Page 66 - Intro Predictive Maintenance
P. 66
Role of Maintenance Organization 57
70
60
Total Cost ($000) 40
50
30
20
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Number of Technicians
Figure 3–6 Total maintenance costs for varied number of technicans.
failures or preventive maintenance activities. If individual technicians were assigned
to specific equipment, the person might well be busy on a lengthy project when a call
comes to fix another machine. In an individual situation where a single person is
responsible for specific machines, either the down machine would have to wait until
the technician completes the first job and gets to the second or if the second machine
has greater priority, the first machine may be left inoperable. The technician then inter-
rupts his or her task to take care of the second problem and must return later to com-
plete the first, thus wasting time and effort. The optimum number of people can be
calculated for any scenario, time, and effort. Figure 3–6 illustrates one situation in
which two was the best team size.
A good technique for teamwork is to rotate the preventive maintenance responsibil-
ity. The first week, Adam performs all the required tasks, while Brad, Chuck, and
Donna make modifications and repairs. It may also help to assign Brad the short “do-
it-now” (DIN) tasks for the same week. The next week, Brad does preventive, and
Donna handles DIN, while Chuck and Adam attend to emergencies. Rotating pre-
ventive maintenance tasks has the following advantages:
• Responsibility is shared equally by all.
• Doing a good preventive job one week should reduce the breakdown emer-
gency repairs in following weeks; thus a technician can benefit from the
results of his or her own preventive efforts.
• Technicians’ skills and interests vary, so that what one person fails to notice
during his or her week will probably be picked up by another person the
next week.
The time to start is now. Don’t let any more failures occur or information be lost.
There is probably a lot of effort ahead, so get started implementing your program now.