Improving Planned Work in a 24/7 Work Environment
Walt Lynch, maintenance manager, Coca-Cola North America
Increasing planned work in a 24/7 production environment is a challenging task and, if accomplished without additional line downtime, will improve labor utilization and increase your odds of improving asset reliability. In this session, Walt Lynch will review Coca-Cola North America’s maintenance improvement process, justify the company’s need to improve planned work and, most importantly, will discuss its strategy for increasing planned work without additional production line downtime. You’ll gain valuable insights into how to analyze your current maintenance performance and learn successful techniques for increasing your team’s labor utilization and reduce asset downtime.
Using Root Cause Analysis to Boost Your Bottom Line
Chris Eckert, Apollo Associated Services
Root cause analysis is a powerful tool for finding cost savings, improving performance and avoiding costly problems. When budgets are cut, reliability professionals must get creative in problem-solving and corrective actions. Often, the tools that are probably already at their disposal can help. By performing dynamic analysis where the causes and solutions of multiple RCAs are analyzed, and by conducting proactive RCAs, companies find savings they never before knew were available. This presentation will demonstrate how organizations use these tools to improve performance and their bottom line in times of economic hardship.
Reliability – The Human Element
Ted Melencheck, maintenance reliability supervisor, Cargill Deicing Technology
Reliability is a cross-functional process that cannot be solely owned by one group, requiring involvement of all personnel at a site to become instilled as the cultural norm. We can use all of the available technologies to identify impending failures, but without the commitment from each individual, progress will be negligible. Individual commitment is achieved through a combination of training, apprenticeships, personal development, safety and involvement – all of which fall under the umbrella of employee engagement.
Cargill's Cleveland mine has tapped into the human element through employee engagement to create major improvements in both safety and productivity. Reliability is generally measured as a negative impact. We cannot measure how many issues we prevent; we can only use the indicators for progress. The ultimate indicator is the net productivity increase. Over the past 10 years, we were able to increase productivity 73 percent. This was attained through cross-functional department involvement while utilizing the two cornerstones of reliability: lubrication and the human element.
The Maintenance Excellence Audit
Terry Harris, president, Reliable Process Solutions
How do we really achieve “maintenance excellence”? This interactive session covers a 22-step Maintenance Excellence Audit form. Each participant receives a copy of the audit form to take back to his or her plant to use in daily progress. You’ll learn each of the steps in detail and the questions that are asked during the audit. You’ll be able to rate yourself during the session and realize areas of weakness and get points on how to improve operations in each area. The audit covers everything from management and leadership to reactive maintenance management. It covers the use of CMMS systems, lubrication excellence, PdM and many more important topics.
Holcim’s Maintenance & Reliability Training Program
Bill Lyons, maintenance optimization manager, Holcim (US) Inc.
In recent years, Holcim (US) has expanded its training program to focus on front-line workers. Technicians and front-line workers form the foundation of any maintenance and reliability program. They must be able to collect predictive maintenance data with a high degree of accuracy and repeatability. If the raw data that is collected is of poor quality, any resulting analysis and decision-making will be flawed.
Recognition of the importance of this “people foundation” is at the heart of Holcim's development of the Maintenance Reliability Training Program (MRTP). This program focuses on individuals who have the most contact with equipment on a daily basis. When they are equipped with the tools to succeed, Holcim plants succeed. The MRTP is a multi-disciplinary program with specialties in lubrication, vibration, thermography, EMD and inspections. This presentation will cover the development and initiation of the program, and the results to date.
How Should You Manage Maintenance?
R. D. (Doc) Palmer, PE, MBA, CMRP of Richard Palmer and Associates
In this session, Doc Palmer, author of McGraw-Hill’s Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook, describes when the various methods of maintenance management are appropriate. When do you use direct supervision? When do you use KPIs? How is training related? When are procedures appropriate? Using the wrong control techniques at the wrong times frustrates and hinders success. Palmer illustrates and explains a framework for how the various mechanisms of maintenance control fit together. This is a good session for a beginner through advanced practitioner of maintenance management.
