Maintenance & Reliability: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Like Goldilocks, most of us are trying to find that reliability program that is “just right” for all of our equipment and processes.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of having a program that is not enough.  This is often easy to identify by excessive and unacceptable levels of downtime and/or high maintenance costs.  This is the most difficult situation to get out of.  Often, you are just struggling to keep the equipment fixed and running and likely do not see how you can take anyone away from these critical repairs to move towards a more proactive maintenance program.  If you have any Preventive Maintenance (PM) tasks, they are likely not getting done on a regular basis because you are working to just keep equipment fixed, let alone trying to take it down before it breaks.

Some may even be operating with reliability programs that include too much.  The good news is you may have almost no equipment failures.  The bad news is you probably still have high maintenance costs and excessive equipment downtime, dictated by all of the time-based PMs you are trying to keep up with.  How much more money could your facility make with a 10-20% increase uptime?  What could you do with those additional maintenance dollars to become even more proactive or if it was not spent at all?

Instead of being like Goldilocks and experiencing each porridge or chair or bed to determine which one is “just right”, utilize a Reliability Engineer to help analyze your CMMS data and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to determine exactly what maintenance actions to implement and how to implement each.  Utilize reliability tools like an Asset Criticality Analysis, Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Failure Modes Effect Analysis (FMEA) and Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO).  Each of these tools should be in your toolbox and will help determine what the right maintenance should and should not be.  Implement Predictive Maintenance (PdM) technologies to retain the ability to understand when and how your equipment is failing without causing excessive downtime.  These will also help with the ability to manage and plan the downtime necessary.

If your organization has not quite found that reliability program that is “just right,” let Commissioning Agents, Inc. (CAI) know how we can help.  Our Reliability Engineers come with the right tools in their toolbox and have many years of experience with assisting Clients develop the right reliability program.

{{cta(‘7fb61b5a-8b57-4cff-be16-4a594b7bbb72’)}}