Maintenance management – general

Looking after the basics

A client once asked me to fly from our office on Vancouver Island to their operation in the UK so that I could provide recommendations on how to improve the service from their

How much does a tradesperson really cost?

Hiring a tradesperson is something that should not be taken lightly. As with any other employee, the value that the new person will add to the organization needs to exceed the cost of

How is it possible to plan all maintenance work?

A job that is well-planned will ensure that the intended scope is achieved, the quality is high and that time and effort are not wasted. On average a well-planned job will take about

How effective is PM in reducing downtime?

The answer to this question, as with many questions about Maintenance, is “it depends”. I’ll illustrate with an example: In a large multi-line pulp and paper mill, a 20″ knife-gate valve on the

Getting the most from your PM programme

Here are a few ideas on setting up a preventive maintenance (PM) programme that will support your reliability objectives without costing more than it needs to. The comments below apply to both condition monitoring

Maintenance budgets and cost reporting

One of the more important Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in Maintenance is how much it costs. While many would argue that this is the most important measure of Maintenance, I would suggest that in

Detailed Planning – “Thinking through” the job

A well-planned job can greatly reduce the time the work takes, ensure that its a quality job and make the work much more satisfying for the tradespeople who do it. Planning is the

Backlogs – their vital importance to managing maintenance

Managing a work order backlog is not the most exciting of Maintenance routines, but without a complete and up-to-date backlog important work will get forgotten, work that Operating customers expect to be done

Approving Maintenance expenditures

A fundamental management principle is that any function that is a part of a business process should add value, and this includes the function of approving expenditures. Of course, all major capital expenditures

Allocating and analyzing downtime

As a part of a reliability improvement programme, many process industries assign the losses resulting from each downtime or lost production event to the department “responsible” – usually operations, mechanical or electrical (and