Chapter Three: Maintenance management and control
1. Maintenance department functions
2. Maintenance management principles
3. Effectiveness evaluation questions for maintenance managers
4. Elements of effective maintenance management
5. Maintenance project control methods
1. Maintenance department functions
A maintenance department is expected to perform a wide range of functions including:
• Planning and repairing equipment/facilities to acceptable standards
• Performing preventive maintenance; more specifically, developing and implementing a
regularly scheduled work program for the purpose of maintaining satisfactory
equipment/facility operation as well as preventing major problems
• Preparing realistic budgets that detail maintenance personnel and material needs
• Managing inventory to ensure that parts/materials necessary to conduct maintenance tasks
are readily available
• Keeping records on equipment, services, etc.
Cont, …
• Developing effective approaches to monitor the activities of maintenance staff
• Developing effective techniques for keeping operations personnel, upper-level management,
and other concerned groups aware of maintenance activities
• To train maintenance staff and other concerned individuals to improve their skills and perform
effectively
• Reviewing/look over plans for new facilities, installation of new equipment, etc.
• Implementing methods to improve workplace safety and developing safety education-related
programs for maintenance staff
• Developing contract specifications and inspecting work performed by contractors to ensure
compliance with contractual requirements
Cont, …
❑ Improving a maintenance management program is a continuous process that requires
progressive attitudes and active involvement.
❑ A nine-step approach for managing a maintenance program effectively is presented below:
• Identify existing deficiencies- This can be accomplished through interviews with maintenance
personnel and by examining in-house performance indicators.
• Set maintenance goals- These goals take into consideration existing deficiencies and identify
targets for improvement.
• Establish priorities- List maintenance projects in order of savings or merit.
• Establish performance measurement parameters- Develop a quantifiable measurement for
each set goal, for example, number of jobs completed per week and percentage of cost on repair.
• Establish short- and long-range plans - The short-range plan focuses on high-priority goals,
usually within a one-year period.
• The long-range plan is more strategic in nature and identifies important goals to be reached
within three to five years.
Cont, …
• To document both long- and short-range plans and forward copies to all concerned individuals.
• Implement plan.
• Report status- Preparing a brief report periodically, say semi-annually, and forward it to all involved
individuals. The report contains for each objective identified in the short-range plan information on
actual or potential slippage of the schedule and associated causes.
• Examine progress annually- Review progress at the end of each year with respect to stated goals.
Develop a new short-range plan for the following year by considering the goals identified in the
long-range plan and adjustments made to the previous year’s planned schedule, resources, costs, and
so on.
2. Maintenance management principles
Six critical maintenance management principles. These principles, if applied on a regular
basis, can help to make a maintenance department productive and successful.
Important Maintenance Management Principles
No. Principle Brief Description
1 Maximum productivity results when each This principle of scientific management formulated by
involved person in an organization has Frederick W. Taylor in the late nineteenth century remains
a defined task to perform in a definitive an important factor in management.
way and a definite time.
2 Schedule control points effectively. Schedule control points at intervals such that the problems
are detected in time, thus the scheduled completion of the
job is not delayed.
3 Measurement comes before control. When an individual is given a definitive task to be
accomplished using a good representative approach in a
specified time, he/she becomes aware of management
expectations. Control starts when managing supervisors
compare the results against set goals.
No. Principle Brief Description
4 The customer service relationship is the A good maintenance service is an important factor in
basis of an effective maintenance maintaining facilities at an expected level effectively. The
organization. team approach fostered by the organizational setup is
crucial to consistent, active control of maintenance activity.
5 Job control depends on definite, It is the responsibility of the maintenance department to
individual responsibility for each develop, implement, and provide operating support for the
activity during the life span of a work planning and scheduling of maintenance work. It is the
order. responsibility of the supervisory individuals to ensure
proper and complete use of the system within their sphere
of control.
6 The optimal crew/company size is the Most tasks require only one individual.
minimum number that can perform an
assigned task effectively.
3. Effectiveness Evaluation Questions for Maintenance Managers
The U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration conducted a study
on maintenance management-related matters and formulated the following ten
questions for maintenance managers to self-evaluate their maintenance effort:
1. Are you aware of how your craft persons spend their time; i.e., travel, delays,
etc.?
2. Are you aware of what facility/equipment and activity consume most of the
maintenance money?
3. Are you aware if the crafts person uses proper tools and methods to perform their
tasks?
4. Have you balanced your spare parts inventory with respect to carrying cost vs.
anticipated downtime losses?
5. With respect to job costs, are you in a position to compare the “should” with the
“what”?
6. Do you ensure that maintainability factors are considered properly during the
design of new or modified facilities/equipment?
