, American Society for Quality, 1989.
Best Practice in Maintenance
, EIT Maintenance Conference, Australia, 1997.
, University of Manchester, 1991.
FIGURE 4–5 Extract from an
International Comparison of Power Station Administrative Structures
—was an integrated chemical
complex made up of six plants. The administrative structure was de-centralized
and each plant was considered as a distinct manufacturing unit. Figure 4–6
shows the administrative structure for one of the main plants, Figure 4–7 the
corresponding resource structure. The selfempowered teams had been introduced
some five years earlier using the conventional wisdom of the time (see, for
example, Figure 4–8 for the guidelines for moving from traditional supervision
to self-empowerment). A Team Manager (see Figure 4–6) was brought in, mainly to
help to resurrect the training process in the operator teams. The following
were some of my principal observations regarding the team operations:
of the process teams were incorporated ex-tradesmen.
process teams undertook no first-line maintenance tasks despite this being a part
of their responsibilities.
process teams seemed to be a law unto themselves, with a wholly negative human
ratio of managers, planners and facilitators to ‘on-the-tools’ technicians in
the maintenance teams was 2.8 to 1.
planner was introduced when a new computer system was installed; it was
regarded as user unfriendly and the associated training was poor.
maintenance teams did not operate as self-empowered. They had reverted to the
traditional structure (where the facilitator is the supervisor).
facilitator and planner positions were permanencies.
was a genuine confusion over the roles of the planner, facilitator and some of
the technicians. In addition, there was no clear understanding of the roles of
the plant engineer and process engineer and their relationships to the teams.
Job descriptions were not used or were not available.
teams didn’t monitor themselves nor did they get involved in continuous
between mechanical trades, and between instrument and electrical trades, was
good. Demarcation remained strong, however, between the two technological
cultures (mechanical and electro-instrumentational).
maintenance technicians were rotated, on a two-yearly basis, around the teams
of the different plants.
was no rotation between maintenance and process technicians.
technicians were on an annualized-hours scheme; the process technicians were not
(which didn’t help co-ordination when work was required out of hours).
plant was some thirty years old and gave rise to a great deal of first ine
high-priority maintenance. Because of their involvement with this, the
maintenance teams (on days) only carried out 50% of the planned work per
‘period—and it was often the preventive routines that, as a result, were
Out of hours emergency work was
covered by a call-out system that was regularly used.
Team-working had been introduced into
a ‘brown field’ site where there was a considerable history of industrial
relations problems. There was no human factor profiling in the selection of
team members. Considerable training was used at first but rapidly fell away.
FIGURE 4–6 Administrative
Structure, Ammonia Manufacturing Unit
FIGURE 4–7 Resource Structure,
Fertec B Ltd
FIGURE 4–8 The Five Steps from
Traditional Supervisor to Self-Empowered Team with Facilitator
Cario Ltd—was a similar company to Fertec B but only six
years old. The administration is shown in Figure 4–9 and the resource structure
in Figure 4–10.
regards its team operations:
40% of the process teams were ex-tradesmen.
process teams carried out minor preventive work (lubrication, inspection) and
small emergency corrective jobs.
process teams (on shifts) had a good relationship with the maintenance teams
and human factors were mainly positive. They were the highest paid of the shop
each team there was a planner, team-selected every three-months, who spent
little time on the tools. Overall, the ratio of planners to on-the-tools
tradesmen was 1 to 5.
planners and tradesmen had been trained up to a high level of competence in the
use of the computer system—which was far from being the most advanced of its
kind and was not installed enterprise-wide (it
maintenance and process teams were self-empowered, accountability for duties
and responsibilities being shared across each team
two planners (electrical and mechanical) worked out of the same office. In
effect, the planners became the facilitators and worked closely with the
day-shift Production Planner (PP) to co-ordinate plant outages etc.
PP was volunteered from shifts, for a one-year period and without losing shift
allowance, being replaced on shifts by a maintenance technician (with the
necessary experience), and who in turn was replaced by a contractor. This
exchange helped to break down the barriers between
roles of the team, Planner and Engineer had been clearly identified and written
up as job descriptions. The Engineer considered himself to be very much part of
teams spent a proportion of their time on design-out maintenance and improving
life plans, these tasks being carried out in conjunction with the Engineer.
electrical and mechanical teams worked separately but gave each other
considerable assistance when needed.
payment scheme was the same for both the maintenance and the process teams.
plant was six years old and gave rise to very little high-priority maintenance.
of the teams’ workload was planned. In fact, one of their objectives was have
teams had been formed during the commissioning phase of the plant. Profiling of
skills and human factors was used to select the team members.
FIGURE 4–9 Administrative
Structure, Cario Ltd Explosives Plant
FIGURE 4–10 Resource Structure,
Cario Ltd Explosives Plant
Once the teams had been set up, a group from the
company (including team members) were given the equivalent of six months
full-time team-training at a similar site overseas that was regarded as a world
was not a full benchmarking exercise. Only a limited number of benchmarks were
of tradesmen in operator–maintainer teams,
of planner–facilitators to ‘on-the-tools’ tradesmen,
team planned work (expressed as a percentage of each period),
team emergency work (expressed as a percentage of each period).
fingerprint audit of the Cario teams was limited to just over half a day’s
work, nevertheless, the gap between the performances of the teams at Cario and
of those at Fertec was clear.
much can be learned from this exercise about how best to set up teams, this was
not the problem Fertec B faced. Their process teams were not working well and
were refusing to carry out
work. Consequently, the day
aintenance teams were carrying out all such work, which was disrupting their
The preventive work was being neglected, causing more corrective work and a
downward spiral in plant condition. We recommended that a key action would be
that the process teams carried out first line
work. This would need a careful study of the process teams’ work profiles and a
resurrection of the skills training. It might also be necessary to re-structure
the teams, perhaps removing the ‘bad apples’—all of which might have worsened
industrial relations, which was the reason these actions had not been taken
sooner. An additional recommendation was that the duties, responsibilities and
accountability of the teams, and their relationships with other members of the
administration, should be clearly defined.
the longer term other improvements could have been made, e.g., bringing
Operations and Maintenance into the same payment system; improving computer
training so that the facilitator does the planning; etc.
