Preface
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?
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Labor with appropriate skills available for PM activity
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Operators and equipment users are fully trained
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PM people follow the task list, carry it with them, and make notes
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Using a reminder system to alert you that PM is due (and
staying on schedule)
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Having reserved downtime for PM activity well in advance
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Materials, tools, and other resources available for PM activities
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Higher management interested in PM outcomes and they ask
questions
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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
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