Cont, …
7. Are you aware of how much time your foreman spends at the desk and at the job site?
8. Do you have an effective base to perform productivity measurements, and is productivity
improving?
9. Are you aware of whether safety practices are being followed?
10. Are you providing the craft persons with correct quality and quantity of material when
and where they need it?
• If “YES” is the answer to each of the above questions, then your maintenance program is
on a sound footing to meet organizational objectives. Otherwise, appropriate corrective
measures are required.
4. Elements of effective maintenance management
• Effectiveness Maintenance:- the objectives of a good maintenance function are
to Support operations by keeping production equipment in good condition so
that production targets can be met.
• Maintenance Policy:
• Material Management/control;-
• Work Order System:
• Equipment Record:
• Preventive & Corrective Maintenance:
• Planning & Scheduling:
• Backlog Control & Priority System:
• Performance Measurement & Reporting:
Maintenance policy
• A maintenance policy is one of the most important elements of effective maintenance
management.
• It is essential for continuity of operations and a clear understanding of the maintenance
management program, regardless of the size of a maintenance organization.
• Usually, maintenance organizations have manuals containing items such as policies, programs,
objectives, responsibilities, and authorities for all levels of supervision, reporting requirements,
useful methods and techniques, and performance measurement indices.
• Lacking such documentation, i.e., a policy manual, a policy document must be developed
containing all essential policy information.
Cont, …
Material control
• Past experience indicates that, on average, material costs account for approximately 30 to 40%
of total direct maintenance costs.
• Efficient utilization of personnel depends largely on effectiveness in material coordination.
Material problems can lead to false starts, excess travel time, delays, unmet due dates, etc.
• Steps such as job planning, coordinating with purchasing, coordinating with stores,
coordination of issuance of materials, and reviewing the completed job can help reduce material
related problems.
• Deciding whether to keep spares in storage is one of the most important problems of material
control.
Cont, …
Work order system
• A work order authorizes and directs an individual or a group to perform a given task. A well-
defined work order system should cover all the maintenance jobs requested and accomplished,
whether repetitive or one-time jobs.
• The work order system is useful for management in controlling costs and evaluating job
performance.
• Although the type and size of the work order can vary from one maintenance organization to
another, a work order should at least contain information such as requested and planned completion
dates, work description and its reasons, planned start date, labor and material costs, item or items to
be affected, work category (preventive maintenance, repair, installation, etc.), and appropriate
approval signatures.
Cont, …
Equipment records
• Equipment records play a critical role in effectiveness and efficiency of the maintenance organization. Usually, equipment
records are grouped under four classifications:
1. Maintenance work performed,
2. Maintenance cost,
3. Inventory, and
4. Files.
• The maintenance work performed category contains chronological documentation of all repairs and preventive maintenance
(PM) performed during the item’s service life to date.
• The maintenance cost category contains historical profiles and accumulations of labor and material costs by item.
• Usually, information on inventory is provided by the stores or accounting department.
Cont, …
• The inventory category contains information such as property number, size and type,
procurement cost, date manufactured or acquired, manufacturer, and location of the
equipment/item.
• The files category includes operating and service manuals, warranties, drawings, and so on.
• Equipment records are useful when procuring new items/equipment to determine operating
performance trends, troubleshooting breakdowns, making replacement or modification
decisions, investigating incidents, identifying areas of concern, performing reliability and
maintainability studies, and conducting life cycle cost and design studies.
Cont, …
Preventive and corrective maintenance
• The basic purpose of performing PM is to keep facility/equipment in satisfactory
condition through inspection and correction of early-stage deficiencies.
• Three principle factors shape the requirement and scope of the PM effort: process
reliability, economics, and standards compliance/agreement.
• A major proportion of a maintenance organization’s effort is spent on corrective
maintenance (CM).
• Thus, CM is an important factor in the effectiveness of maintenance organization.
Cont, …
Job planning and scheduling
• Job planning is an essential element of the effective maintenance management. A number of tasks
may have to be performed prior to commencement of a maintenance job;
• For example, procurement of parts, tools, and materials, coordination and delivery of parts, tools,
and materials, identification of methods and sequencing, coordination with other departments, and
securing safety permits.
• Although the degree of planning required may vary with the craft involved and methods used, past
experience indicates that on average one planner is required for every twenty craftpersons.
• Strictly speaking, formal planning should cover 100% of the maintenance workload but emergency
jobs and small, straightforward work assignments are performed in a less formal environment.
Cont, …
• Thus, in most maintenance organizations 80 to 85% planning coverage is attainable.
• Maintenance scheduling is as important as job planning. Schedule effectiveness is based
on the reliability of the planning function.
• For large jobs, in particular those requiring multi-craft coordination, serious
consideration must be given to using methods such as Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) to assure effective overall control.
