Page 31 - Machinery Component Maintenance

16 Machinery Component Maintenance and Repair

plants or equipment at different locations. Most important of all, equip-
ment failures may occur because proper consideration and judgement is
not given to maintenance items whose significance is best understood by
qualified specialists.

Central Control System

In view of this, major corporations will frequently opt to incorporate a
centrally controlled PM system into the Operations Department. This al-
lows mechanical and process specialists to make the key cost decisions on
what kind and how often maintenance should be accomplished at all affil-
iate plants by coupling it to an electronic data processing monitoring sys-
tem. This will serve as a management tool in evaluating conformance to
the maintenance system. Thus, the plant manager is made responsible for
efficiently executing the PM work as outlined by the program, and is
monitored for performance by centralized management. The data pro-
cessing system can be easily adapted to any facility, is inexpensive to in-
stall and operate, and lends itself to overall reduced costs as the corpora-
tion expands. Some of the system advantages are:

1. The PM performance and frequency program is prepared by the
centralized group of qualified engineering specialists based on
equipment manufacturers’ recommendations, experience, and his-
torical records. The program is reviewed and approved by the plant
manager. Program updating to take advantage of new technical
knowledge and both good and bad experience is important to ensure
continued cost savings.
2. A definite schedule is presented to plant managers so they know
what is expected of them.
3. Operations management is advised of system conformance and is
made aware of rescheduled tasks.
4. The system identifies overall corporate maintenance requirements
so that work can be staggered enabling a minimum mobile group of
technical and maintenance specialists to handle the overall pro-
gram.
5. Historical data are accumulated for analysis.
6. Reduction in clerical work more than offsets the cost of computer-
ization.