MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT

8.1 INTRODUCTION AND MEANING

Past and current maintenance practices in both the private and Government sectors would imply
that maintenance is the actions associated with equipment repair after it is broken. The dictionary
defines maintenance as “the work of keeping something in proper condition, upkeep.” This would
imply that maintenance should be actions taken to prevent a device or component from failing
or to repair normal equipment degradation experienced with the operation of the device to keep
it in proper working order. Data obtained in many studies over the past decade indicates that most
private and Government facilities do not expend the necessary resources to maintain equipment
in proper working order. They wait for equipment failure to occur and then take whatever actions
are necessary to repair or replace the equipment. Nothing lasts forever and all equipment has
associated with it some predefined life expectancy or operational life.

8.2 OBJECTIVES OF MAINTENANCE

Equipment’s are an important resource which is constantly used for adding value to products.
So, it must be kept at the best operating condition. Otherwise, there will be excessive downtime
and also interruption of production if it is used in a mass production line. Poor working of
equipment's
will lead to quality related problems. Hence, it is an absolute necessity to maintain the
equipment’s in good operating conditions with economical cost. Hence, we need an integrated
approach to minimize the cost of maintenance. In certain cases, the equipment will be obsolete
over a period of time. If a firm wants to be in the same business competitively, it has to take
decision on whether to replace the equipment or to retain the old equipment by taking the cost of
maintenanceand operation into account.

8.3 TYPES OF MAINTENANCE

The design life of most equipment requires periodic maintenance. Belts need adjustment, alignment
needs to be maintained, proper lubrication on rotating equipment is required, and so on. In some
cases, certain components need replacement, e.g., a wheel bearing on a motor vehicle, to ensure
the main piece of equipment (in this case a car) last for its design life. Different approaches have
been developed to know how maintenance can be performed to ensure equipment reaches or
exceeds its design life. In addition to waiting for a piece of equipment to fail (reactive maintenance)
the other approaches are preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, or reliability centered
maintenance.

8.3.1 Breakdown (Reactive) Maintenance

Breakdown maintenance is basically the ‘run it till it breaks’ maintenance mode. No actions
or efforts are taken to maintain the equipment as the designer originally intended to ensure
design life is reached. Studies as recent indicate that, this is still the predominant mode of
maintenance.
Advantages to breakdown maintenance can be viewed as a double-edged sword. If we are
dealing with new equipment, we can expect minimal incidents of failure. If our maintenance
program is purely reactive, we will not expend manpower or incur capital cost until something
breaks. Since we do not see any associated maintenance cost, we could view this period as
saving money. In reality, during the time we believe we are saving maintenance and capital cost,
we are really spending more money than we would have under a different maintenance approach.
We are spending more money associated with capital cost because, while waiting for the equipment
to break, we are shortening the life of the equipment resulting in more frequent replacement. We
may incur cost upon failure of the primary device associated with its failure causing the failure
of a secondary device. This is an increased cost we would not have experienced if our maintenance
program was more proactive.
Our labour cost associated with repair will probably be higher than normal because the
failure will most likely require more extensive repairs than would have been required if the piece
of equipment had not been run to failure. Chances are the piece of equipment will fail during off
hours or close to the end of the normal workday. If it is a critical piece of equipment that needs
to be back on-line quickly, we will have to pay maintenance overtime cost. Since we expect to
run equipment to failure, we will require a large material inventory of repair parts. This is a cost
we could minimize under a different maintenance strategy.
Advantages
1. Involves low cost investment for maintenance.
2. Less staff is required.
Disadvantages
1. Increased cost due to unplanned downtime of equipment.
2. Increased labour cost, especially if overtime is needed.
3. Cost involved with repair or replacement of equipment.
4. Possible secondary equipment or process damage from equipment failure.
5. Inefficient use of staff resources.

