Up Time Magazine- February/March 2008

It Could Happen Anywhere, So Donʼt Let This Happen To You by Maj. Ricky Smith, US Army A As a result of negative media attention last February, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates formed an investigative team to examine problems at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I was proud to serve on a team of professionals that included former Military Surgeons General, lawmakers, and military officers tasked to identify the root problems and the root causes within 30 days. While newspapers and other media outlets went on to focus on other issues with the transition of ill and injured Warriors, our team’s task was clear: get to the bottom of the problems now! What our investigation found was that Building 18 was in ill repair due to sporadic ongoing maintenance and there was a clear need for a structured, supervised preventive maintenance plan moving forward. It’s important to note that the problems we found and identified were confined to non-medical facilities (called Garrison facilities), and involved the buildings, such as Building 18, in which out-patients at the facility are housed. The facility maintenance management system that the US Army developed for its preventive maintenance program was not used properly in the Garrison Facilities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Consequently, senior leadership was left blind to the looming maintenance problems. If you are a senior leader or maintenance manager you need to ask yourself these three questions: 1. What metrics tell me how effective my Preventive Maintenance (PM) program is? 2. Are my assets ranked based on risks to the business? 3. Is that ranking used to determine on which assets I must execute PM, on schedule, 100% of the time? Knowing the answers to these questions will help keep your preventive maintenance program pointed in the right direction. Be sure to keep in mind that, when manpower is short, you cannot accept the risk of ignoring PM in your high risk assets. For leaders outside the world of preventive maintenance and reliability engineering, these tasks may not seem very dynamic, and could easily be overlooked. It is not unusual for leadership to have a lack of understanding, or a lack of passion, for preventive maintenance. However, if leadership does not give it the right priority, they can expect to discover in their organization what I saw at the Walter Reed Garrison early last spring. It was not the first time I have seen such major maintenance issues, and it won’t be the last. I have visited hundreds of industrial plants and facilities in situations similar to the Walter Reed Garrison, so I would say to civilian leaders “Be careful! This could happen to you.” In our report to the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Public Works at Walter Reed stated that, because the rooms in Building 18 were occupied, the maintenance staff did not inspect the rooms routinely and, therefore, Standard Preventive Maintenance checks were not completed. He stated the department did provide maintenance personnel on a 24 hour, 7 day a week schedule to “respond to problems” (page 60 – Independent Review Group Report). All facilities managers should track PM Labor Hours and Emergency Labor Hours, and monitor the trend. If PM Labor Hours are low and Emergency Labor Hours are high, either your Preventive Maintenance is not effective or you are not performing PM (see Figure 1 on the following page). It’s possible that your people may be going through the actions but not performing them to an acceptable standard. 9 http://www.uptimemagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Up Time Magazine- February/March 2008

Up Time Magazine- February/March 2008 Contents Upfront Upclose: Lessons Learned from the Walter Reed Story Information Technology: Parenting and Asset Performance Infrared: It's Alive! Lubrication: A Sense of Change Maintenance Management: PdM, Standardized Motor Testing: Being Well Connected Precision Maintenance: How to be Marketable Reliability: The Voyage of Wells Dairy Ultrasound: Two is Better Than One Vibration: Diagnosing a Cracked Shaft Upgrade: A Different Kind of Journey

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