Putting Maintenance at The Heart of Operational Excellence

• Improve Asset Care

• Refine Working Methods: Develop and test processes to make it easy to do things right, difficult to do wrong, and simple to learn.

• Develop Skills: Ensuring new methods become second nature.

• Simplify Work Routines: Establish safe, easy to apply work routines that guarantee compliance.

The Benefits: More Than Just Uptime

Adopting this holistic approach to maintenance yields significant gains:

• Enhanced Yield and Increased Capacity: Optimised processes result in higher production volumes.

• Reduced Quality Defects: Improved maintenance practices lead to fewer errors and rework.

• Lower Energy and Utility Costs: More efficient operations reduce energy consumption per unit.

• Operational Efficiency: Releasing operator time from routine tasks allows the front-line team to focus on strategic day-to-day management.

The enhanced operational day to day performance directly impacts on several key operational capabilities for:

• Team Self Management:
  Reduced need for team leaders to intervene as operations become more self-sustaining.

• Enhanced Safety:
  Systematic problem resolution minimises accelerated wear and mitigates the causes of human error.

• Engagement and Problem Ownership:
  Systematic improvement as part of the day to day routine nurtures problem ownership and the development of capabilities to deliver long term business goals.

Creating New Value

Lean Maintenance as part of the TPM Excellence programme puts Maintenance at the heart of Operational Excellence by:

• Fostering Collaboration:
  Establishing formal collaboration with production teams to refine work methods and lock in improvement gains as part of the weekly routine.

• Supporting Continuous Skill Development:
  Enabling operators and maintainers to sustain optimal conditions and drive operations improvements with minimal managerial intervention.

This change of emphasis transitions maintenance from being just a support function to a strategic driver of Operational Excellence. A maintenance role where new value is created by systematically reducing both unplanned and planned interventions to progress towards no touch production.

This involves shifting from crude “hours run” metrics to precise “process quality” indicators to transform engineer mindsets from reactive problem-solving to proactive improvement. This change is evident in improved lead times, responsiveness to customer demand shifts, and lower cost per unit—all while extending component life and nurturing in-house engineering expertise.

In addition to the impact on Maintenance outlook, the ripple effect drives cultural development across the organisation relating to:

• Use of Data:
  Captured data is used by those who collect it to improve decision making resulting in improved insight around causal factors and increased problem ownership

• Planning:
  With improved reliability, planners can focus on better asset utilisation, reduced inventories, and faster responsiveness to market demand.

• Capability Development:
  Enhanced problem ownership and team based resolution drives on the job learning providing a vehicle to develop team capabilities and reinforce best practice.

Is this for you?

Consider how your approach to maintenance compares with the best practices of well-respected, award-winning manufacturing operations:

1. Process Control:
   Are you satisfied with low levels of effectiveness, or are cross-functional leaders engaged in a roadmap to optimise operational processes?

2. Leader Standard Work:
   Do you have a single, comprehensive Plan for Every Asset (PFEA) that clearly outlines cross-functional accountabilities for asset care and correct operation? Is it routinely reviewed and updated to enhance safety, reliability, ease of use, and maintainability?

3. Planning:
   Are there standard ways of working for production and maintenance routines, is feedback captured to refine work routines and release resources to work on problem hot spots.

If the answer to any of these is negative, then contact us to discuss how we can help you to put Maintenance at the Heart of Operational Excellence.

Alternatively, a second article on how to Transform Operational Performance digs deeper into the change processes involved.

Imagine the production line grinds to a halt because a chain drive has failed. The engineer quickly replaces the chain and drive, and production restarts. But what happens next?

In many cases, the two main causes of breakdowns—poor equipment condition and human error—remain unaddressed. Both issues can be eliminated when accountability is clear and a structured process is in place to ensure problems never recur.

The solution lies in embedding the Maintenance function into the heart of Operational Excellence to: