Introduction to Maintenance

Prepared by

Prof. Dr. Alsaid Ahmed Alhawary

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Course contents

1- Maintenance definition.

2- Evolution of maintenance.

3- Maintenance aspects

4- Maintenance management

5- Relation between maintenance and production.

6- Maintenance objectives.

7- Maintenance philosophies

8- Bathtub maintenance

9- Maintenance technologies

10- Classification of maintenance

11- Definitions and terminologies related to maintenance.

12- Planned maintenance and emergency shutdown.

13. Fundamental Requirements of Effective Maintenance

14- Maintenance costs.

15- Maintenance workers classifications.

16- Workers evaluation

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- Introduction

Over the last decennia, industrial maintenance has evolved from

a non-issue into a strategic concern. Perhaps there are few other
management disciplines that underwent so many changes over
the last half-century. During this period, the role of maintenance
within the organization has drastically been transformed. At
first, maintenance was nothing more than a mere inevitable part
of production, now it is an essential strategic element to
accomplish business objectives. Without a doubt, the
maintenance function is better perceived and valued in
organizations. One could considered that maintenance
management is no longer viewed as an underdog function; now
it is considered as an internal or external partner for success

1- Maintenance definition

The British standard BS 3811-1984 defined the maintenance

as follows:

The combination of all technical and associated administrative

actions intended to retain an item in, or restore it to, a state in
which it can perform its required function

The term item can be defined as follows:

- A part, equipment, sub-system, or system that can be

individually considered and separately examined or tested

- An actual or conventional object on which a set of

observations can be made

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- Defined quantity of material on which a set of observations
can be made.

According to European standard, EN 13306/2017:

Maintenance can be defined as combination of all technical,
administrative, and managerial actions during the life cycle of
an item intended to retain it in, or restore it to, a state in which it
can perform the required function.

- Maintenance can also be defined as: set of activities required

to keep physical assets in the desired operating condition or to
restore them to this condition.

- Maintenance can also be defined as means to hold, keep,

sustain or preserve the equipment or structure to an acceptable
standard.

An acceptable standard is defined as one which sustains the

Utility and value of facility.

The question of what is an acceptable standard? is a matter of

conjecture and is generally subjective.

Generally speaking, maintenance adds value to the business

process. Also, maintenance is the function of production
management.

2- Evolution of Maintenance

The approach to maintenance has changed significantly over the

last century. In this section, we give a very brief historical

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overview of the evolution as well as current trends in
maintenance.

- Historical Perspective

Until about 1940, maintenance was considered an unavoidable

cost and the only maintenance used was corrective maintenance.
When equipment failed it was the task of a specialized
maintenance workforce to return the failed item to its
operational state. Maintenance was not addressed during the
design of the system, nor was the impact of maintenance on
system and business performance recognized. The evolution of
Operations Research (OR) from its origin and applications
during the Second World War to its subsequent use in industry
led to the widespread use of preventive maintenance at
component and higher levels. Since 1950, OR models for
maintenance have appeared at an ever‐increasing pace. The
models examine many different maintenance policies and the
optimal selection of the parameters of these policies. The impact
of maintenance actions on the overall business performance is
not addressed. Starting in 1970, a more integrated approach to
maintenance evolved in both the government and private
sectors. New, costly defense acquisitions by the US government
required a life cycle costing approach, with maintenance cost
being a significant component. The close link between
reliability and maintainability formed the basis for this
change. The term “R&M” began to be used more widely in

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defense acquisitions to denote reliability and maintainability.
This concept was also adopted by manufacturers and operators
of civilian aircraft and formed the basis for Reliability
Centered Maintenance (RCM) in the USA. In the RCM
approach, maintenance is carried out at the component level and
the maintenance effort for an item (component or higher level)
is a function of the reliability of the item and the consequence of
its failure under normal operation. The core of the RCM
philosophy is that maintenance will be performed only after
evaluating the consequences of failures (safety, economic,
operational, and environmental) at component level. In other
words, it deals with optimization of preventive maintenance
activities considering failure consequences. The RCM approach
is system‐oriented and may be implemented free of a company‟s
organizational culture.

At the same time, the Japanese evolved the concept of Total

Productive Maintenance (TPM) in the context of
manufacturing. Here, maintenance is viewed in terms of its
impact on the manufacturing (or production process) through its
effect on equipment availability, production rate, and output
quality. In TPM the focus is on autonomous maintenance
through involvement of all employees and is a human‐ and
employee‐centered maintenance approach.

