What Constitutes World-Class Reliability and Maintenance? (part 3)

part1  |  part2 |  part3  |  part4 |   part5 |  part6

Note: This column is a continuation of the January and February P&P maintenance columns by Christer Idhammar. In these columns, Mr. Idhammar asked readers to evaluate how well their mills had implemented the systems and practices required to become a "world-class" facility.

In this column, I continue discussing the systems and practices that indicate to me that a mill is "world class." To evaluate how far your mill has to go to achieve this designation, I would suggest reading this column with a group of operations and maintenance employees that includes both management and craftspeople.

On a scale of zero to ten, rate your mill's use of the following systems and practices, with ten meaning that you are so good that it would probably not pay off to do more improvements in this area. A five indicates that you feel you do a good job, while a zero means that your performance is a disaster.

9. PM/ECCM execution IS 100%. If you have the right content in your preventive maintenance/essential care and condition monitoring (PM/ECCM) program, there is no reason to have less than 100% completion of the PM/ECCM you have implemented. Operators should be trained in essential care and inspections of equipment and should perform most of these activities when it is practical to do so.
As a result, you will have very few, if any, unplanned and unscheduled maintenance events. More than half of the work you do during your shutdowns and in weekly/daily schedules will be as a result of your PM/ECCM program. This, in turn, will give you an opportunity to plan and then schedule more work. Also, a good PM/ECCM program is a prerequisite to good planning and scheduling of maintenance and, consequently, to increased overall equipment efficiency.

10. 85% of spare parts and materials are delivered to the job site. If planning and scheduling are done correctly, the spare parts store will be in a position to effectively deliver spare parts and materials to the job site or to designated areas. Or, it will at least stage spare parts in, or close to, the store area. As a result, you will have very few people going to the store to get parts or waiting at the store window to get what they need.

11. Service level is 97% for the spare parts store. To maintain a necessary level of trust in your store system, the service level-getting the right part when you need it-must be very close to 97%. If it goes much below that level, people will loose trust in your store, and to survive, they will start building their own stores without the knowledge of the store's management. This could lead to the store's management falling under the false impression that they are doing very well in their efforts to reduce the store's inventory, causing them to continue their current practices. This will eventually lead to less trust in the store's ability to deliver what is needed when it is needed. As a result of good and cost-effective management of the spare parts store, you will see that the store's inventory value is decreasing with maintaining the service level. Also, there will be no unknown and undocumented store items in maintenance areas, offices, etc.

12. The technical database is 95% correct. The technical database should always be up to date. Equipment, loop, or electrical circuit identity should be the only thing needed to find and request or purchase spare parts or other information.
As a result, no time is wasted in searching for store items or other information.