Originally Published at Ask an Expert
Question: PM Optimization
We are just embarking on a PM Optimization here at our Pipe Mill in Australia. We have run a trial and have been impressed with the results.
Are there any pitfalls to be aware of before we proceed?
Answer:
Thanks for your question. Good to see that you are pleased with the results from PMO2000. The most common pitfalls are lack of resourcing (project management and shop floor people) and lack of celebrating the results. Motivating the people who provide their wisdom and effort is worth every ounce of management effort invested. Market to the bean counters as well so they see the work as a very good investment. We suggest that you appoint a project champion who has a duty statement with medium to long term activities. If the champion has also to cope with day to day issues, these issues always seem to take precedence over improvement activities no matter what they are. If you do not have resources internally to support the program we suggest that you contract them in. The next is engaging management to understand the principles of RCM/PMO and accepting that the analysis is done on the basis that every task adds value to the organisation so that not doing the PM will be a sub-optimal outcome for the business. Whilst a company may get away with missing inspections periodically, the risk of doing this is not worth it mathematically speaking. This means that the KPI for On Time PM Completion should be at least 95%. This understanding needs to be shared with the business drivers such as the Operations / Sales / Accounting people. Risks can be taken occasionally. However, in tight situations, one of the benefits you will derive from having done the analysis is that when you do have a tough decision to make, you can easily go to the analysis in the software and see what risks you are taking. You may decide to miss some tasks as a once only and take the punt, but you may decide to shut down for a small period to complete tasks which have consequences of safety, environmental or commercial proportions. Regardless of what decision you take, you are taking them from a position of knowledge rather than the seat of your strides (pants for the non Aussies). The next pitfall is doing too much analysis without implementation. With PMO we know that for the improvements to convert to revenue and reduced maintenance costs, planning and scheduling, defect elimination and performance measurement need to be upgraded to a standard which supports a reliability approach to asset management. If the analysis takes time to implement...don't keep doing analysis before implementation is streamlined and these other processes are happening properly. Next is probably failing to get the plant into a reasonable working condition. No amount of inspection will matter if the defective plant is not fixed. Last but almost most important is that you see PMO as a continuous process of reliability improvement. Understanding how the plant fails and documenting your strategy at failure mode level is just the start. Once you understand this and can access the information easily, there needs to be a review every time the PM fails. This is when you have an unexpected failure. It may be that the failure is random and gives no useful signs of deterioration hence failure is going to happen unexpectedly regardless of PM or you may have decided that the probability and consequences of failure compared with the cost of prevention mean that the cheapest option is to run to failure. In these cases you may sit back and ask yourself is modification a possibility or you may just accept the failure as an inherent part of the design (we all get broken windscreens and punctures in our cars) or you may find that there was an intent to ensure that what happened should have been picked up before the plant stopped. In the latter case, something went wrong and the reliability team should review why.... was the original analysis wrong....did the task actually get done... could the task pick up the symptom using the technique prescribed? Just a few thoughts. Good luck with your initiative. We think that you are on a winner.
Regards,
Steve Turner Director
OMCS PMO2000 - Maintenance Analysis for Results