8.3.2 Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance can be defined as, “Actions performed on a time or machine-run-based
schedule that detect, preclude, or mitigate degradation of a component or system with the aim of
sustaining or extending its useful life through controlling degradation to an acceptable level.”
Preventive maintenance is a means to increase the reliability of their equipment. By simply
expending the necessary resources to conduct maintenance activities intended by the equipment
designer, equipment life is extended and its reliability is increased. In addition to an increase in
reliability, lot of amount will be saved over that of a program just using reactive maintenance.
Studies indicate that this savings can amount to as much as 12% to 18% on the average.
Advantages
1. Cost effective in many capital intensive processes.
2. Flexibility allows for the adjustment of maintenance periodicity.
3. Increased component life cycle.
4. Energy savings.
5. Reduced equipment or process failure.
6. Estimated 12% to 18% cost savings over reactive maintenance program.
Disadvantages
1. Catastrophic failures still likely to occur.
2. Labour intensive.
3. Includes performance of unneeded maintenance.
4. Potential for incidental damage to components in conducting unneeded maintenance.
Depending on the facilities current maintenance practices, present equipment reliability, and
facility downtime, there is little doubt that many facilities purely reliant on reactive maintenance
could save much more than 18% by instituting a proper preventive maintenance program.
While preventive maintenance is not the optimum maintenance program, it does have several
advantages over that of a purely reactive program. By performing the preventive maintenance
as the equipment designer envisioned, we will extend the life of the equipment closer to design.
This translates into dollar savings. Preventive maintenance (lubrication, filter change, etc.) will
generally run the equipment more efficiently resulting in dollar savings. While we will not prevent
equipment catastrophic failures, we will decrease the number of failures. Minimizing failures
translate into maintenance and capital cost savings.

8.3.3 Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance can be defined as “Measurements that detect the onset of a degradation
mechanism, thereby allowing causal stressors to be eliminated or controlled prior to any significant
deterioration in the component physical state. Results indicate current and future functional
capability”.
Basically, predictive maintenance differs from preventive maintenance by basing maintenance
need on the actual condition of the machine rather than on some preset schedule. Preventive
maintenance is time-based. Activities such as changing lubricant are based on time, like calendar
time or equipment run time. For example, most people change the oil in their vehicles every 3,000
to 5,000 miles travelled. This is effectively basing the oil change needs on equipment run time.
No concern is given to the actual condition and performance capability of the oil. It is changed
because it is time. This methodology would be analogous to a preventive maintenance task. If,
on the other hand, the operator of the car discounted the vehicle run time and had the oil analyzed
at some periodicity to determine its actual condition and lubrication properties, he may be able
to extend the oil change until the vehicle had travelled 10,000 miles. This is the fundamental
difference between predictive maintenance and preventive maintenance, whereby predictive
maintenance is used to define needed maintenance task based on quantified material/equipment
condition.
There are many advantages of predictive maintenance. A well-orchestrated predictive
maintenance program will eliminate catastrophic equipment failures. Schedule of maintenance
activities can be made to minimize or delete overtime cost. It is possible to minimize inventory
and order parts, as required, well ahead of time to support the downstream maintenance needs
and optimize the operation of the equipment, saving energy cost and increasing plant reliability.
Past studies have estimated that a properly functioning predictive maintenance program can
provide a savings of 8% to 12% over a program utilizing preventive maintenance alone. Depending
on a facility’s reliance on reactive maintenance and material condition, it could easily recognize
savings opportunities exceeding 30% to 40%. Independent surveys indicate the following industrial
average savings resultant from initiation of a functional predictive maintenance program:
1. Return on investment—10 times
2. Reduction in maintenance costs—25% to 30%
3. Elimination of breakdowns—70% to 75%
4. Reduction in downtime—35% to 45%
5. Increase in production—20% to 25%.
Advantages
1. Increased component operational life/availability.
2. Allows for pre-emptive corrective actions.
3. Decrease in equipment or process downtime.
4. Decrease in costs for parts and labour.
5. Better product quality.
6. Improved worker and environmental safety.
7. Improved worker moral.
8. Energy savings.
9. Estimated 8% to 12% cost savings over preventive maintenance program.
Disadvantages
1. Increased investment in diagnostic equipment.
2. Increased investment in staff training.
3. Savings potential not readily seen by management.

Concept of Reliability in Maintenance

Reliability is the probability of survival under a given operating environment. For example, the
time between consecutive failures of a refrigerator where continuous working is required is a
measure of its reliability. If this time is more, the product is said to have high reliability.
In a textile mill, generally the light is maintained at a minimum specified level. To achieve
this, let us assume that there are 100 bulbs in use and the guaranteed life time of these bulbs
is 5000 hours. If we collect statistics about the number of bulbs survived till 5000 hours, we can
compute the reliability of the bulbs. In this case,
Number of bulbs survived till the specified time limit
Reliability = Failurerate =
Number of bulbs used
If the number of bulbs survived till 5000 hours is 80, then we can say that the reliability is
0.8 (i.e., 80/100)
The reliability of railway signalling system, aircraft, and power plant are some of the interesting
examples for demonstrating the reliability concept. In these cases, a failure will lead to heavy
penalty.
The concept of reliability can be matched with systems concept. Generally, products/equipments
will have many components which may function with serial relationship or parallel relationship. So,
the individual component’s reliability affects the reliability of the product. Hence, enough attention
must be given at the design, stage such that the product’s reliability is maximized. The cost of
maintenance is also to be considered along with the reliability while improving it.
The general failure pattern of any product is given in Fig. 8.1. This is called bath-tub curve.
In Fig. 8.1, there will be large number of failures in the early period. This is mainly due to non-
alignment while shipping the product, or misfit while manufacturing (assembling), or very high
initial friction between moving parts, etc.
 Fig. 8.1 Product failure rate

