M A I N T E N A N C E
F U T U R E
Machinery and Equipment MRO
December 2020
NO MORE FIREFIGHTING Imagine an industrial site or manufacturing facility that actually accomplished the mission of every maintenance and reliability professional – zero per cent unplanned downtime. BY JUSTIN LESLEY
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hat nirvana seems so distant to most of us, that we don’t even consider it a real possibility. As farfetched as it may seem, let’s indulge ourselves and think of what it would take to realize our dreams and master our equipment. Theoretically, accomplishing zero per cent unplanned downtime is dependent on management’s
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ability to meet two criteria: 1) to properly plan maintenance activities during scheduled downtime; and, 2) having the proper resources (parts, people, and know-how) to execute those jobs. Can we ever get there? Can we ever convince company leaders to approve funding for the tools we need to revolu-
tionize our operations and improve reliability metrics to approach perfection? The only hope for success and funding is a relentless commitment to data. What does it mean to be committed to data and why is data so integral to planning and executing maintenance efforts? Being committed to data means that we must leverage modern tools to record all maintenance tasks, to collect machine performance data, to track spare parts inventory, and to assign dollar figures to breakdowns and events that interrupt production. That last part is an area where maintenance and reliability professionals rarely shine; generally, because we are too busy fixing broken equipment that is costing a lot every second it’s out of service. We can all relate to the madness of being called out to investigate a catastrophic failure on a production line in the middle of a shift, or worse, a component within the facilities infrastructure that affects the entire plant.
Photo: Motion Industries.
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2021-01-13 8:49 AM
