Industrial Maintenance

Techniques, Stories, and Cases

José Baptista

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000682915
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industrial Management
• Index: Business

This book explains the tools and processes that allow changes in the way maintenance works. It allows you to learn industrial maintenance and reliability concepts and how to improve the maintenance performance, so you can move from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance.

This book includes real cases that exemplify concepts of maintenance and reliability. It presents a diagram with practical evidence and explains how to move from reactive to proactive maintenance. It's written in a storytelling style that keeps the attention of the reader and provides tools for young and experienced professionals.

This book is useful for anyone working in the maintenance and reliability fields, as well as plant engineers, and industrial engineers and managers in general.

1 The Sad Story of Antonio

Another Victim of the Reactive Maintenance Curse

From my experience, in most cases, to work in the maintenance department is not an option but a lack of choice. When I started working in this area, I heard many people saying that maintenance is “the corner where the child cries and the mother does not listen!”—a phrase which itself illustrates the current thinking.

My case was no different, I majored in electrical engineering with a specialization in electronics, and my dream was to work in research or projects.

I had done an internship with a researcher in the college where I studied and was very excited about the job, but there was no way I was going to be made effective. Needing to work to share the expenses of my family, which had recently started, with my wife, I did not have much time to choose what to do, so I willingly accepted the challenge of being the head of the maintenance department in a tire plant. Two months after I graduated as an engineer, I started my career in industrial maintenance, and it was there where I spent most of my career.

To start talking about maintenance, there is nothing better than telling a story that illustrates a situation, unfortunately, very common in many industrial plants around the world:

The production supervisor, too fat and perspiring profusely, with red cheeks and panting, revealing the heat and his anger, opened the maintenance supervision office door with a bump already raging with all present:

“You are ‘sawing the foot of my stool!’ That damned line stopped again!”

Before anyone could observe any reaction, the uncontrolled supervisor continued to shout:

“This is the third time that the production line stopped in less than 24 hours. This is unacceptable! I will not be able to meet the production schedule, so, be prepared, because this is going south to everyone! Write it down: if the production line continues without reaching the goals, my neck will be on the line, I can even lose this damn job, but I’ll take a lot of people with me. Mark my words!”

As soon as the supervisor left the room, slamming the door shut, the phone rang; it was the maintenance manager calling his subordinates for an immediate meeting, in order to discuss the production line stops since he needed to urgently deliver a report to his boss, the plant manager, justifying all the production losses caused by equipment breakdown.

In fact, the situation described was not new; on the contrary, it was a recurring nightmare that had become routine in that place; the production supervisor always exasperated, on the verge of a nervous breakdown and the maintenance personnel, cornered, doing everything they could and knew to remedy the situation, which, totally out of control, only got worse every day.

Overtime and maintenance costs went beyond the budget set for the department to a point where the industrial manager, at a meeting of budget monitoring, said to the maintenance manager, “this department of yours cost me much more money than a French lover does.”

And so the meeting ended, and the maintenance manager became the target of jokes from other members of management, always being compared to a ‘French lover’.

The members of the maintenance crew were all dejected and downcast by being judged as incompetent and villains of the company. One day, in this atmosphere of despair, the maintenance manager was approached secretly by one of the maintenance mechanics:

“Mr. Antonio, I really need to talk to you,” said the mechanic in a low and discrete tone.

The maintenance manager just thought it was another of his employees that was resigning, since this was another fact that was becoming routine. Many maintenance workers couldn’t handle the pressure and the terrible work environment, and were simply changing jobs. It was even said that people have agreed to a lower salary in another company just to be rid of that hell.

“Go ahead, Mariano, speak freely. By the look in your face I believe I know what the subject of our conversation will be!”

“We can’t talk here Mr. Antonio,” replied the mechanic timidly, without facing the manager –“This a private conversation.”

“All right, you can go anytime to my office.”

“I don’t want talk there too, it would be better to talk somewhere else out of here.”

“My God, the mystery!”, said the manager, visibly losing patience. “Can’t you brief me on the subject? You know how I’ve been busy, especially with these damned machines that won’t stop breaking!”

“Can’t tell you anything sir…,” answered the mechanic in a reticent way, facing the filthy factory floor.

“All right then, let’s meet at John’s bar. Can you go there when we leave here today?”

“I prefer to meet you in the Cathedral’s square, where I usually get off the company’s bus. I will be sitting on a bench waiting for you. Could that work?”

The manager scratched his head and wearily agreed: “All right. I’ll meet you at the Cathedral’s square.”

When Antonio arrived in the square, he noticed that Mariano was already sitting on one of the concrete benches, looking around impatiently.

He approached the mechanic and started a rushing conversation:

“Come, Mariano, spit it out at once what you have to tell me, because I want to go home soon.”

“Mr. Antonio, I know that the situation of the maintenance department is very complicated and that we are not keeping this factory running. I’ve been thinking about it; we have done everything and still we can’t solve the problem….”