Reliability Improvement
The reliability of a system/product depends on many factors. So, we should concentrate at the
grassroot level to improve product’s reliability.
Some of the ways of improving systems reliability are listed below:
● Improved design of components

● Simplification of product structure

● Usage of better production equipments

● Better quality standards

● Better testing standards

● Sufficient number of standby units

● Usage of preventive maintenance if necessary at appropriate time.

8.4 MAINTENANCE PLANNING

Planning of maintenance jobs basically deals with answering two questions, ‘what’ and ‘How’
of the job; ‘what activities are to be done?’ and ‘how those jobs and activities are to be done?’
While answering these two questions, other supplementary questions are to be answered, e.g.,
‘where the jobs is to be done?’ and ‘why the job is to be done?’ etc., but all these will be helping
in developing ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the job. It is very essential that engineering knowledge must
be applied extensively to maintenance jobs for development of appropriate job plans using most
suited techniques, tools materials and special facilities etc.
As the job planning forms the basic foundations, over which the efficiency and cost of
actions depends, persons responsible for job planning should have adequate capabilities, such as,
knowledge about jobs and available techniques, facilities and resources, analytical ability, conceptual
logical ability and judgmental courage etc.
Steps of Job Planning
The main steps to be followed for proper job planning are:
1. Knowledge base: It includes knowledge about equipment, job, available techniques,
materials and facilities.
2. Job investigation at site: It gives a clear perception of the total jobs.
3. Identify and document the work: Knowing the earlier two steps and knowing the
needs of preventive, predictive and other maintenance jobs.
4. Development of repair plan: Preparation of step by step procedures which would
accomplish the work with the most economical use of time, manpower and material.
5. Preparation tools and facilities list indicating the needs of special tools, tackles and
facilities needed.
6. Estimation of time required to do the job with work measurement technique and
critical path analysis.

8.5 MAINTENANCE SCHEDULING

Scheduling is the function of coordinating all of the logistical issue around the issues regarding
the execution phase of the work. Scheduled of maintenance jobs basically deals with answering
two questions—‘Who’ and ‘When’ of job, i.e., “who would do the job” and “when the job would
be started and done”.
Effective scheduling essentially needs realistic thinking, based on substantial data and records.
Majority of scheduling work needs to occur in areas such as overhead labour hours safety and
toolbox meetings, break times and training times etc. Addition of corrective and approved
improvement actions as dictated by the prioritization system and operations plan etc.

Requirements for Schedulers

A scheduler should also have knowledge about job, techniques, facilities, analytical ability and
judgmental courage. The scheduler must obtain knowledge/information about following ability and
judgmental courage. The scheduler must obtain information about following facts, before starting
his job:
1. Manpower availability by trade, location, shift, crew arrangement and permissible overtime
limit etc.
2. Man hour back log on current or unfinished jobs.
3. Availability of the equipment or area where the work has to be performed.
4. Availability of proper tools, tackles, spares, consumables, structural and other required
materials.
5. Availability of external manpower and their capabilities; these may be from other shops/
departments of the plant or from contractors (local, nearby, ancillary etc).
6. Availability of special equipments, jigs/fixtures, special lifting and handling facilities and
cranes etc. This should also include labour and time saving devices like pneumatic
hammers and excavators etc.
 7. Starting date of the job; also often completion time of total job is predetermined and, in
that case, resources are to be arranged accordingly.
8. Past schedules and charts (updated) if the same job has been done earlier, etc.

8.6 MAINTENANCE SCHEDULE TECHNIQUES

Different types of schedules are made suiting the respective job plans and different techniques
are used for making and following those schedules. The first step of all scheduling is to break
the job into small measurable elements, called activities and to arrange them in logical sequences
considering the preceding, concurrent and succeeding activities so that a succeeding activity
should follow preceding activities and concurrent activities can start together.
Arranging these activities in different fashion makes different types of schedules. They are
as follows:
1. Weekly general schedule is made to provide weeks’ worth of work for each
employeein an area.
2. Daily schedule is developed to provide a day’s work for each maintenance employee
of the area.
3. Gantt charts are used to represent the timings of tasks required to complete a project.
4. Bar charts used for technical analysis which represents the relative magnitude of the
values.
5. PERT/CPM are used to find the time required for completion of the job and helps in
the allocation of resources.