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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

Institute of Brewing and Distilling

General Certificate in Beer Packaging
(GCP)
Section 9
Engineering Maintenance
9.1 Packaging Plant Maintenance - Aims and Approaches.
Maintenance is the management of activities that contribute to optimum levels
of availability and performance of plant.

The AIMS of maintenance are:

• To sustain the functionality of plant
• To minimise downtime
• To provide a safe environment for personnel
operating/cleaning/maintaining the plant
• To protect product quality
• To prove due diligence, for example for consumer safety
• To ensure legal requirements are met, for example environmental
compliance
• To protect the value of plant

There are four approaches to maintenance.

1. No maintenance.
This is when no checking and no maintenance takes place at all.
This applies to certain items like electrical components that as and when they
fail are discarded and replaced. This approach will only be appropriate in
some circumstances.

2. Breakdown maintenance.
This is when equipment is only attended to if it breaks down.
With this system, there is a big risk of lost production because breakdowns
often occur at the worst time.
It may be applicable if duplicate plant is installed; otherwise a big stock
holding of spares is needed. Breakdown maintenance can also be known as
Corrective maintenance.

3. Preventative maintenance.
This is where plant is maintained to a plan whether or not it shows signs of
wear.
Usually components are replaced at the same time, for example pump glands
or wear strips on conveyors.

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

Planned maintenance can vary from a weekly inspection and oil top, through
two or three day mini-overhauls, up to a complete line or major item annual
overhaul.
The concept is that unforeseen breakdowns are much less likely to occur.
Preventative maintenance can also be known as Planned maintenance or
Planned Preventative maintenance.

4. Predictive maintenance.
This is where plant condition is monitored and a prediction is made about
when it is likely to break down. A maintenance programme is developed
based on the information gathered.
This is called ‘Condition Monitoring’ and specifically it is a maintenance
process where the condition of equipment is monitored for early signs of
impending failure. Equipment can be monitored using sophisticated
instrumentation such as vibration analysis, oil analysis, laser alignment of
shafts in rotating equipment and thermal imaging. More traditionally,
temperature, over voltage or current and liquid level has been monitored to
warn of problems. Equally monitoring can be manual often using the human
senses. Where instrumentation is used (automatic monitoring) actual limits
can be imposed to trigger maintenance activity, generally through a
computerised maintenance management system.
Predictive maintenance can also be known as Condition Based
maintenance. A further variation can be Risk Based maintenance where
maintenance tasks are arranged to reflect the risk of failure based on
predicted plant life and plant history.

Comments

a) Whatever maintenance system is employed all activities must be carried

out safely and meet all legal requirements. To meet these requirements a
system of ‘safe working practices’ should be employed to ensure that Health
and Safety is treated as a priority at all times. A system of safe working
practices would include items such as:
• Some form of permit to work.
• Use of the correct personal protective equipment.
• Interlocked guarding systems.
• Training
• System reviews

b) Most maintenance systems now employ computers for recording

information, issuing work and storing plant history. This also enables
automatic electronic spares ordering and easily obtainable financial
information about maintenance.

c) The cost of engineering maintenance needs to be controlled so annual

budgets and regular reviews (normally monthly) of expenditure are a pre-
requisite for control purposes. The normal costs for day to day maintenance

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

activities are usually referred to as revenue items whereas the purchase of a

new machine like a de-palletiser or filling machine are capital items.

The advantages and disadvantages of the various maintenance systems are

detailed in the table below:

System Advantages. Disadvantages.

No maintenance. Easy to set up. Risk of plant unavailability at key
Appropriate in some times.
circumstances High cost of replacement parts.
Breakdown No unnecessary work on Risk of plant unavailability at key
maintenance. the plant. times.
High cost of spares.
Preventative Work done on the plant at a Expensive.
Maintenance. convenient time. Plant may be worked on
Less likelihood of unnecessarily.
breakdowns.
Predictive Most effective use of Complex information system needs to
maintenance. engineering resources. be maintained.
Work done on the plant at a
convenient time.
Less likelihood of
breakdowns.

9.2 Maintenance Tasks

Types of tasks associated with engineering maintenance.

Whether the conditions are breakdown, planned, preventative or associated

with an overhaul the majority of engineering maintenance tasks can be linked
to the following headings:
Mechanical
Lubrication
Electrical
Software/hardware
Calibration
Inspection
Condition monitoring
Cleaning of plant
Health and Safety
Recording and updating information.

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

Notes.

Specify important pieces of mechanical and electrical plant that you are
familiar with. What method of maintenance is employed to ensure that these
pieces of plant or equipment perform as required?
Describe in detail a variety of maintenance tasks that are performed under the
headings shown above.
How much does engineering maintenance cost on an annual basis. How is the
budget controlled?
Find out the costs of major capital plant items.
Describe how health and safety and other legal requirements are met under
the engineering maintenance banner.

