Efficient Plant April 2018 - 36

department | on the floor

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struggle to succeed in union and nonunion situations.
Moving from the 4th to the top quartile
can result in maintenance cost reductions
approaching 20%.
False: My data show that moving from
the 4th to the top quartile can result
in maintenance-cost reductions
approaching 84%.
Preventive-maintenance optimization
works better in older facilities.
False: Preventive-maintenance
optimization works and is needed in
facilities of all ages and in all industries.
The level of contracted resources has
minimal impact on R&M success.
True: R&M success is unaffected by the
level of contracted resources.
Although there may be an increase in
maintenance costs to get to best practices,
the improvement in availability can result
in a 10-to-15 times greater savings, versus
maintenance cost-reduction savings.
True: While there most likely will be an
increase in up-front costs as you establish
best practices, once in place you will
realize 10 to 15 times more long-term
savings than is possible by conventional
maintenance cost-cutting.
Turnarounds have minimal impact on
reliability and availability.
False: Turnarounds can have a significant
impact on reliability and availability.
Managing your backlog is critical if you
want to reduce reactive maintenance.
True: You must properly and consistently
manage your backlog if you want to
reduce your reactive maintenance.
Performing root-cause analysis has a
significant impact on R&M, even with an
informal process.
False: Performing root-cause analysis
has a significant impact, but you should
have a formal process to share/implement

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results and maintain standardized work
processes.
15 Craft skills are not that important if you
have well-written PMs.
False: Craft skills, such as precision
maintenance and predictive technologies,
are critical to R&M success.
16 Precision maintenance can generate as
much as 50% more savings than general
training on plant-floor improvements.
False: Precision maintenance can generate
300% more savings than can be realized
with general plant-floor-improvement
training.
17 Involving the operator helps, but only
slightly when it comes to root-cause
analysis.
False: The operator can have a significant
impact on root-cause analysis results, even
if he/she does nothing more than respond
to visual aids.
18 Reactive-maintenance levels in topquartile facilities are only about 25%.
False: Top-quartile organizations have an
average 9% reactive-maintenance level in
North America.
19 At least 25% of your resource allocation
should be spent on predictive technologies
(finding only, not fixing).
True: Using predictive technologies
(finding only, not fixing) should involve at
least 25% of your resource allocation.
20 Good lubrication practices are only
a concern if you don't have good
housekeeping practices.
False: Good lubrication practices are
a major concern in most facilities,
regardless of housekeeping practices.
21 Top-quartile companies have spare-parts
costs similar to the other quartiles, because
parts are needed just in case.
False: Spare-parts costs in top-quartile
companies are about half the costs of
those incurred by companies in

the other three quartiles.
22 Predictive maintenance is not used by
50% of North American manufacturing
operations.
False: Predictive-maintenance practices
are inadequate in 75% of North American
manufacturing operations.
23 About 80% of maintenance trades/craft
time should be scheduled. The other 20%
is for unplanned activities. This approach
avoids backlogs.
False: 100% of maintenance trades/craft
time should be scheduled.
24 Any planner should be able to handle
about 15 trades/crafts people.
False: An experienced planner should
be able to handle about 15 trades/crafts
people. A relatively new planner may only
be able to handle five.
25 Having a good team culture will solve all of
your R&M problems.
False: While positive results will happen
faster with a good team culture, you still
must implement the correct processes to
be successful. My data show that properly
engaging the workforce increases your
factor of success by a factor of seven.
These findings are based on more than
30 years of benchmarking data and severalhundred related facility assessments and
observations. If you don't agree with any of
the answers or have different or better data,
let me know, and we'll raise our R&M IQ
together. EP

Based in Knoxville, Klaus M. Blache
is director of the Reliability &
Maintainability Center at the Univ. of
Tennessee, and a research professor in
the College of Engineering. Contact him
at kblache@utk.edu.

APRIL 2018
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant April 2018
