18-10-2012, 04:10 PM
Maintenance Engineering Executive Summary
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productivity, improved safety, and lower costs – all measurable
on the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.
Our Point of View
Maintenance and operations managers need to do a better job in four areas:
1. Develop specific, practical maintenance engineering objectives
2. Define maintenance engineering’s role in terms of maintenance strategy development
and deployment
3. Actively participate in the development of the consulting skills and capabilities a
maintenance engineer should have to deliver long term, sustainable value to the
company
4. Implement a performance management process that holds the maintenance engineer
accountable for meeting maintenance engineering’s objectives built solely around
how to constantly improve how maintenance gets done better - better being: higher
uptime, higher processing rates, better quality of product, lower cost – all because
plant and equipment are running better; at least as they were designed and expected to
operate.
Introduction
In an earlier article entitled “Capacity Assurance: Maintenance Can Mean Competitive
Advantage”, we described how the path to capacity assurance begins with a change in operating
philosophy and culminates in an unwavering adherence to the execution details. In this article,
we extend the discussion and focus on the value that maintenance engineering should be
delivering to the organization.
First, we describe what we believe the major objectives of the maintenance engineering function
should be. Second, we share with you what we believe a maintenance engineer should do, with
practical, real-world examples. We conclude with a review of the consulting capabilities and
skills a maintenance engineer should have to deliver long term, sustainable value to the
company.
Objectives of Maintenance Engineering
The maintenance engineer’s primary goal should be to continually identify opportunities of
significant value to their organization. These opportunities should relate to:
• Improvements in the specific asset environment (physical plant and equipment)
• Improvements in resource utilization (people, materials, services and EAM systems)
• Improvements to the maintenance management processes – including the decision
support and management systems
In short, to constantly improve the way maintenance gets done so that plant and equipment are
more reliable, produce at better quality or higher quantity, and that costs less to maintain. If
they’re not doing that, then get them to or get rid of them. An organization gets absolutely no
leverage from having a mechanical engineer on board, calling him/her a maintenance engineer,
and burying them fighting mechanical equipment failure “fires”, one off’s, playing with the
“toys”. A waste of time, money and talent!
Role of Maintenance Engineering
What is the role of the maintenance engineer? In our opinion, a maintenance engineer is
responsible for the following:
1. Defining the organization’s Capacity Assurance objectives
2. Developing the improvement plan(s) to achieve these objectives
3. Identifying the resources and skill sets required to execute the plan(s)
4. Developing and supporting the implementation of effective Maintenance
Management Systems. This includes the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
system and the Decision Support systems – including the Maintenance Master
Schedule
5. Monitoring the progress of the plan(s)
6. Ensuring the improvement(s) deliver the expected financial and operational benefits
7. Supporting the optimization of maintenance costs. Maintenance engineers should be
involved in budgeting the annual prescribed downtime and how that downtime will
be spent on maintenance activities.
8. Providing advice and counsel on the design of new installations.
9. To lead the Organization, doing whatever it takes, to continually improve the way
maintenance gets done, often in step change fashion “in the beginning”.
Consulting Capabilities
A principle we promote is the idea that the maintenance engineering function act as the
company’s on site, in-house fulltime maintenance management consulting group. This group
should be made up of legitimate maintenance engineers who know how to develop and improve
the effectiveness of the maintenance function.
The question then becomes “what specific maintenance consulting skills and capabilities should
maintenance engineers learn and practice?”
We have developed an index of skills and capabilities that has proven to be effective in
organizations where maintenance represents a significant cost of doing business.