9.3 Systems for Continuous Improvement.

Poor plant performance and plant failure in one form or another has a major
impact on business performance; consequently systems that improve plant
reliability are becoming widely implemented.

Three process improvement initiatives are:

• Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) where teams of key personnel

for example maintenance engineers and plant operators decide on how the
plant can fail, the consequences of failure and finally the most appropriate
maintenance procedures that will reduce the incidence of failure.

• Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) where the plant

technicians/operators are trained to pay strict attention to detail, to take
great pride in their equipment and to tolerate zero plant defects.

• Workplace Organisation (5S) where technicians/operators focus on

achieving and maintaining visual order and cleanliness. 5S aims to remove
unneeded items and organise the workplace so that it is easy for the
operatives to carry out their tasks and maintain a clean and orderly
environment.

In more detail:

(a) Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM)

The principles, which define and characterise RCM are:

• A focus on the preservation of system function;

• The identification of specific failure modes to define loss of function or
functional failure;
• The prioritisation of the importance of the failure modes, because not all
functions or functional failures are equal;

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

• The identification of effective and applicable maintenance tasks for the

appropriate failure modes. (Applicable means that the task will prevent,
mitigate, detect the onset of, or discover, the failure mode. Effective
means that among competing candidates the selected maintenance task
is the most cost effective option).

These principles, in turn, are implemented in a seven-step process:

1. The objectives of maintenance with respect to any particular item/asset

are defined by the functions of the asset and its associated desired
performance standards.
2. Functional failure (the inability of an item/asset to meet a desired
standard of performance) is identified. This can only be identified after
the functions and performance standards of the asset have been
defined.
3. Failure modes (which are reasonably likely to cause loss of each
function) are identified.
4. Failure effects (describing what will happen if any of the failure modes
occur) are documented.
5. Failure consequences are quantified to identify the criticality of failure.
(RCM not only recognizes the importance of the failure consequences
but also classifies these into four groups: Hidden failure; Safety and
environmental; Operational and Non-operational.)
6. Functions, functional failures, failure modes and criticality analysed to
identify opportunities for improving performance and/or safety.
7. Preventive tasks are established. These may be one of three main
types: scheduled on-condition tasks (which employ condition-based or
predictive maintenance); scheduled restoration; and scheduled discard
tasks.
Although one of the prime objectives of RCM is to reduce the total costs
associated with system failure and downtime, evaluating the returns from an
RCM program solely by measuring its impact on costs hides many other less
tangible benefits. Typically these additional benefits fall into the following
areas:
(1) improving system availability;
(2) optimizing spare parts inventory;
(3) identifying component failure significance;
(4) identifying hidden failure modes;
(5) discovering significant, and previously unknown, failure scenarios;
(6) providing training opportunities for system engineers and operations
personnel;
(7) identifying areas for potential design enhancement;
(8) providing a detailed review, and improvement where necessary, of plant
documentation.

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

(b) Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

TPM aims to establish good maintenance practice through the pursuit of "the
five goals of TPM":
(1) Improve equipment effectiveness: examine the effectiveness of facilities
by identifying and examining all losses which occur - downtime losses, speed
losses and defect losses.
(2) Achieve autonomous maintenance: allow the people who operate
equipment to take responsibility for, at least some, of the maintenance tasks.
This can be at:
• The repair level (where staff carry out instructions as a response to a
problem);
• The prevention level (where staff take pro-active action to prevent
foreseen problems); and the
• Improvement level (where staff not only take corrective action but also
propose improvements to prevent recurrence).
(3) Plan maintenance: have a systematic approach to all maintenance
activities. This involves the identification of the nature and level of preventive
maintenance required for each piece of equipment, the creation of standards
for condition-based maintenance, and the setting of respective responsibilities
for operating and maintenance staff. The respective roles of "operating" and
"maintenance" staff are seen as being distinct.
Maintenance staff is seen as developing preventive actions and general
breakdown services, whereas operating staff take on the "ownership" of the
facilities and their general care. Maintenance staff typically move to a more
facilitating and supporting role where they are responsible for the training of
operators, problem diagnosis, and devising and assessing maintenance
practice.
(4) Train all staff in relevant maintenance skills: the defined responsibilities of
operating and maintenance staff require that each has all the necessary skills
to carry out these roles. TPM places a heavy emphasis on appropriate and
continuous training.

(5) Achieve early equipment management: the aim is to move towards zero
maintenance through "maintenance prevention" (MP). MP involves
considering failure causes and the maintainability of equipment during its
design stage, its manufacture, its installation, and its commissioning. As part
of the overall process, TPM attempts to track all potential maintenance
problems back to their root cause so that they can be eliminated at the
earliest point in the overall design, manufacture and deployment process.

