By Bob DiStefano, COO, Performance Consulting Associates

Top performers in reliability, as measured by high asset availability and low maintenance cost, perform relatively fewer periodic preventive maintenance tasks like overhauls. They focus their efforts on the work that needs to be done because a failure is known to be developing instead of trying to catch a failure that may or may not be there. PCA’s new PM Optimization service helps clients become more efficient by weeding out poorly targeted PMs.

PM Optimization (PMO) Services:

Most plants have a preponderance of calendar-based PMs that impede the efficiency of the maintenance organization. Legacy PMs typically lack quantitative measures needed to identify failures. Others may have been truncated or botched when they were converted into a new CMMS system. Generally, a large percentage of them do not address failure modes of the equipment in question and therefore do little to ensure equipment health.

Burdened with an overload of activities that do not support asset health, maintenance departments struggle to keep up with their PM workloads. The problem is compounded when schedules are interrupted by unexpected failures. Backlogs balloon. Most existing PMs originated from the PM recommendations in the original equipment manufacturer’s technical manual, which are rarely based on modern strategies for equipment care. For example, they almost always are calendar-based and rarely include use of condition monitoring technologies. These PMs are good for sales of spare parts but have only a random chance of actually preventing a failure.

PCA’s PMO process includes streamlined and rapid failure analysis of the maintainable components, and then review of existing PMs to ensure they are addressing these failure modes. On average more than 50% of existing PMs do not address failure modes and are candidates for elimination, or replacement with condition monitoring and predictive technology strategies. Some calendar-based PMs  can be strengthened with quantitative measures to ensure the PM is done correctly and consistently regardless of the skills of the assigned maintenance worker.

An effective PMO shifts maintenance activity from calendar-based maintenance intervention to condition-based maintenance intervention. The benefits include reductions in scheduled and unscheduled downtime as well as maintenance costs (labor and parts). PMO also helps improve safety performance by reducing the time assets spend in transient conditions. PCA can now bolster the work management improvements led by our Senior Consultants with Field Engineers to perform proper and effective PMO.

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 PMs have been identified as improvement opportunities to be addressed by the client, who frequently couldn’t dedicate the resources. As a result the work management process remained sub-optimized as the client chipped away at their old PMs. Now, we will be resolving those problems for our clients, and thereby enhancing their chances for success.

We are pleased to offer this new service. 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.