Mechanical Maintenance Improvement Projects
“We have always done that this way!”
How many times have I heard that sentence!And how many times I had to say:
” Unfortunately, you have been doing it wrong all the time, and in the process you have lost a ton of money.”
Maintenance related costs are composed of 4 major parts:
- Maintenance Labor costs
- Maintenance Material costs
- Projects cost savings
- Downtime costs
Maintenance Labor costs: Maintenance productivity in North America averages between 25 and 35%. Most lost productivity can be attributed to :
- Waiting on parts
- Waiting on information (drawings, instruction etc..)
- Waiting on equipment to be shut down
- Waiting on rentals to arrive
- Waiting on other trades to finish their part of the job
- “Putting down fires” – running from emergency to emergency
Maintenance Material costs: These are related to the frequency and size of the repairs to the company’s equipment. The total number of parts in addition to the stores policies, purchasing policies, and overall inventory policies contribute to the maintenance material costs. In some companies inventories may be higher than necessary by 30%. Inventory management can lower those costs considerably.
Projects costs savings: In many companies, maintenance is involved in projects, outage or refurbishing activities. These activities, if not properly controlled can have a dramatic impact on a company’s production capacity. The reason is, that these activities are usually performed with the equipment in a down condition. That means there is no production during this time. For this reason, any time that can be eliminated from the project, outage or refurbishing activity, can be converted to production time. Improved planning could reduce those costs.
Downtime costs: Downtime/availability costs are major potential savings for a company that improves maintenance policies and practices. Downtime costs for equipment may very from several hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. In some companies, the levels of downtime can run as high as 30% or more. By dedicating the company to enforcing good maintenance policies and practices, and utilizing the computerized maintenance management system as a tracking tool, equipment downtime can be reduced dramatically.
MDM can help you with such problems. We can analyze the processes in your facility and suggest proper ways to maximize your ROI.