By Dan Moss, VP of Operations – Performance Consulting Associates

Taking a 30,000-foot view of today’s industry landscape reveals some troubling trends increasing asset downtime and maintenance costs, potentially handicapping plants for years to come. The trends’ convergence is quietly and fundamentally changing the maintenance landscape.

The overarching trends include:

• An exodus of skilled engineers and craftsmen accelerated by COVID-19 retirements.
• A general decline in the ability of the remaining maintenance workforce to quickly diagnose and repair equipment.
• The increasing tendency of asset manufacturers to use replaceable “black box” components or assemblies that must be replaced instead of maintained.
• A decrease in the share of assets that are treated as maintainable versus replaceable components. (E.g. The size of motors that are maintained has risen from 50 horsepower to as high as 250 horsepower since the year 2000.)

These trends are especially apparent where electronic components are involved. For example, failed controller cards can be swapped out quickly so the time involved in making a repair does not drive costs. However, in the past, failed cards were often repaired. An experienced craftsman would need to accurately identify the malfunctioning component, but the card could be repaired much less expensively than purchasing a new card. Finding, hiring, and keeping a technician with these skills is a doubtful proposition today. In many parts of the country, that competency is simply not available. For many plants, these components are now considered disposable, which drives up parts cost.

In my experience, three critically important competencies work together to keep plants operating at their best:

1. Maintenance planning based on research and preparation
2. Accurate Master Data
3. Proactive Reliability Centered Maintenance

Maintenance planning is critical. With robust planning, our clients dispatch maintenance teams with detailed repair instructions and the assurance that all necessary parts are on hand. This advanced preparation ensures that their team arrives ready to return the asset to service quickly and efficiently. By arriving fully prepared, the Maintenance craftsman can confidently assess and act upon the equipment, making the proper “business decisions” concerning the repair that optimizes not only the prompt return to service but also the cost of maintenance. Maintenance planning helps our clients minimize downtime, appropriately control costs, and return to productivity as quickly as possible.

An under appreciated aspect of good Maintenance Planning is the ability to leverage the knowledge and experience of the team for the benefit of the newer, less experienced technicians. In the industrial world, most jobs have been performed in the past and will be performed in the future. Including experienced technicians in the creation of job plans and incorporating technician feedback after each time jobs are executed will result in increasingly more detailed job plans. Detailed job plans are an accelerator, not just of the job itself but also in the education and capabilities of less skilled technicians.

Clean Master Data Saves Time, Money

In a plant I visited recently, the hourly cost of having a single production line down was approximately $13,000. When an asset failed, bringing the line down on the weekend, the maintenance technician knew that the faulty component was also used by several other assets and was in the storeroom. Unfortunately, the part was not on the Bill of Materials for the production line. Because every manufacturer names and brands its part uniquely and the MRO master data was in poor condition, searching the catalog proved fruitless. It took that technician more than five hours to physically comb through the storeroom to identify the needed part. Once they found the component, the repair took less than 30 minutes and the downtime cost more than $65,000!

PCA works directly with customers to implement Master Data programs that help to clean, update and standardize materials Master Data. Disciplined Master Data Governance is key to efficiently managing parts inventories and can save plants thousands in time spent and dollars wasted on purchasing and holding excess and duplicative inventories.

Finally, we are collaborating with our customers to proactively manage the maintenance processes. Establishing a comprehensive asset care strategy that identifies the right maintenance and operational tasks to provide the assets exactly what they need is foundational to optimum productivity and costs. This strategy will include precision activities in all asset installation and repair. It leverages predictive tools and techniques to identify the early onset of failures so mitigation steps can be implemented which minimizes cost while maximizing uptime. Where predictive tasks are not applicable, appropriate preventive maintenance tasks are applied. Finally, all corrective repairs are thoroughly planned, scheduled and executed to limit the negative impact to productivity and maintenance costs.

Knowing which assets are likely to fail next can keep maintenance teams one step ahead. Proper planning allows the time to execute maintenance correctly the first time, without laboring under the stress of rushing to repair and expediting parts. Proactive maintenance can be counted on to minimize the chances of unexpected failures. No one likes those kinds of surprises!

Each of these proactive steps helps PCA and its clients counter the shortage of highly skilled engineers and technicians in today’s market for maintenance workers.