5. Maintenance project control methods
❑ Two widely used maintenance project control methods are Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM).
❑In maintenance and other projects three important factors of concern are time, cost, and
resource availability.
❑ CPM and PERT deal with these factors individually and in combination.
❑ when the completion times of activities of the project are uncertain, PERT is used and with the
certainty/confidence of completion times, CPM is employed.
❑The methods are both project scheduling techniques.
❑The techniques help managers to optimize the longest time duration in order to minimize the
total project cost and time.
CONTI---
❑ (PERT) and (CPM) are available to assist the maintenance project manager in carrying
out their responsibilities. Among their responsibility is scheduling of a large number of
activities during shutdown and overhauling, since shutdown and overhauling provide
unique opportunities to a maintenance department not normally available during
standard operation and relatively during a short period of time.
• To be on time, it is required to complete the maintenance project within the
predetermined deadline to keep cost at lowest possible level by a reliable technique
than to rely on a trial and error approach [Omar M. Elmabrouk and Fardous Aljiebal].
• The main objective in the analysis through PERT is to find out the completion for
a particular event within specified date.
• The PERT approach takes into account the uncertainties. The three time values
are associated with each activity.
1. Optimistic time – It is the shortest possible time in which the activity can be
finished. It assumes that every thing goes very well. This is denoted by t0.
2. Most likely time – It is the estimate of the normal time the activity would take.
This assumes normal delays. If a graph is plotted in the time of completion and the
frequency of completion in that time period, then most likely time will represent
the highest frequency of occurrence. This is denoted by tm.
3. Pessimistic time – It represents the longest time the activity could take if
everything goes wrong. As in optimistic estimate, this value may be such that only
one in hundred or one in twenty will take time longer than this value. This is
denoted by tp .
Conti---
• PERT is a popular project management technique that is applicable when the time
required to finish a project is not certain/sure.
• PERT is used to get accurate time estimates for complicated projects.
• It uses an algorithm/procedure to calculate the estimated duration for unpredictable
activities. It focuses on events and milestones/indicators on a PERT chart with nodes in
the wireframe when developing projects.
• PERT is about time planning and time management, while CPM is about time and
budgeting.
• PERT delivers a project quickly and CPM gets the project done on budget and on time.
• CPM is a statistical algorithm which has a certain start and end time for a project.
• Critical path method is important when managing a project because it identifies all the
tasks needed to complete the project.
• Critical path is the sequence of critical activities in a network is called critical path.
• The critical path is the longest path in the network from the starting event to ending
event and defines the minimum time required to complete the project.
• As you can see in this critical path diagram, project activities are represented by
black letters and the critical path is highlighted in green. Tasks F, G and H are non-
critical activities with float or slack. We can also identify task
dependencies between the critical path activities, and also between activities (A,
F and G) or (A, H and E), which are parallel tasks.
Conti---
• Before we learn how to use the CPM formula, we need to understand some key
CPM concepts.
• Earliest start time (ES): This is simply the earliest time that a task can be started
in your project. You cannot determine this without first knowing if there are any
task dependencies.
• Latest start time (LS): This is the very last minute in which you can start a task
before it threatens to delay your project timeline.
• Earliest finish time (EF): The earliest an activity can be completed, based on its
duration and its earliest start time.
• Latest finish time (LF): The latest an activity can be completed, based on its
duration and its latest start time.
• Float: Also known as slack/loos, float is a term that describes how long you can
delay a task before it impacts its task sequence and the project schedule. The
tasks on the critical path have zero float because they can’t be delayed.
Conti---
Calculation of Critical Path and its Formula
• The critical path uses an algorithm, also referred to as the CPM formula. That
algorithm has two parts, the forward pass and the backward pass.
• The forward pass is determined by using the earliest start for each activity (ES)
and the earliest finish (EF). The ES of an activity equals the EF of the one before
it.
• The EF is calculated by EF = ES + t (the duration of an activity).
• The backward pass assigns the last activity’s EF as its latest finish. Then use the
CPM formula to find the LS, which is LF – t.
• For the activities before that, LF is the smallest of the start times for the next
activity.
Cont, …
The following steps are involved with PERT and CPM:
❑Break a project into individual jobs or tasks.
❑ Arrange these jobs/tasks into a logical network.
❑ Determine duration time of each job/task.
❑ Develop a schedule.
❑ Identify jobs/tasks that control the completion of project.
❑ Redistribute resources or funds to improve schedule
Cont, …
Activity expected duration time estimation
❑The PERT scheme calls for three estimates of activity duration time using the following
formula to calculate the final time:
where
Ta = activity expected duration time,
OT = optimistic or minimum time an activity will require,
PT = pessimistic or maximum time an activity will require,
MT = most likely time an activity will require.