Maintenance Management as a Quality Process

Jeffrey Lewis

Using QMS for Maintenance Improvement

Maintenance practices and technologies have evolved to meet the needs of the changing industrial environment. The function has evolved from a community of reactive fixers, to dedicated craftsmen, to proactive professionals. The next generation of personnel could well be based on practitioners of Quality Management Systems (QMS).

Maintenance progress can be best demonstrated by its ability provide assurances for reliability. The model for quality Assurance, which meets the same requirements for Equipment Reliability, is demonstrated in the ISO 9001:2000 Standard, through process-centeredness.

Process-centered management is a system that manages organizational activities as a process. The process is managed through QMS, which is clear on PDCA as a process method. PDCA is Plan, Do, Check, Act. Most modern maintenance management activities are not linked to QMS, which have particular management characteristics. Using these characteristics transforms modern maintenance practice into what may be the next generation of maintenance management. The structure of maintenance management as a process model is significant, as an International Standard to adopt as a relevant Standard or best practice for maintenance management’s thrust towards reliability.

However, in order to resolve elements of the process the applicable definitions must addressed in order to provide the basis for generating reliability.

Maintenance can be defined as the degradation management of engineered materials (equipment and systems) to retain their performance within their designed operating parameters.

Just as stress can accelerate deterioration of metals in a corrosive environment, operational stress moves equipment and systems toward failure. Limiting stresses within the operating environment maintains reliability.

The elements of the maintenance which are relevant to PDCA are

Protecting components from stress
Monitoring their condition, and
Undertaking component(s) replacement prior to the failure threshold level caused by stress excesses.

The components of this system are preventive maintenance (PM), condition monitoring (CM), and planned overhaul (PO). It is against this background that maintenance activities are identified.

Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance is whatever action is undertaken to provide protection against or reduce the rate of degradation by:

The application of coatings, adjustments, or cleaning to retain components within design operating conditions.
The physical or chemical control of applied media to the operating environment, which has the potential to increase the stress in components beyond their design operating parameters.

Condition Monitoring

Condition monitoring identifies the adequacy of preventive maintenance for the stresses of the environment.
Condition monitoring identifies the rate of degradation towards the failure threshold level.
Condition monitoring is measurement of degradation or the rate of degradation.

Condition monitoring plays a dual role in the maintenance process for regulating preventive maintenance applications and, as stress increases, alerting to impending failure. (Another school thought is that condition monitoring is sometimes viewed not as a part of the maintenance process, but merely as a provider of process measurement for the “check’ activity of the process.)

Planned Overhaul (PO)

Planned overhaul takes place prior to failure, when the rate of degradation is excessive as noted by condition monitoring, and the component(s) is approaching the threshold failure level. It involves the disassembly, component replacement, and re-assembly of equipment.

The maintenance attributes of PMs, CMs, and POs are repeatable for equipment as it goes through its life cycle.

The characteristics of Quality Management Systems (QMS) are as follows as it applies to maintenance:

The ‘Plan‘ to achieve reliability is based within the context of PMs, CMs and OH at the component level, while defining through documentation, the human, economic and technical resources to achieve the reliability.

The ‘Do‘ is the actual work instructions to be performed and the options at the point of execution for informing of the requirements and record keeping of its reliability status.

The ‘Check‘ is the means to identify whether the reliability requirements are being met within the context of the human, economic and technical resources.

The measurement of efficiency and effectiveness of the plan determines whether waste through errors or unwanted activity has occurred. It can track the use of resources to determine when they are beyond those proposed by the plan for reliability. Condition monitoring techniques are also applied as relevant measurements toward assured reliability.

These measurement parameters provide the trigger at the analysis stage to determine the component status for likely improvements toward reliability. In addition, the utilization of Pareto Analysis based on formatting root causes by harsh environment, improper operation, recommended end of life or lack of maintenance, will resolve improvement issues required for efficient and effective maintenance management.

The ‘Act‘ is any action taken as a result of checking to provide the feedback mechanisms to the Plan for adjusting any of the PMs, CMs, or POs to ultimately reach the reliability levels required with the context the stated resources.

The application of the PDCA process above contains the characteristics of all Quality Management Systems, which provides performance assurances or reliability:

Feedback
Measurement
Record keeping
Procedures / Work Instructions
Resource Identification

Maintenance management systems with these characteristics provides the methodology for continual improvement towards intended reliability.

