SKF Reliability Systems - Library

Vol 23 No 3 AMMJ 21
What Is Asset Management
The Organisation and Leadership.
Management support.
To have a truly world class asset management system there must be support at all levels of management.
If corporate management support the cause of managing assets for reliability but the operations manager
3 levels down is not supportive, improvement initiatives are likely to fail. If a Maintenance Manager tries to
instigate a plan for reliability improvement and his direct supervisor is not supportive, again failure is the most
likely result.
Operations and maintenance reliability focus.
This element is in line with management support. In many industries managers associate maintenance with
costs and downtime. Many maintenance people believe their primary role is to fix things as they break. A
business with reliability focus will view breakdowns as an opportunity to improve and the cost to maintain as
being an investment in the future. Focus on reliability should include all aspects of processes that can cause
losses including breakdowns, operational practices, maintenance practices and quality issues. All employees
have a role to play in the improvement of Reliability of their equipment. Reliability needs to become part of the
organisational culture.
Organisational culture.
To head on the road to asset reliability the workforce must be prepared for organisational change. Some deepseated
beliefs will have to be challenged. For example planned downtime can lead to more uptime, planning
work well will increase tool time by at least 50%, all critical spares must be held in the store, giving operators
some maintenance responsibility will breed ownership, feedback and continuous improvement of reliability
and maintence processes is valued by management.
Performance measures.
These must be in place to determine if improvements have been effective. What measures do you have in
place? There are literally hundreds in use in industry with common ones being Mean Time Between Failures,
Mean Time to Repair, % downtime, Overall Equipment Effectiveness, Compliance to Planned Maintenance
schedule, Reactive vs Preventitive, Proactive, Predictive work, No of breakdown calls. You must have some
performance measures in place or you will not have a base to review improvement against. A common saying
in reliability and operational circles is “You cant manage what you don’t measure”.
Signing the order was easy...
Greg wondered why he had taken so long to get outside assistance. Perhaps it was the fact that
Maintenance consultants seemed to have a bad reputation – “Borrow your watch to tell you the time – then
sell you your watch”. Perhaps it was because they had a reputation for charging exorbitant fees. Perhaps
there was a little bit of pride involved – “It is my job to make this plant safe, efficient and reliable, and I am
going to do it – myself!”
But finally he had to admit that the challenges he faced were too great for any one person to deal with on
their own, and he had contacted Assetivity. It’s amazing how a series of equipment failures (including a
catastrophic conveyor pulley shaft failure that had caused a major safety incident and significant downtime)
can focus the mind, he thought, wryly.
At the initial meeting with the senior Assetivity consultant, Greg had been impressed by the way in which
his problems and issues had been listened to, considered, and absorbed. He had liked the way that, in the
course of their discussion, they had together been able to give focus to the complex network of issues and
opportunities that he faced, and put these in perspective. He been attracted to the down-to-earth and
practical discussion regarding implementation issues. And he was impressed by the focus on developing
and implementing solutions, rather than on selling specific products, tools or methodologies.
It had become clear, in the course of their discussion, that there was an urgent need to “get back to the
basics” – to ensure that the current Preventive Maintenance program was appropriate, and was being properly executed at shop floor level, and that failures
were being prevented, and the causes of those failures eliminated. They had agreed that the first step was to conduct a quick diagnostic review, focusing on
these areas, in order to develop a plan of action. Getting authorisation from the Plant Manager had been surprisingly easy, and Greg was signing the Purchase
Order for this review now. So far, it had been smooth sailing, but Greg knew that the real challenges lay ahead. But, with the involvement of Assetivity, he had
confidence that they were on the right track.
More than availability and reliability...
Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne
Ph +61 8 9474 4044
www.assetivity.com.au
Asset Management Consultants