable procedures are a must if any company wants to move to the next level and discipline will be a requirement (discipline is not a bad word). If this process were easy every company would be “doing it”.
Please comment and share your knowledge and experience on this topic.


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