The Maintenance & Reliability Series

Utilizing the PDCA Methodology in Work Planning

It is well known that maintenance planning & scheduling can deliver significant improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance department.  Maintenance planning & scheduling seems simple enough, plan the work and schedule it to be done at the most opportune time.   However, why is it that the organization seem to struggle with realizing the benefits of maintenance planning & scheduling?  In my experience, I have seen organizations that focus on the scheduling portion of work management, while not fully planning the work.   Doc Palmer (an authority on Maintenance Planning & Scheduling) has said that you cannot schedule without proper planning.  So how is it that they are scheduling work without knowing what needs to be done and what materials are required?

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Utilizing Recognized Standards in Your Maintenance & Reliability Program

Imagine being able to easily share information across sites or even organizations.  Or how about utilizing a risk management framework that is recognized and agreed upon by all in the organization. Benchmarking made easy?  Standards enable this. [Read more…]

How Your Organization Can Benefit from Standardization

Imagine if every day you had to relearn a process or use a different CMMS.  Chances are you would get virtually nothing accomplished, leaving your plant operating poorly.   Now we all know that we having to relearn a process every day or using a new CMMS is not practical nor is it rooted in reality (not to be confused with the Rooted in Reliability podcast).  But this type of thing happens more often than you may think. [Read more…]

A View From the Shop Floor on What is Preventing Improvement

I recently had a very interesting  discussion with a craftsman at a large automotive manufacturer.  During this discussion, he outlined a few of the issues he saw in his plant, and why they weren’t able to overcome them.

The craftsman indicated that he had been reading my previous posts and that it all made sense.  In fact, he stated, ” it is common sense, but we don’t have that here”.

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Understanding the Requirements of the ISO 55001 Standard

When looking through the ISO 55001 standard, one may quickly become overwhelmed with the requirements.

The ISO 55001 standard was written in a way that groups the requirements, making it easier to understand & implement the standard.

This is different that subjects found in asset management (which we will discuss next week).  These are the requirements that must be met if one to certify themselves against the ISO 55001 standard. [Read more…]