The Uses and Limitations of ‘Universal Maintenance Performance
Indices’ in Maintenance Auditing
general, the conventional audit procedure does not involve comparing the
audited plant directly with a ‘best practice’ plant. Instead, at the analysis
stage of the audit the practices of the plant under study are compared against
management principles and guidelines, standard models, the auditors’ own
experience of best practice and published or unpublished ‘
maintenance management performance indices
’—benchmarks by any other name. I call these ‘
.’ It will be instructive to examine them in more
index-based approaches to measuring maintenance performance have been
methods were developed for use in controlling the
maintenance effort (setting objectives, measuring performance and correcting as
necessary—see page 23) rather than for inter-firm comparison. Industrial
examples of the use of these methods for either control or inter-firm
comparison are hard to find.
TABLE 4–2 Organizational
Efficiency KPIs—Eastman Ectona
have come across a number of
methods for inter-firm comparisons.
Table 4–2, for example, has been extracted from Eastman Ectona’s indices for
measuring organizational efficiency.7 The indices have been developed for a
specific type of chemical plant and process. Table 4–3 is an extract from the
Fluor Daniel ‘best-of-the-best’ maintenance benchmarks.8 There are 24
benchmarks in total, some of which, e.g.,
have been measured for different
types of processes. Fluor Daniel emphasized that they can identify the best
practices that go along with the top quartile benchmarks. Tables 4–4(a) and (b)
have been extracted from the results of a world-wide benchmark study of ammonia
plants of a similar size.9 A UK consultancy company has carried out ‘self
assessment’ audits of maintenance managements for many years and has built up a
considerable benchmark data base—although this has not been published.
TABLE 4–3 Table of Quartiles for
’Best of Best’ Benchmarks by Fluor Daniel
general, benchmarks such as these are not sufficiently well-defined for general
use. The ammonia plant benchmarks, however, are sufficiently specific to
industry, process and plant size to be of use if it were possible to get hold
of a full set (with the qualifying assumptions). The Fluor Daniel benchmarks
are only usable if that consultancy company itself carries out the benchmarking
exercise. In addition, they need clearer definition and greater orientation to
the type of industry being audited.
TABLE 4–4(a) International Benchmarking
Study of 1000 tpd Ammonia Plants — Output Factors (extract)
TABLE 4–4(b) International
Benchmarking Study of 1000 tpd Ammonia Plants—Cost of Production Factors
K. S. Jardine,
Research in Maintenance
Manchester University Press, 1970.
C. Rostad and P. Schjoberg,
Key Performance Indicators
, Euromaintenance Conference, Gothenburg, 2000.
on a short course at Manchester School of Engineering, 1999.
Best Maintenance Benchmarks.
Internal paper, 1998.
Some Thoughts on Developing Maintenance Benchmarks
enough thought has gone into identifying and ranking benchmarks that adequately
measure the performance of the maintenance department. They should be based on
the maintenance objective and on the derived hierarchy of objectives shown in
Figure 1–5. Figure 4–11 shows this model extended and developed into a
hierarchy of performance indices. The indices indicated at the lowest level in
Figure 4–11 could be developed further via consideration of each of the
sections of the Appendix 1
When developing indices for comparing
one firm with another it should also be borne in mind that:
indices may well need further separate definition for different types of
industry or process,
indices shown in Figure 4–11 have been developed for the purposes of
maintenance control (‘
getting better/worse, and, if so, why?
and may need modification.
FIGURE 4–11 Hierarchy of
Maintenance Performance Indices
highest level indices are the KPIs, but these are much more difficult to define
than those at lower level. In the power generation industries I have seen a
maintenance productivity index
) defined as:
period extending at least from one major overhaul to the next. In the food
processing industry, however, an equipment replacement value (ERV) features
strongly in its performance indices, i.e.
of both kinds present problems. In the former case the period of comparison has
to be at least six years if it is to allow adequately for the various lengths
of time between overhauls; in the latter the ERV is extremely difficult to
define in a way that can be used consistently for inter-company comparisons.
The best way of measuring the higher level indices may well be to profile the
lower level ones. The benchmarks suitable for profiling the effectiveness of
the maintenance of a production-limited ammonia plant, for example, could be
those in the following list—
Time between major planned shutdowns.
Downtime between shutdowns.
Shutdown duration overrun.
Shutdown budgeted cost.
Cost of maintenance between shutdowns.
Wastage cost due to incidence of inadequate
During shutdowns, planned work as a percentage of
Between shutdowns, planned work as a percentage of
Between shutdowns, preventive work as a percentage
of total work.
List of CBM techniques in use.
Equipment integrity index (safety).
Copyright © 2006
Industrial Press Inc.