Plant Services - November 2007 - (Page 9)

FROM THE EDITOR New tools Looking for a quantum leap in maintenance productivity R esearching this month’s cover story left me once Under the resulting “quantum improvement method,” again pondering the power of mobile technologies moving from hand tools to power tools is considered a rise and how they’re changing the way work is done. from Level 2 to Level 3 technology: When I was a child, an important measure of growing up 1. Human power: Anything done by a person without any was how well you could drive a nail, saw a board and dig a tools. The only way to increase productivity at this level is to posthole. Having your own set of wrenches and being able add more people or work more hours. to use them was a point of pride and distinction, and I still 2. Simple tools: These focus human power to increase the deeply enjoy the thrill of the mechanical problem hunted productivity of each person. There's a wider range of imdown, smoked out and slain. provements. A stone ax can be improved to a steel ax or Now everybody uses pneumatic nailguns, carbide-tipped a saw. But productivity is limited by physical capability of miter saws and gas-powered augers. The real auto mechana person. Examples: saw, hammer, magnifying glass, paper ics are those who are trained on the code readers and can and pencil, stairs, bucket. reprogram an ECU. 3. External power: Here is where you start seeing big imMy children rely on their prowess with PCs to feed their provements as brain-over-brawn really becomes a factor. It creative urges and support their self-esteem. can be as simple as harnessing an animal or the The way they access information to do their wind, right up to electricity, gasoline engines schoolwork, play computer games, instant and nuclear power. Examples: telephone, horsemessage, etc. look to me like strong indicators drawn carriage, automobile, chain saw, fire. Automation is of how their generation learns and how they’ll 4. Organization: It’s all about information. work as they grow up and start running the the highest level. This level is an amplifier to any other level. world we leave behind. You can add Level 4 to any other level, but you At this point, Today, a person with little knowledge or see significant the technology don’t the productivityimprovements until you experience can troubleshoot and repair their have of Level 3 to multiply. is acting as a car, health or computer by plugging a decent Examples: assembly line, specialization. set of six keywords into a search engine. With 5. Automation: Automation is the highest person. a little patience, they’ll find probable causes, level. At this point, the technology is acting as step-by-step diagnostics with diagrams and a person would. Examples: anti-lock brakes, photos, procedures, part numbers, resources, voice mail, Internet, robotics. ordering information and more. I’m not sure where to classify applying You won’t yet find the information as easily but the today’s mobile technology to industrial maintenance. Ausame approach is being applied to industrial equipment, tomating learning and experience? Organizing information in many cases with rigorous factory support and an expestorage and retrieval? Applying power to paper and pencil? rienced expert on chat. It would be great to see what you think about it at www. Back in 1997, Mark Frazier tried to understand why difPlantServices.com/plantperformance. Meanwhile, I’ve got ferent companies using the same levels of technology got very to go unplug the kids. different results. He found that it was too difficult to measure the outputs of the varied technologies in different organizations, so instead he tried simply evaluating the levels of the technologies. He claimed that a company could achieve a PAUL STUDEBAKER, CMRP “quantum” 10-fold to 100-fold improvement in productivity EDITOR IN CHIEF by moving its technologies up one level (http://en.wikipedia. pstudebaker@putman.net org/wiki/Quantum_Improvement_Method). (630) 467-1300 ext. 433 November 2007 www.PLANTSERVICES.com http://www.plantservices.com/voices/from_the_editor.html http://www.PlantServices.com/plantperformance http://www.PlantServices.com/plantperformance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Improvement_Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Improvement_Method http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - November 2007

Plant Services - November 2007 Contents New Tools Letters Let Us Know Where to Put the Gas Up and Running How are you Fighting Crisis? What Works Why is the Best Practice Transfer so Hard? Who are you Going to Call? Chained to Power Mobile Mindset Making Money in the Lube Lab Grabbing a Moving Target Bagging the BTUs Keeping Mellow Preserving Health and Safety The Power of Reliability Excellence

Plant Services - November 2007

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