Solutions to Technical Skill Challenges
Gary Pelini and Bill Woodruff, Strategic Services Group (recently retired Honda engineering leaders)
A graying workforce, emerging skills shortage and global recession are challenges facing every advanced manufacturing workplace today. Business success in this environment requires effective execution of a skills development strategy that fully engages the workforce and includes continuous improvement efforts to reduce training time, lower training costs and improve retention of essential knowledge and skills. This case study examines the proactive use of shared effort, process mapping, collaboration and a continuous Plan-Do-Check-Action cycle to meet these challenges. By engaging maintenance and technical leaders at Honda in this ongoing process, the presenters produced an integrated skills learning system that combined blended Web-based training and hands-on practice with mentored on-the-job training to reinforce the learning of fundamental, repair and analysis level skills. This presentation reveals the obstacles, successes and opportunities for continued improvement discovered by this team.
Zero Breakdown Strategies
Terry Wireman, Senior Vice President, Vesta Partners
The concept of zero breakdowns is derived from the zero defect philosophy in Total Quality Management. If zero defects can be a goal, why can companies not also achieve zero breakdowns? If Six Sigma quality can be achieved, can Six Sigma reliability likewise be achieved? This session details a straightforward five-step approach to achieving zero breakdowns. Each of the steps is presented in a format that will allow participants to make immediate application at their company.
The Five Fundamentals of Implementing a Reliability Program
Dan Roberts, Plant Technical Services director, MillerCoors
In mature industrial facilities (those that have been in operation for 20 years or more), process reliability is often elusive. When processes fail, it is often also the case that those who have the responsibility to maintain are in conflict with those who have the responsibility to operate. These relationships are the key to success in implementing a reliability improvement program. This session will focus on the five fundamentals of implementing a reliability program, and the foundations of World-Class Manufacturing that will sustain this investment. These fundamentals are implementing equipment-specific reliability strategies; developing a rigorous planning and scheduling program; managing a focused program to ensure technical competencies; implementing a structured continuous improvement program; ensuring spare parts availability through a sound materials management program.
These five fundamentals will ensure a great start to a reliability program, but they will not ensure success. The only way to build sustainability into the program is a sound partnership between all parties involved in ensuring operational reliability. This is accomplished through World-Class Manufacturing principles. This discussion will explore these topics, and provide a road map for implementing a world-class reliability improvement program.
The Business of Maintenance
Terry Wireman, Senior Vice President, Vesta Partners
Most companies today do not see their maintenance function as a true business. Yet a considerable amount of a company’s budget is allocated to the maintaining function. In addition, much of the company’s ability to produce a product or provide a service is enabled by the maintenance function. This presentation focuses on how to help your company view maintenance as a big business and understand how to establish good maintenance business processes. You’ll also learn how to explain the return on investment to senior executives with a goal of gaining support to take your company’s maintenance business from being “just good” to achieving greatness.
Principles of Maintenance Planning and Scheduling
R. D. (Doc) Palmer, PE, MBA, CMRP of Richard Palmer and Associates
In this session, Doc Palmer, author of McGraw-Hill’s Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook, presents a case study for turning around a mechanical maintenance planning department. The resulting organization had crews working down their entire backlogs. This freed up the workforce for other work, including the replacement of contract labor and assisting other stations. You’ll learn how planning leverages maintenance productivity and how to quantify its effect. Certain guiding principles make planning and scheduling effective. The case study identifies each underlying principle.
What Really Was the Cause of That Failure?
