How To Decrease Downtime and Increase Productivity

All maintenance activities of the workforce must be documented, this includes breakdown repairs, callouts, preventive maintenance, replacement maintenance, overhauls, and Testing & Inspection work. Maintenance work by production line employees must be included, whether or not the employee is listed as in maintenance. These activities can then be mined for maintenance information "gold".

List all repetitive work

One of the first things that a maintenance supervisor should be concerned with is repetitive work. Any and all repetitive work should be identified and isolated. This list can then be prioritized as to criticality to production lines and plant effectiveness.

After the list has been rearranged, each task item must be analyzed to determine if the repetitive work is actually aimed at fixing a problem or fixing a symptom of a deeper problem. Fixing symptoms has the immediate effect of allowing production to rapidly resume, but does nothing for the underlying problem. In fact, the underlying problem may get worse.

Development of a solution

As soon as a high priority problem has been identified and analyzed, work should begin on development of a solution to the problem. Once the solution to the problem has been developed, plans can be made for purchasing required parts and material and then scheduling the manpower and production time to implement the solution.

Maintenance planning of machine repairs

Complete documentation is absolutely essential for control of the maintenance process. How can the process of maintenance be under control if the person in charge has no complete idea of what the total maintenance activities and costs are? If needed repairs are not documented and planned for, a considerable portion of these needed repairs and modifications will be forgotten or ignored until production tries to run again.

Justify machine repair cost

Planning essential repairs and modifications requires documentation. It is easy to say that we need a modification to this particular machine and output of this line can be increased 25%. However, with no planning, six months later no work has been done on the idea. Even if the idea were actually to be somehow implemented, the output increase may not come to fruition.

If no research was carried out on the rest of the line equipment, there is no certain way of determining line and equipment capacity. How would the machine be able to increase output 25% if its current output was already 100% of the lines actual output capacity? All the costs associated with increasing the one machine's capacity would have been wasted, unless additional work was undertaken to bring the rest of the production line up to the output of the one machine.

A production line's output capacity is only as great as it's least piece of equipment. That bears repeating. A production line is only as fast as it's slowest piece of equipment. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Prioritize your maintenance planning list

With documentation, the list of priority work problems to solve can be reduced fairly rapidly, at first. The list of easily solved problem areas will gradually be replaced by higher cost work items. Research and planning may reveal that the costs involved with eliminating some repetitive repairs are more than living with the repetitive repairs.

Compare production downtime after solution

After implementation of the solution, production downtime for that particular item can be documented and compared to pre-implementation production output. Maintenance time not spent on working on that solved problem can also be documented for the same time period. These savings can then be extrapolated for an entire year and presented to management to justify the cost of repairs.

Without documentation, research, and planning, the person in charge of making the decisions is working in the dark. With documentation, research, and planning, the great wall of China can be built, or the Panama Canal, or the Aswan Dam, or a world-class maintenance organization.

Maintenance Policy and Procedures is a plan to organize your maintenance department. Following the plan will cause you to document your department's activities. Other department's maintenance activities and interactions with the Maintenance Department will also be documented. With the documentation, planning can begin. For information on this article and Maintenance Policy and Procedures Manual, contact the author.

Larry Bush

About the Author: Larry Bush has been an electrician for 47 years, and in maintenance management for 22 years. Download his new e-Book "Maintenance Policy and Procedures Manual" !! http://www.reliability-consultant.com

---

Narcissism in the Boardroom

The perpetrators of the recent spate of financial frauds in... Read More

How Businesses Can Stop Wallowing in Bad Debt and Prevent It in the Future

"Become the Squeaky Wheel", a new book just published, explains... Read More

Preparing For ISO 9001 2000 Registration

The steps need to be taken to prepare an organization... Read More

Difficult Staff - It Pays To Get To Know Them Better

It's very easy for a business owner or manager to... Read More

Poly Bags and Pallet Shrouds - Just Get it Right

For many companies, procuring the right packaging, such as Poly... Read More

Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: Team Dynamics and Communication

This article relates to the Team Dynamics competency, which evaluates... Read More

Human Resources: The Misidentified Subject

Interest in the field of human resources has exploded in... Read More

Smart Hiring: What Makes the Right Employee?

Good hires do not happen by accident or luck. In... Read More

Why Would Anyone Do That in My Meeting?

Imagine that you open a meeting by saying, "We need... Read More

How to Overcome Your Fear of Firing

OVERCOMING FEAR OF FIRING "It was obvious that this employee... Read More

Creating Your Own Business Upturn - Powering Business Development

We all see it . . . business markets are... Read More

Delegation - The Basic Steps To Reducing Your Workload And Creating A Successful Team

If you have a task greater than you can handle... Read More

Catch Your Staff Doing Something Right

A long time ago, I learned something about being a... Read More

Employee Motivation: Make Everyone A Cheerleader For Your Company

Do you manage by walking around? What do you see?... Read More

Managing Workplace Conflicts

Kinds of Workplace ConflictsLet's start by identifying where conflicts happen.... Read More

How to Delegate More Effectively

Do this simple excercise, and transform your life.First, Make a... Read More

How to Create an Operations Manual

An operations manual can act as a tool for training... Read More

How to Delegate Effectively

ACCOUNTABILITY: Delegation is not complete unless subordinates are held accountable... Read More

On the Road to Assertiveness

Learning to be assertive takes time, courage and the ability... Read More

Profound Knowledge

We all are on a quest for knowledge. Whether its... Read More

Giving a Good Appraisal Interview

Although this performance discussion is an opportunity for you to... Read More

Creativity Management and Behaviour

What behaviour maximises the chances of thinking of great ideas?... Read More

Performance Reviews That Actually Improve Performance

Employee performance reviews are one of the most dreaded tasks... Read More

Firing Someone Without Resentment

Firing, sacking, letting go or terminating people is unpleasant. There... Read More

When Business Becomes A Battlefield

"We have to be careful it's like a minefield out... Read More

CEOs Are Great, Top CEOs Are Greater

People in leading positions are often in a dilemma: on... Read More

How to use NLP for Business?

What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?Neuro-Linguistic programme is nothing but the study... Read More

Knowledge Mapping

This module focuses on the basics of Knowledge Mapping, its... Read More

Recognition: A Quick, Low-cost Way to Motivate Employees

Recognizing good performance through praise or other positive action is... Read More

Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Project Management Skills

Solving a big problem is a project: you're far more... Read More

The Seven Cs: Partnership Danger Signs - Competitive, Not Complementary Action

A series of articles exploring the seven critical areas that... Read More

Key Control ? Who Has the Keys to Your Kingdom?

Key control, or more accurately the lack of key control... Read More

How Can A Communications Audit Help You?

Organizations communicate in two directions: internally to staff and externally... Read More