Exasperated, the manager interrupted:

“For God’s sake Mariano! You do all this mystery to come and talk about it?”

Unfazed by the boss’ reprimand, the mechanic continued:

“You know Mr. Antonio, I’ve seen a lot in my life and if I tell, nobody will believe it – and with serious expression added – there are things that reason does not explain; supernatural things. Don’t you think everything is going on at the maintenance department is very strange?”

“All right, I agree that we are living in a phase of problems but where are you going with this?”, replied the manager.

The mechanic looked around and said quietly:

“I think there is something ‘done’ to us.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“I mean they did a ‘job’. Understood?”

The manager said laughing:

“You mean like voodoo, Mariano?”

“Something like that and, you know Mr. Antonio, this is very serious; I have seen many people fall into disgrace because of a ‘job’ well done.”

“Who would do this to us? Why?”, asked the still incredulous manager.

“You fired so many people because of the many maintenance headcount reductions already. You can be sure that several former teammates left hurt and many people would be willing to take revenge. You never know who you’re messing with….”

“Well Mariano cut the crap. If this was everything you had to tell me, good night!”

With that said, the manager turned and walked quickly away from the square, leaving the mechanic alone, still sitting on the bench with a disconsolate look on his face.

The next day began with an emergency meeting convened by the plant manager: they would need to work on Sunday to recover the production losses and meet the schedule; otherwise, the product quantity would be short to meet customer requests.

And the tense meeting ended up with a message to the maintenance manager in a threatening tone:

“Listen to me Antonio, tell your staff that we’ll work on Sunday, paying overtime to compensate for the maintenance department incompetence and therefore, the production lines cannot stop. This is the last chance we have to catch up. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir.”

Sunday morning, the phone at the maintenance manager’s house rang early and he, still stunned, was listening to a squeaky and well-known voice on the other side:

“Mr. Antonio, this is Jurandir, maintenance supervisor of A shift, I have bad news; the finishing line stopped because the bearing of the main shaft burst, and worse, we do not have spare parts in stock. The production sent back home the operators because we have no estimate of when we can repair the line.”

Momentarily the phone went silent.

“Mr. Antonio, can you hear me?”

“I do… I hear you perfectly. Are you sure that we do not have this bearing in stock?”

“The system indicates that we have 2 pieces, but on the shelf there’s nothing… you know how it is, the shift personnel take the material and do not register in the system because the storekeeper was fired by yourself to reduce costs. It’s a lot of pressure, there’s no time for anything…”

“But why are we changing so many bearings?”

“This I do not know, sir, since the staff doesn’t fulfill the work orders right and also, no one else does the maintenance report.”

“Jurandir, please don’t let the operators go home. I’ll try to make contact with the supplier of the bearings to see if I can get some on an emergency basis so we can put the equipment into operation.”

“The staff is gone, the bus just left.”

Monday morning, in a meeting at the plant management room, the manager’s shouts could be heard in the hallway:

“Antonio, I told you so. We can no longer trust you and your team; when we need it the most, the machines break down. I want you to tell me what do we need to do to have reliable equipment? You have until Friday at noon to give me the answer. Remember, my patience is over!”

Antonio left disconsolate, seriously considering resigning but also thinking about the house they recently bought. And the children’s school? How long it would take to get another job? How could he provide for his family without his salary?

Another of his thoughts was towards the frustration and vexation in resigning his post after failing to keep the equipment running and meeting the production schedule; in fact, that would result in a incompetence certificate.

“I won’t give up!”, he thought and took a deep breath; the way now was to find the exit – find a solution to the maintenance of that plant.

What to do: hire consultants? Take courses on maintenance?

He is running against the clock, and certainly wouldn’t have time to prepare a foolproof plan overnight; in fact, he didn’t know where to start.

While walking through the factory, lost in his thoughts, he found Mariano, the same one he left at the square’s bench a few days ago. Suddenly he had an idea, perhaps more by despair than by logic and directly addressed the mechanic:

“Mariano, I’d like talk again about that subject that we were discussing. Could you come to my office now?”

“But now…,” stammered the mechanic.

“Immediately.”

As he closed the room door, Antonio asked Mariano:

“You told me about a ‘job’ against us and I ask you what we can do to get rid of this curse that befell the machines?”

“Yes, Mr. Antonio that was just about what I wanted to talk that day,” and the mechanic continued talking...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Author
• Chapter 1 The Sad Story of Antonio: Another Victim of the Reactive Maintenance Curse
• Chapter 2 Concepts and Definitions: “Let’s Call a Spade a Spade, Not a Gardening Tool”
• Chapter 3 How to Change the Situation (Without Having to Appeal to Black Magic)
• Chapter 4 Elementary! The Steps to Reach the Proactive Maintenance
• Chapter 5 Maintenance Basics: The Forgotten Cornerstone of a Solid Maintenance Foundation
• Chapter 6 Maintenance Professionals: The Stigmatized Heroes
• Chapter 7 Other Important Building Blocks of Maintenance Management
• Chapter 8 Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index