By Bob DiStefano, COO, Performance Consulting Associates

Since joining PCA in late 2020, I have been reaching out to our clients, asking if there is anything else we can do for them to boost their plant’s performance. Two items kept coming up: Bills of Materials (BOMs) and Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO). Although most of our clients have implemented a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and are trying to adopt best practices of maintenance work management, many are unable to break out of the chronic reactive maintenance cycle. As many as 2 hours per day per maintenance technician are wasted chasing spare parts to complete maintenance work orders, often resulting in frustration. Critical equipment is frequently failing unexpectedly, causing constant interruptions to production and scheduled maintenance. Most plants are struggling to complete periodic preventive maintenance (PM) tasks on time.

It is a well-known fact across industries that two foundational elements of the best practices model are missing in these environments:  good BOMs and Optimized PMs. Strengthening these two basic elements of the model can go a long way toward breaking the reactive cycle and transforming to a more proactive maintenance environment, driving costs and frustration down while pushing production and reliability up.

Specialized Manpower to Build the Detailed Data You Need 

Our clients frequently encounter limitations in their ability to improve these elements because they lack the manpower and the expertise with the skills and abilities to efficiently develop these necessary elements. PCA now provides Field Engineers to address these core foundational elements. Our Field Engineers allow your team to stay focused on their operational roles with minimal disruption.

A Win-Win for Everyone

These new services align perfectly with the efforts of PCA consultants, who help with planning, scheduling, executing and documenting work for future analysis. Until now, the deficiencies we have found in BOMs and PMs have been identified as problems needing resolution by the client and most often the client couldn’t dedicate the resources to these labor-intensive tasks. As a result the work management process remained sub-optimized. Now, we will be resolving those problems for our clients, and thereby enhancing their chances for success.

We are excited to be offering these two new services. I look forward to speaking with our current clients as well as management in other organizations who are seeking end-to-end facility operations and maintenance optimization. For more information or to schedule a consultation, call 770-717-2737 or visit www.pcaconsulting.com/services/asset-reliability-optimization.