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M R O
Q U I Z
Machinery & Equipment MRO
April 2022
COMPLETING THE INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT RELIABILITY MATURITY CYCLE BY L. (TEX) LEUGNER
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t what stage of development is the maintenance organization in your company or plant? The following questions and guidelines will help you to determine if you are on the right path to equipment reliability maturity. Does corporate management support and actively demonstrate a culture of continuous improvement of both equipment reliability and personnel skills? LOGIC: An organization’s management must establish and support a vision in which a culture is developed that continually supports equipment reliability improvement and the skill and knowledge levels of personnel. Has the organization built an organizational structure that puts operations and maintenance groups on equal cooperative levels? LOGIC: In many organizations, the maintenance department is subservient to the operations or production groups. This structure is based on a mistaken philosophy that mainte-
nance, or anything related to it, is a cost rather than an asset. This always creates tension and behaviour that results in situations where insufficient time is spent efficiently, carrying out effective maintenance activities. This structure results in increased maintenance costs due to repeated failures or production stoppages that could have been prevented. Does the organization have a well-designed and defined set of roles and responsibilities between the operations and equipment maintenance groups? LOGIC: The role is the specific function performed, while the responsibilities are the tasks or duties that the role requires. Often, there are conflicts between a specific role and a set of responsibilities, resulting in confusion and errors in decision-making. Does organizations’ management put more emphasis on cost reduction of maintenance activities than on equipment reliability improvement? LOGIC: Statistically, when the focus is on cost reduction, reliability gets worse, but focus on reliability improvement
and costs go down. It is impossible to improve or even maintain existing reliability if machinery is allowed to deteriorate. When sound preventive maintenance activities are deferred, equipment condition monitoring is neglected or the results are ignored, breakdowns and failures are inevitable. Preventive maintenance and condition monitoring technologies, such as vibration analyses and reliability-based procedures and processes, must be continually reviewed and improved for reliability to mature. What process has your plant established when a piece of new equipment is installed? LOGIC: All new machinery should be evaluated for maintainability and reliability before it’s designed or purchased. Once selected, the installation of new equipment is very often hurried, putting emphasis on immediate production rather than ensuring that the new machine efficiently does what it was intended to do. New machines must be properly installed, thoroughly commissioned, and operationally tested, with all preventive maintenance requirements carried out and documented before being turned over to operations. How does your maintenance organization reacts when a failure or stoppage occurs? LOGIC: Depending upon the criticality
Photo: © Chalabala / Adobe Stock
Every equipment reliability improvement program experiences a developmental learning period; from the reactionary “break and fix” mentality to a complete asset management maturity.
