278 – Maintenance Task Analysis with Lucas Marino

Welcome Lucas Marino to the podcast. Lucas is the founder of East Partnership and initially spent a lot of time as an engineer with Coast Guard starting off as a diesel engineer and rising through the ranks. Today’s topic is maintenance task analysis. But first:

What is the East Partnership?

It is an online platform that develops courses for people who maintain or build complex systems. The courses include:

• Asset Management
• Reliability-centered maintenance
• Lifecycle management
• Project management

We also do blogging and training.

What is maintenance task analysis?

Maintenance task analysis (MTA) enables you to document your maintenance procedure in terms of:

• The steps involved
• The time each step will take
• Skill level required
• Number of personnel needed
• Required consumables and parts
• Specialized tools and technology

It also involves identifying possible challenges and addressing them beforehand.

So it involves everything needed to maintain an asset, correct?

Yes. It is essential to do it before the asset is in service so that it does not have an impact on production time.  Doing it prior also ensures that you consider everything before starting the task.

Also, MTA is best done in the operating environment to identify all the possible interferences with its service before starting the tasks.

How can MTA be done while the equipment is in the design phase?

MTA can be done at any phase of the asset lifecycle (design, implementation or in service)

The optimal time is when doing the design in conjunction with RCM analysis (FMEA or FMECA) on an asset that is close to design maturity. At this point you are often sure of the design, failure modes, and recommended maintenance actions.

You want to do it when FMEA or FMECA is mature because you shall have eliminated maintainability or reliability problems, correct?

Exactly. In organized environments, you want to do it after the design has been approved by the approvers.

Is MTA only used for preventive maintenance or other maintenance tasks such as corrective actions, calibration etc.?

Depends on the level of criticality of the asset to production. If it is highly critical and requires input from other functions such as procurement, labor supply etc. then MTA can be done on corrective actions.

Also consider the return on investment of the time and resources in doing the MTA. For some tasks doing MTA can result in negative ROI. .

Who does MTA?

It will need:

• The leadership of a reliability engineer or such to drive the exercise.
• Mechanics who will execute the task (the right skill and headcount)
• An analyst solely dedicated to: document the outputs of the analysis (time for each task, consumables, parts, etc.), they also edit the outputs in real time and adds what is missing
• Include safety team members

We can obtain a list of everything that we will need to support an asset throughout its lifecycle as an output of MTA, right?

Yes. You can aggregate the lists, look at the maintenance program, and get an idea of the cost of maintenance of the asset.

The organization also becomes knowledgeable about the asset.

You will understand the budget and skill level needed as well before starting the task.

Yes. It also prevents initiating a task then halfway realizing that you are unable to complete it and will need to outsource resources. MTA informs the need to outsource and also develop capabilities during the outsourcing period to assist full ownership at the end of such contracts

Basically we use MTA to develop logistical supportability before the asset is in service, right?

Ideally before it is in service but also, a keen analysis can be done while in service

Why isn’t MTA not being done despite the value it can create?

Could be because of:

• Lack of familiarity with MTA – it is not a common practice
• It appears to complex yet it is not
• Maintenance is often pressed to deliver and work on corrective actions hence little or no time can be allocated for MTA.

Are there any other industries leveraging MTA as much as the military?

• The aviation community
• Maritime community
• Industries that perform their own maintenance and do not outsource it.

Eruditio Links:

• Eruditio
• HP Reliability
• James Kovacevic’s LinkedIn
• Reliability Report

Lucas Marino Links:

• Eastparternship.org
• Lucas Marino Linkedin
• Past Lucas episodes
• Council of Logistics Engineers
• Design for Maintainability
• MTA Course
• Logistics Engineering & Management
• Defense Acquisition University

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