November 2022 Volume 4

MAINTENANCE

Optimizing Plant Operations and Profitability Through Enhanced Maintenance Management By Jeff Fredline

When you see a man at the summit of the mountain, he didn’t fall there. He climbed the mountain step by step to reach the summit. Similarly, when a manufacturing facility runs in a profitable manner withminimal down-time, they did not get there without an effective maintenance program. Most forging companies understand the importance of proper maintenance. However, it sometimes becomes clouded when the needs of production conflict with the needs of proper machine maintenance.The trick is to satisfy the needs of both groups, cutting through all the confusion and smoke to get to the essence of what is really going on, and then working to meet specific needs. We need to understand that the primary purpose of maintenance is to achieve and then maintain the best operational condition for each manufacturing asset in the building. Next Steps We need to have clarity regarding what the needs and goals of your specific manufacturing environment. Consider dividing the tasks into (2) separate sets of tasks. 1. Reduction of manufacturing costs by on going inspection and PM tasking. 2. Rapid response to breakdowns, minimizing down time and restoring production in a cost-effective manner. Once you have prioritized the specific tasks, we need to evaluate your current staffing and see how you can organize to best cover your needs. Please understand that it’s all about priorities. If performing your inspections and PMs are the priority and yet you have a pile of uncompleted work orders from previous inspections and PO’s, your system is overloaded and you are not meeting the goals for improvement. We don’t write work orders for items that don’t need to be corrected. Priorities My suggestion is to organize by priority. If you are going to be successful in the long term, machine inspections and benchmarking must be the primary objective. Unless you understand where you are at present it will be very difficult to determine where to best invest for the future. Ask your team questions. Get their input, as they are the ones who will make it happen.

Possible Questions • What are the most important work cells in production? • Are multiple work cells connected at any point? • What items could cause the work cell to shut down and lose production? Control boards, motors, valves, pumps etc. • What items do I need to have in house to correct a machine down condition? • What does it cost to have a replacement part in stock to minimize down time at a point of breakdown? • Will we need the assistance of an outside supplier to correct the issue? If you have adequate staffing your might be able to organize your staff into (2) separate teams. TeamOne: The PMTeam • Mechanical and Electrical Team: Made up of qualified techni cians with mechanical and electrical experience. • Machine inspection. • Mechanical condition measurements. • On going mechanical maintenance such as lubrication man agement. • Electronic sensor monitoring; temperature, part sensing, prop er automation function.

FIA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2022 30