Don Armstrong
Don Armstrong, is a Professional Engineer whose experience includes direct line responsibility as maintenance and engineering manager for over 5,000 man-years of safe trades effort in three large pulp and paper mills in Canada (Powell River, Crofton and Nanaimo) and one in New Zealand, complemented by eighteen years of consulting in many different industries and institutions, world-wide

Managing repairable spares

“Repairable” spares (sometimes called “rotating” or “rotable” spares) are parts or assemblies that are carried in the Maintenance storeroom and which are not automatically re-ordered when they are issued. They rotate through a cycle

The case for Standing Work Orders

Related articles – Why charge to work orders? There are options – Why bother to measure Maintenance costs? – Managing small Maintenance jobs   Two kinds of work orders that do not cover a

Infrastructure Surveys

Our definition of “Maintenance” is “Ensuring that physical assets continue to do what they are designed to do in their present operating context”. For manufacturing plant and mobile equipment maintenance servicing and inspection activities are a

Closing work orders

  A well-managed work order backlog is essential for the efficient management of maintenance work. One of the common problems that make this difficult, and one which managers should manage, is a lack of

“FindIt” Stores Parts search tool

  FindIt uses standard Microsoft .Net technology to provide a “Google-like” search for Stores parts and equipment numbers. The inability of many maintenance computer systems to make these searches easy and fast have made

The “Zero-stock” catalogue and its power

Its often said that “Maintenance runs on its stores”, and it is largely true. However, while its not economical to stock everything that Maintenance uses (see “What parts should be in your Maintenance Stores?”) those

Work Order Coding

Related article – “Database management principles” One advantage of a maintenance computer over a paper-based work management system is its ability to filter and sort work orders in many different ways. If the necessary