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CHAPTER 4

Lean Maintenance and World Class Maintenance

World Class Maintenance is an extremely useful fiction, invented to spur companies toward excellence in their respective fields. It is important to realize that there is no one World Class standard. What is World Class in a nuclear power plant would bankrupt a chicken-processing plant. World Class is always referential toward one or a series of related industries. For example, oil refineries and large chemical plants might be within one World Class division. Chicken processors and other meat processors might be in another. The rules and benchmarks could be compared within the division.

Having said that, if there was a world class standard it would relate to its attitude toward customers. Womack and Jones outline a World Class approach to supplying customers in Lean Solutions that is also Lean. Customers want:

•My problem completely solved

•Don’t waste my time

•Provide exactly what I want

•Deliver value where I want it

•Supply value when I want

•Reduce the number of decisions I have to make to solve my problem

There are World Class attitudes that are common across industries. In Managing Factory Maintenance Second Edition I reviewed some of these areas. I want to revisit those areas while adding in discussion about their relationship to Lean Maintenance. Also, since that work was published, the global urgency for efficiency and sustainable production has heightened.

Six Areas of focus for Lean Maintenance in companies that strive for World Class

Lean is both a top down and bottom up activity. It is top down in the sense that the best implementations are driven by a company’s ethics and culture. Even high-level personnel are involved in the Lean efforts. These efforts are on manager’s lips whenever they speak. Lean can also be thought of as bottom up. In most projects, the personnel closest to the action know intimately where the waste is. After all the workers are the ones to sweep it up, or it is generally their time that is wasted.

Along the way management has developed new attitudes toward maintenance activity. The best organizations realize that, although some maintenance is inevitable, a proper attitude is necessary to minimize their exposure (in other words their downtime, parts costs, and labor costs). They also realize that maintenance has above-the-waterline costs and below-the-waterline costs (that become evident when maintenance is cut too far). The below-the-waterline costs can dwarf the other costs. In short, these organizations view maintenance activity in a particular way. This new view happens also to support Lean initiatives.

•Management wants a maintenance department that is more proactive and less reactive. Reactive maintenance is the fattest of all types of maintenance activity. Finding a problem, planning the solution, and solving it (hopefully once and for all, if possible), is less expensive in the end than having the problem find you (over and over again). This truism is fundamental to Lean maintenance. Any repetitive unplanned, unscheduled, disruptive, event is by definition Fat.

•Part of the proactive approach is don’t wait for breakdowns to mess up production, get out there and find deterioration before failure. The big money is below the water line, so use all techniques and technology to preserve production. Use non-interruptive inspection techniques, or well-timed, scheduled outages (but work diligently to reduce their duration) to detect performance degradation and potential failure points.

•Once something is broken, apply root cause analysis (RCA) to manage the cause, not just the symptom (the failure). Structured RCA is one of the most powerful Lean techniques and will be covered later, in its own section.

•Less repetitive maintenance effort is better (this includes repetitive PM activity)—solve problems permanently where they don’t break or even need PM either.

In the old days, managements were cowardly because they hid behind their ignorance.

•They wanted the results of advanced maintenance management practices without the investment. So Management didn’t put their money (or authorized downtime) where their mouth was. If they read in a trade magazine that PM was a good idea or PdM was the way to go they asked for PM/PdM without providing adequate financing, support, or in-depth training. They thought that by yelling loud enough, or setting big enough goals, the machines would be motivated to not break.

•What happened was that marketplaces became more global, with tough new competitors, and that left no room for amateurs. Judicious long-term maintenance investment made winners. All of a sudden you find you are in competition with a factory with half your labor rates. It takes courage to face that, do the tough work necessary, and some luck to end up the winner.

•Every part of the company has expertise. Utilizing these islands of expertise is essential for success. Management is listening to maintenance opinions, and factoring those opinions into large business decisions. Using your experts to their best ability is Lean.

•Like any change, if management wants improved maintenance they must fund it, and care about it for a significant period of time.

Maintenance has to face some responsibility also. There is a culture of deception in maintenance because it didn’t seem that management could take the truth. In those old days, maintenance folks hid what was really going on in the maintenance department from management. Now the spotlight is uncomfortable because it is on maintenance, and it is looking for hard numbers. All through the company, hard numbers are king.

•Why? To see what is really going on. Secondly, numbers are used to measure continuous improvement (or lack thereof) and Lean project progress. Remember, hard numbers measure real savings and real improvement, and not phantom savings.

•Productivity is now secondary to results. The focus is simultaneously on doing a thing right and on doing the right thing. In fact, world-class organizations realize that high productivity is a function of doing many small things right. Management really wants results on the larger cost area below the water line (such as uptime, and reliability). The world-class organization’s management wants high productivity, low waste, and more sophisticated management of maintenance from the maintenance leadership.

•World-class organizations have an increasing willingness to use sophisticated tools of statistics, finance, and accounting, in maintenance analysis. Sometimes the only way to see the fat is through sophisticated tools and processes.

•Management is starting to require analysis-driven maintenance decision-making, not seat-of-the-pants-driven maintenance decision-making. The analysis can uncover non-obvious Fat. The key is making rational decisions backed by data that can be reviewed (and understood) by a manager without a lifetime of maintenance experience.

Great maintenance managers have realized that how people are used is the key to success. If W.E. Deming taught us anything it was that the system you operate in is sometimes more important than the people, and that the right people are your major asset. Good people with a bad system will be thwarted and demoralized.

•Your system should encourage ad hoc teams to solve problems. Teams solve problems, and are dissolved when the problem is solved. Problems are like the fat you trim off your steak before you cook it.