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

TPM works to eliminate losses:

• Downtime from breakdown and changeover times
• Speed losses (when equipment fails to operate at its optimum speed)
• Idling and minor stoppages due to the abnormal operation of sensors,
blockage of work on chutes, etc.
• Process defects due to scrap and quality defects to be repaired
• Reduced yield in the period from machine start-up to stable production.

(c) Workplace Organistion (5S)

5S can be broken down into 4 activities and one conviction to continue

with the 4 activities. 5S originated in Japan and there are many
translations of the Japanese words for 5S – a common set is listed below:

• “Sein” - Sort
• “Seiton” - Set in order
• “Seiso” - Shine
• “Seiketsu” - Standardise
• “Shitsuke” - Sustain

Sort
The aim of Sort is to remove from the workplace items that are not
needed, such as tools, materials and parts, and to identify what items are
needed to perform the operations at each of the workstations.

Set in order
Set in order is the part of the 5S technique that arranges materials,
components and tools in such a way that the operatives can easily access
them. An example of this is a shadow board, where each tool has its own
place and can be easily located. Additionally, if an empty place exists on
the board the missing tool can easily be identified.

Shine
For Shine, the workplace needs to be kept clean so that it is safe for the
operators to carry out their tasks and move around their workstation. This
also benefits productivity as the easier it is for the operatives to move
around the quicker it is for them to carry out their tasks.

Standardise
Formalise the Sort, Set in order and Shine activities to standardise their
practice so that all involved can achieve the same results. Application of
this will ensure that the workplace is clean and organised.

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GCP (All Containers): Section 9: Engineering maintenance

Sustain
The sustain activity will ensure that 5S is ingrained in the organisation
culture. Sustain aims to keep the workforce focussed on carrying out 5S
activities on a regular basis, usually daily. Performance is measured to
maintain consistency and ensure that all involved are informed of their
progress.

The direct changes resulting from carrying out 5S are workplace tidiness
and orderliness; these have a beneficial effect on a large number of other
factors which improve efficiency. These range from reduced time
searching for tools, reduced changeover time, reduced inventory to
reduced cycle time.

All three methods rely on detailed records and analysis and ‘problem solving’
in a teamworking environment. These methods also depend on the teams
being supported by senior management.
High initial set-up costs ultimately enable the achievement significantly
improved and sustainable plant reliability.

Comments:
There are a number of performance improvement initiatives that are similar to
RCM, TPM and 5S. The majority of them focus on improving plant
performances by combining a number of simultaneous initiatives and typically
include the following:

• ‘Organisational Changes’.
• Computerised systems for maintenance, measuring plant breakdowns
and performance.
• Predictive maintenance techniques.
• Cleaning-inspection-lubricate.
• Teamworking.
• Improvement analysis (various techniques).
• Defining roles, responsibilities and accountabilities.
• Training and education.

Two further improvement initiatives, generally but not exclusively targeted at

high-speed small-packaging lines with complex secondary packaging
streams, are Design of Experiments (DOE) and Maintenance Excellence
(MEX):

Design of Experiments (DOE)

Design of Experiments is a structured, organised method that is used to

determine the relationship between the different factors (Xs) affecting a

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process and the output of that process (Y). It involves designing a set of
perhaps ten to twenty experiments, in which all relevant factors are varied
systematically. When the results of these experiments are analysed, they
help to identify optimal conditions, the factors that most influence the results,
and those that do not, as well as details such as the existence of interactions
and synergies between factors.

Maintenance Excellence (MEX)

“Maintenance excellence” is a general term that has been used widely over
many years to describe “best practice”.
However, Maintenance Excellence (MEX) is the title used (often by suppliers)
for a variety of specific approaches to performance improvement, a number of
which may be relevant to packaging lines.

Two such examples are:

Maintenance Excellence (MEX) 1

The alignment of interdependent elements of
(a) reliable, fit for purpose plant
(b) an organisation which has the skills and competence to maintain
and operate the plant efficiently
(c) business and work processes which optimise design, operations,
maintenance and inspection activities.
These interdependent elements are aligned to the asset business
requirements and balanced against the constraints of safety and
environmental impact. This alignment is aimed at optimising maintenance
strategy in a cost effective matter.

Maintenance Excellence (MEX) 2

A Japanese variant on Reliability Centred Maintenance which

does not have the necessity to spend a great many hours or days looking at
failure modes. Equipment and component criticality is also based on the
knock-on effect of a failure and the severity of the consequences but the
rating and response to it is arrived at in a much simpler way.
Those failures which cause safety or environmental risks are prevented from
happening and either the components are carried as spares and replaced
before failure or the plant item is put on a condition monitoring programme.
Those failures which cause production loss or affect quality are also
prevented from happening or put on a condition monitoring programme.
Those failures which are of no significant consequence are treated as
breakdowns.

Notes.
Describe the typical features of a performance improvement initiative you are
familiar with.
Describe your role and responsibilities, who you consult and who you inform.

© The Institute of Brewing and Distilling (GCP Revision Notes Version 1 2008)