David Rodgers, corporate director of maintenance, John Morrell and Company
What was the true cause of a failure? Does anybody really know? This is a surprising situation to ask operators, mechanics and managers. Everyone will have an opinion or assumption to the cause, but very few really know. In an effort to improve reliability, many times we create a form for identifying the effects of what happened, but not what caused it to occur. For the most part, the created form does not add value; it only creates a false sense that we are doing something to stop an event from occurring again. In many cases, we throw fixes at failures. It is like closing your eyes and hoping it goes away. In this session, you’ll learn how to remove the guesswork through a basic cause-and-effect analysis and focus on six key areas. Manpower, materials, methods and machinery are usually the base, but Rodgers prefers to add Mother Nature and management, narrow the possible causes and then use the five-whys problem-solving methodology to make a decision without the guessing.
Highwall Miner Reliability – From Rags to Riches
Terry Taylor, manager of equipment reliability, Arch Coal
At Arch Coal’s Cumberland River Mine, one of the primary pieces of equipment in the extraction of coal is the Highwall Miner. The reliability of the Highwall Miner was poor, which played a key role in the actual production of this mining machine being at 50 percent of the targeted tonnage. Local management made a decision to do “whatever it takes” to reach the targeted tonnage for this machine. It was well-known by all that improvements in the reliability of this equipment would have to be made to improve production. In this session, you’ll learn about this company’s journey from a clean sheet of paper to reliability.
Planned Work Predominance over Reactive Work – Contribution to the Bottom Line
Mike Shekhtman, P.E., MBA, CMRP, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
Maintenance costs and efficiency are always on managers’ minds. In this session, you’ll learn how to show them tangible maintenance cost reductions that are delivered by reallocating resources to planned maintenance work. Shekhtman starst with the well-known statement that each hour of properly performed planned maintenance avoids more than one hour of repair or any other failure induced work. The avoidance may be a twofold, threefold or even more. Through a few simple calculations, you’ll learn how the margin of decrease of maintenance labor costs per unit of product can be expressed as a function of that planned work factor, the increase in planned maintenance hours and the total maintenance work hours prior to planned work increase. You’ll also learn how to calculate the dollar values for reduction in maintenance labor costs per unit due to the planned work increase.
Using Infrared Thermography to Inspect Mechanical Equipment
Harold Van De Ven, instructor and consultant, The Snell Group
Infrared thermography (IR), traditionally the technology of choice for scanning electrical systems, is also successfully applied across a number of applications in industry, including inspecting mechanical/rotating equipment. Maintenance professionals today are using IR more frequently to help diagnose mechanical problems in conjunction with other testing technologies, including vibration analysis, oil analysis, ultrasonics and motor circuit analysis. This session will give an overview of the use of IR for inspecting mechanical/rotating equipment as well as discuss the benefits and limitations of the technology. You’ll learn how mechanical IR inspections can be integrated with an existing program and hear real-world examples that demonstrate the success of using infrared in mechanical maintenance applications.
Word on Reliability – Teachings from a Life Spent in M&R
Richard Word, president, Catalyst Consulting & Reliability
Richard Word, a 35-plus-year veteran of the maintenance and reliability field, provides this presentation, which he subtitles, “Reliability 101: Reviewing the What, Where, When, How, Who and Why of Reliability Methods, Techniques and Principles”. Richard draws upon his career with Whirlpool and General Electric and explains what you need to know in order to succeed in your reliability efforts.
Elements of Root Cause Analysis
Andy Page and Bill Keeter, Allied Reliability
With so many methods available for root cause analysis, it’s easy to lose sight of its purpose. Too often, people spend more time learning the method and not enough time learning the concepts of RCA or the reasons for the analysis to begin with. This session will focus on the essential RCA elements that help keep the focus on identifying and eliminating all of the causes, especially the root cause. You’ll learn the different roots, their effects and their telltale signs or markers that make it easier to identify which root you may be dealing with, making the entire RCA process much easier.
The Importance of Alignment and Reliability
Philip McCarthy, PRUFTECHNIK Service Inc.
Roll alignment is at the core of reliability. Ensuring proper roll alignment allows for better production, planning and cost-effectiveness, especially in regard to downtime. Your product depends on sound alignment. Your machine depends on true alignment. Your parts need solid alignment. Alignment greatly affects reliability, and a reliable process eliminates headaches, problems, waste and unscheduled downtime. Needless to say, good alignment saves time and money, which are two things that are crucial in today’s economy. There are several methods of alignment and it is important to know them and the differences of alignment methods.
