The Maintenance Revolution

Maintenance costs represent a significant portion of operating budgets in most industrial sectors, particularly where aging structures or plant 

Corrective maintenance. Corrective maintenance refers to action taken only after a system or component failure has occurred. It is thus a retroactive strategy. The task of the maintenance team in this scenario is usually to effect repairs as soon as possible. Costs associated with corrective maintenance include repair costs (replacement components, labor, and consumables), lost production, and lost sales. To minimize the effects of lost production and speed up repairs, actions such as increasing the size of maintenance teams, using backup systems, and implementation of emergency procedures can be considered. Unfortunately, such measures are relatively costly and/or effective only in the short term. For example, if heat-exchanger tubes have 

Preventive maintenance. In preventive maintenance, equipment is repaired and serviced before failures occur. The frequency of maintenance activities is predetermined by schedules. The greater the consequences of failure, the greater the level of preventive maintenance that is justified. This ultimately implies a tradeoff between the cost of performing preventive maintenance and the cost of rimning the equipment imtil failure occurs. Of course, preventive maintenance tasks can also be dictated by safety, environmental, insurance, or other regulatory considerations. 

Furthermore, the level of preventive maintenance activity needs to be driven by the importance of the equipment to the process and the desired level of reliability. In modern complex systems, computerized preventive maintenance systems are used to accomplish these objectives in plants of most sizes. A preventive maintenance system also needs to be dynamic for example, there should be some mechanism for review of preventive tasking to ensure that the tasks are still valid and to see if any task can be replaced with a predictive task.  

Predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance refers to maintenance based on the actual condition of a component. Maintenance is performed not according to fixed preventive schedules, but rather when a certain change in characteristics is noted. Corrosion sensors that supply diagnostic information on the condition of a system or component play an important role in this maintenance strategy. Preventive maintenance aims to eliminate unnecessary inspection and maintenance tasks, to implement additional maintenance tasks when and where needed, and to focus efforts on the most critical items. 

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The maintenance revolution at electric utilities. Douglas has described the changing maintenance philosophy at electric utilities. The maintenance revolution in electric utility operations has been driven by several factors. A brief summary of these follows ... 

To meet the above challenges, two ftmdamental initiatives are under way, namely, shifts to reliability-centered maintenance and predictive maintenance. Broadly speaking, prior to the maintenance revolution, the utilities maintenance approach had essentially been one of preventive maintenance on all components after fixed time intervals, irrespective of the components criticality and actual condition. The shortcomings of this approach included the following (1) overly conservative maintenance requirements, (2) limited gains in reliability from investments in maintenance, (3) inadequate preventive maintenance on key components, and (4) added risk of worker exposure to radiation through unnecessary maintenance. Anticipated benefits of the revised approach are related not only to reduced maintenance costs but also to improved overall operational reliability. 

A Revolution cannot be carried out by individuals, it must be a collaborative effort. The maintenance leader of the new millennium will recognize needs of the customer, serve the customer, and bring together all maintenance resources to maximize the value of maintenance. The synergistic effect of teams and collaborative interactions among individuals will be an additional resource and measurable gain in productivity. 

Human activity on the surface of the earth has had an environmental impact since the first tools and manipulation of resources occurred. But only since the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries have human activities had a measurable effect on a global scale". To support the maintenance and development of society, humans have developed and refined means to utilize the resources available from within and upon the surface of the earth. This utilization has developed from, in the most part, agricultural practices towards an industrially and technologically dominated society. 

Although the cost of most professional equipment has been going up in recent years, maintenance technicians have seen a buyer s market in test instruments. The semiconductor revolution has done more than given consumers low-cost computers and disposable devices. It has also helped to spawn a broad variety of inexpensive test instruments with impressive measurement capabilities. 

The much greater reliability of vehicles and their more relaxed maintenance schedules are largely due to the plastics revolution of the past forty years. Essentially it is the characteristics of lubricity and load spreading which are... 

It is our view that organic chemistry has just passed through its second great revolution. The structure theory recognized that the maintenance of nearest-neighbor relationships among elements was responsible for the variety and individuahty of the material components of the physical world. 

The advent of advanced fiber-reinforced composite materials has been called the biggest technical revolution since the jet engine [1-4], This claim is very striking because the tremendous impact of the jet engine on military aircraft performance is readily apparent. The impact on commercial aviation is even more striking because the airlines stwitched from propeller-driven planes to all-jet fleets within the span of just a few years because of superior performance and lower maintenance costs. 

Keep an accurate record of centrifuge and rotor use. Just as your automobile needs service after a certain number of miles, the centrifuge should be serviced after certain intervals of use. Centrifuge maintenance is usually determined by hours of use and total revolutions of the rotor. It is also essential to maintain a record of the use for each rotor. Metal rotors weaken with use, and the maximum allowable speed limit decreases. Rotor manufacturers usually provide guidelines for decreasing the allowable speed for a rotor. 

Although revolution is a grassroots effort, it is characterized by its leaders. Maintenance leaders will emerge to support the continuous improvement process at the grass-roots, shop-floor level. There will be a progression from maintenance manager to true maintenance leadership. 

A revolution cannot be managed, it must be led. An individual who is profit-centered yet understanding of the fact that people assets are the most important assets will lead new millennium maintenance. The evolution of a chief maintenance officer (CMO) will occur in both large and small operations. Successful maintenance leaders will be profit centered, establish strategic maintenance plans that are integrated with the business plan, and validate return on investment with effective measurement processes. 

In the very recent years a new Uttle RAM revolution has taken place in transport systems field. Its main effect was to move the focus from intrinsic RAM indexes to operational ones. These indexes are strongly influenced by support systems and management decisions (e.g. organization, logistic, human resources, spare parts, maintenance pohcies). Thus, one of the main tasks for who wants to operate imder this new perspective is evaluating the impact on RAM performances of aU (or at least the main) above mentioned factors. 

Approximately one-fourth of all operating presses in the United States have a mechanical-type clutch (full revolution) which presents difficult and costly safety and maintenance repairs. If a mechanical clutch on a press is clicking while the flywheel or the bull gear is rotating, this indicates a potential problem. Immediate repairs should be made to safeguard the press operators. If not, the clutch pin may drop in, causing an unintended press cycle with possibly disastrous results. 

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