The adoption of the QMS model for maintenance has a number of advantages. The model:

Identifies maintenance resources, as it facilitates its contribution (cash flows, current ratios, etc.) to enhanced organizational management.
Represents the opportunity for maintenance to adopt similar process centered-ness, as the rest of the organization, in the event QMS forms part of the management of the organization.
Determines the lowest cost of reliability proactively. Establishes a methodology for the best practices for Reliability.
Establishes the selection basis for computerized maintenance management systems.
Develops zero-based or activity budgets for maintenance; the lowest cost for reliability is measurable and variances can be addressed.
Establishes a process through QMS for treating maintenance management
Channels differing methodologies used by maintenance professionals into a world-class standard.
Establishes a structure and accountability for measuring outsourced maintenance contracting.
Establishes a method for determining maintenance human resource requirements where reliability assurances can be achieved.
Defines the specific technical requirements for reliability.
Establishes the basis for just-in-time (JIT) spares inventory management.
Determines a methodical application of condition monitoring data and its role in the process.
Identifies a parallel costing system for maintenance. Provides the basis for proactively establishing the contribution of maintenance to product cost.
Develops root cause analysis for Pareto Analysis for continuous improvement

The ISO 9001: 2000 Scope is customer focused with respect to the effective application of the QMS system. The context is relevant as the operations/production department can be seen as the customer of the maintenance department. Promoting reliability through an improvement process, driven by the characteristics of QMS maintenance management, meets the requirements for the International Standard.

Finally TPM, CBM, RCM, etc. may very well have the same attributes as QMS, the aim should be for the maintenance community to dovetail all into one Standard for the practice of maintenance management. They all have the same objective of reliability – align them to the internationally recognized QMS Standard and the egos of ‘ownership’ and which is better, can go away.

How to Fix the 70/30 Phenomenon

When you ask front line supervisors or team leaders if all people in their teams are performing to the same standards or if some are doing more work and achieving more results than others, you will often get the same answer. All over the world, the most common answer, after some analysis, verifies that about 30% of the people do 70% of the work.

Zen and the Art of Managing Maintenance

Unfettered expression and spiritual satisfaction? How does this relate to managing a maintenance department, especially one in the U.S. Postal Service? Open your mind. Take a page from the Zen Buddhist monks who preach: When you are quiet and listen, you become aware of sounds not normally heard. USPS maintenance leaders are listening and beginning to understand that maintenance success doesn't come through closed minds and closed doors.

Why do maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver? (Hedgehog or Fox?)

It is not uncommon that many reliability and maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver expected results. Why is it so? Some of the most common causes I have observed include:

Why Maintenance Improvement Efforts Fail

Why do improvement efforts fail or perhaps not sustain the gains? There are many reasons, but those most often stated are “lack of commitment” and not “following the process”. But why is there lack of commitment, and why aren’t processes followed? Here are a few of the reasons that I’ve seen:

TPM and RCM: Whirled Class

When a piece of production machinery broke down at the Whirlpool plant in Findlay, Ohio, several years back, it was accepted practice for the machine operator to call maintenance and then sit back and wait for the problem to be fixed. Critical information and knowledge was not shared between the operator and maintenance technician. Like many companies, these workers were stuck in traditional roles - operators run the machines, maintenance fixes the machines, and the two do not cross. As a result, productivity opportunities were missed.

Where Do Maintenance Professionals Come From?

Many managers are unaware that best-in-class companies routinely design-out maintenance at the inception of a project. That, clearly, is the first key to highest equipment reliability and plant profitability. Whenever maintenance events occur as time goes on, the real industry leaders see every one of these events as an opportunity to upgrade. Indeed, upgrading is the second key, and upgrading is the job of highly trained, well-organized, knowledgeable reliability professionals.

TPM and Tecate: The New Translation

The true translation — might it be proper to say a new and improved translation? — is being used today by Cervecería Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, one of the largest brewers of beer in Latin America. Known throughout this company as Mantenimiento Alto Desempeño (MAD), or translated as High-Performance Maintenance, the concept of TPM is alive and well at the company's six plants in Mexico. Perhaps the best example is at CCM's brewery in Tecate, located a short drive from the U.S.-Mexico border on the Baja California peninsula.

Maintenance Management as a Quality Process