Vibration Analysis Basics – A Machinery Health Primer
Robert Skeirik, senior product manager, Emerson Process Management
This session is a short survey course about vibration analysis and how it can be effectively applied to monitor machinery health on rotating equipment. It starts with a basic introduction to vibration theory, sensor selection and proper data collection techniques. It will then explore different methods to filter through the mounds of data to extract diagnostic information and compare it against pre-defined alarm levels. The goal is to identify the candidates for further examination so that the analyst can focus his or her efforts on the most important machines.
Maintenance Goals: Three Simple Tools to Attain Engagement
Mike Gehloff, principal consultant, General Physics
The most valuable resource within any maintenance organization leaves the facility at the end of each day. The challenge facing the leaders of these organizations is how to keep them engaged toward a common goal. This session will illustrate the use of three simple tools that can be used to focus the attention of personnel at all levels of the maintenance organization toward a common purpose. These three simple tools are annual improvement planning, visual management and accountability through the PDCA cycle. The session will give practical examples of the application of these tools within the maintenance process, as well as proven methods for motivating and engaging people through non-financial means. Attendees will gain the insight needed to leverage these techniques within their own organization in order to produce their own sustainable improvements.
Operational Risk Management as a Component of Reliability Excellence
Mike Poland, Life Cycle Engineering
Most asset management strategies contain a complex maintenance and operational plan and completely overlook the third key element, the risk plan. The risk plan is the product of operational risk management and is intended to provide the business processes, procedures and infrastructure to identify and then mitigate risk. Without a risk plan, corporations rely on the experience level of individuals to identify risks rather than a culture of risk management with the formal processes to support it. Unfortunately, this tends to focus on the hazard or accident at hand and, therefore, is frequently reactive.
Understanding the concepts of reliability excellence and the supporting processes such as loss elimination and root cause analysis will provide a pre-emptive and, therefore, proactive approach to risk management.
Recruit, Train and Assess Your Maintenance Organization of Tomorrow
David A. Crockett, CenTec Inc.
Three factors have combined to create a brewing crisis for all manufacturers: the growing shortfall of skilled workers, the accelerating number of retiring Baby Boomers and the burgeoning costs related to corporate human resource departments in the attempt to handle these issues. In this session, Dave Crockett will discuss how companies are addressing this crisis and provide a structured process to develop a more diversified maintenance organization for tomorrow. You’ll learn how to set clear direction and objectives (where does the company want to go), define the strategy to get there (how does the company get there), define job roles and responsibilities (who is responsible for what), define desired results and track the progression (measurements), and recruit tomorrow’s technicians today (aptitude).
Reliability Improvement: What Works and What Doesn’t
John Crossan, manufacturing/maintenance consultant, and Randall Quick, engineering manager, Manufacturing Solutions International
In this session, you’ll learn why reliability improvement efforts often fail to deliver ongoing results and several mechanisms that are keys to success. The speakers draw on their 70-plus years in industry (Clorox, General Mills, Kellogg, Johnson & Johnson, BP Amoco, Burndy, etc.) explaining in detail how safety, housekeeping, product quality, equipment care and a permanent routine problem-solving/improvement process are the elements of an initiative that works
How to Build Contamination Control into Your Reliability Program
Trigg Minnick, Des-Case Corporation
Maintaining clean oil is one of the best investments a company can make, yet contamination often remains an overlooked factor behind premature machinery failure and diminished lubricant life. With increases in the cost of oil, increased desire to minimize usage and waste, and the need to prolong the life of equipment, the economic case for protection – from the time oil enters a facility until it leaves – is stronger than ever. This session will help you learn simple things to build into your reliability program that can pay big dividends – and how you can build a business case for your company’s situation.