•Barriers limit thinking. Limited thinking gets in the way of Lean thinking. You can observe the fading of traditional departmental barriers (letting people see more of the big picture to make better decisions).

•Who knows better what the customer really needs than the customer? Where appropriate, World Class companies encourage customer participation in Maintenance (with training, and with proper management called TPM).

•Information in the right hands makes Lean decisions possible. Information sharing includes things like sharing charge-back rates, machine part costs, and the maintenance budget (for starters).

The world has changed. It moves more quickly now, so that only nimble competitors survive. Nimbleness is a function of the right systems driving the right people. The right people have the right attitude as well as the right competencies. In fact, almost all problems are really people problems masquerading as maintenance problems.

•If people are your only asset then it is prudent to invest in your people through continual training to improve the effectiveness of this asset. Although competence of your people is tough to measure directly, you know when it is not present! When it is present, things run smoothly. Frequently smooth running is Lean.

•Layoffs are the bane of the maintenance department. If you’ve been following the advice to train people every year, you have a substantial investment in them. It takes years to develop the expertise of a laid-off maintenance worker. We also want to be damn sure that nothing within our control gets in the way of our people’s concentration. Fear of layoffs is handled perhaps with a smaller core crew, and supplemented with contract help. Commitment is to people, so that every other option is looked at before layoffs (W.E. Deming says “drive out fear”).

•Cross training (also known as multi-skilling) is a goal to improve both productivity and the personal sense of satisfaction. Cross training is under utilized. Due to fear in Union environments and laziness elsewhere it is rare to see concrete programs and incentives for cross training. With proper safeguards (on quality and competence) cross training can boost productivity dramatically. Being able to send one person instead of two is Lean.

•The Attachment is to the people rather than technology or computer systems. CMMS and other systems have come a long way in the last 2 decades but none of the systems can operate without human intelligence driving them.

What is the real mission of your department? In the best organizations there is alignment between the mission over the door and what really is said, or not said, in the small meetings and on the shop floor. Always:

•Focus on service to the customer or focus on adding value to the customer.

•Focus on safe operations for the maintenance workers, operations, the general public, and the environment.

•Look for ways to reduce costs (ongoing Lean Maintenance) of your operation.

•Look for better ways to do business by cultivating willingness to run controlled experiments (can be directed by Lean projects).

Once again, the goal is the same. We are seeking a powerfully self-motivated workforce, and excellent execution of maintenance activity.

Returning to the discussion about specific industrial groupings there are certain business process areas considered in World Class studies that apply within each division of industry. Within these areas we are able to relate the practices between cereal manufacturers to each other, and even cereal plants to similar plants such as snack makers (if they are similar in size, scale, and approach).

Below are some of the strategies of world class maintenance management and how they specifically relate to Lean Maintenance.

Effective store room and stocking system	Essential for a couple of reasons. One is reduced downtime. Another is higher worker productivity, third is having the lowest inventory level to support the assets.
Effective PM and PdM program	Although PM/PdM is not the goal, it is a fundamental part of world class maintenance. The intensity of the program will be related to the consequences of unscheduled failure.
An up to date Maintenance Technical Library (elements can be either virtual or real)	World Class organizations manage information effectively. Lean Maintenance requires that 1000s of details are on hand when needed.
Timely reporting of potential problems by production, and meaningful feedback to planners on completed jobs by supervisors and technicians. Open dialogue with operators and engineering on troublesome equipment	Communication is the core of World Class Maintenance. All parties communicate to their critical partnership person. All communications channels are open.
Outsourcing and proper use of and orientation toward contractors	Use of outsiders is indicated when there are not enough available hours of competent personnel or there are no personnel with the competence needed at all. It is also used to minimize overall cost to deliver the maintenance product. Good for seasonal or business cycle peaks.
Good use of a CMMS in an organization running multiple shifts or locations, or who have more than 20 workers	The computer is a great tool for all but the smallest maintenance organizations. It provides the data for Lean projects and any World Class department would be using one intensively (not just feeding it but also taking advantage of it).
Complete equipment repair history	The CMMS or a good manual filing system provide the data for Lean decisions and are essential in a World Class setting. Data is retained from date-in-service until retirement.
Training	So much of the continued success of your World Class maintenance effort depends on things that you do not know today. Training has to be part of the World Class program.
Thorough failure analysis, Root Failure Analysis	World Class organizations do not tolerate repetitive failures. They have exercised the muscle (possibly through Lean projects) to analyze and redesign or permanently repair, all repetitive problems.
Disciplined approach to production such as understanding the importance of sticking to a schedule in both production and in maintenance	World Class maintenance is not only a maintenance ‘thing.’ It requires discipline and cooperation from other groups. That cooperation facilitates Lean projects.
Willingness	A World Class maintenance function has the willingness to embark on programs that make sense such as RCM and TPM, to enhance the delivery of service and reduce cost.
Quality	World Class maintenance would be nowhere without a sound and coherent approach to quality. Quality of maintenance work is related to proper training (competence), proper tools and parts (bill of materials) and enough time (custody). All these same elements point to a Lean organization too.
Good workmanship by craft personnel. Existence of overhaul and rebuild capabilities	The core of the whole discussion is excellence, without which World Class maintenance cannot exist. Lean projects sometimes require deep capabilities that are either in-house or easily available locally.
Good use of repair technology	World Class Maintenance is not about all the new toys introduced by vendors. It is about knowing what is available and using the appropriate technology when that is the best alternative.
Good relationships with vendors	If selected intelligently your vendors can be used to solve some of your most intractable problems. All World Class organizations have partnerships with their vendors. This multiplies their expertise without significant extra cost.