Both RCM and TPM are now widely used in various industrial
sectors and many variants have been developed to extend their

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original functions and/or facilitate their application. Many
businesses use elements of both as part of their maintenance
strategies.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s there has been a trend
toward Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). This became
possible with developments in sensor technologies which
enabled PM actions to be based on the condition (or level of
degradation) as opposed to age and/or usage. Maintenance needs
to be viewed from a long‐term perspective. It needs to take into
account the commercial aspects (which determine the load on
components), the science aspect (to model the effect of load on
equipment degradation), the socio‐political aspect, demographic
trends, and the capital needed. It needs to address issues such as
in‐house versus outsourcing of maintenance and their impact on
the overall costs of maintenance and the associated risks. This
requires an approach where maintenance decisions are made
from a strategic perspective using a framework that integrates
both technical and commercial issues in an effective manner
from an overall business perspective.

- Trends in Maintenance

Engineered objects are becoming more complex to meet the

ever‐increasing demand of customers. Detecting failures and
faults is becoming harder and more time‐consuming. The cost of
labor to carry out maintenance has also been increasing. As a

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result, maintenance will continue to evolve and the two main
drivers for this are (i) technology and (ii) management.

- Technology Trends

Many different types of technologies are beginning to impact on

maintenance. These include:

• Sensor technologies: These are used to monitor the condition

of an object and to decide on maintenance based on the
condition.

• Information and communication technologies (ICTs):

These technologies are used to access, store, transmit, and
manipulate relevant information for maintenance decision
making.

- Management Trends

Maintenance is no longer viewed as a cost but as a function

which creates additional value in the business process. The
focus has shifted from fail‐and‐fix to root cause elimination, and
from functional thinking to a process‐oriented approach with the
end customer being the focus. Trends include:

• A risk‐based approach to maintenance: The focus is to

reduce the business risk.

• Maintenance outsourcing: Here, a business outsources some

or all of the maintenance actions to an external agent under a
maintenance service contract.

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3- Maintenance aspects

There are several aspects to maintenance and they may be

grouped broadly into the following three categories:

1- Technical (engineering, science, technology, etc.);

2- Commercial (economics, legal, marketing, etc.);

3- Management (from several different perspectives –

manufacturer, customer and maintenance service provider when
maintenance is outsourced).

4- Maintenance management

Maintenance management is all activities of the management

that determine the maintenance requirements, objectives,
strategies, and responsibilities, and implementation of them by
such means as maintenance planning, maintenance control, and
the improvement of maintenance activities and economics.

5- Relation between maintenance and production.

In general, maintenance (strategic and operational) is linked to

production from a business perspective as shown in the
following figure:

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 Figure 1: Maintenance from a business perspective.

- Now the question that can be asked is what industries need the
services of maintenance professionals?

All manufacturing industries need the service of maintenance

specialists which include:

- Metal industries

- Plastic factories

- Automotive Industries.

- Cement industries.

- Lather industries.

- Textile and garment factories.

-Soft drink factories.

- Beverage industries.

- Food processing industries.

- Service industries (Hotels and resorts)

6- Maintenance objectives

Objective of maintenance can be listed as follows:

1- To increase functional reliability of production facilities.

2- To maximize useful lifetime of the equipment.

3- To maximize production capacity.

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4- To achieve quality product or services by well operated
equipments.

5- To minimize interruptions in operations.

6- To minimize breakdowns.

6- To ensure safety of personnel and equipment.

7- To decrease production cost

7- Maintenance philosophies (Maintenance strategies)

Industrial and process plants typically utilize two types of

maintenance management:

(1) run-to-failure, or (2) preventive maintenance

1- Run-to-Failure Management

The logic of run-to-failure management is simple and

straightforward. When a machine breaks, fix it. This „„if it ain‟t
broke, don‟t fix it‟. A plant using run-to-failure management
does not spend any money on maintenance until a machine or
system fails to operate. Run-to-failure is a reactive management
technique that waits for machine or equipment failure before
any maintenance action is taken. It is in truth a no-maintenance
approach of management. It is also the most expensive method
of maintenance management.

Few plants use a true run-to-failure management philosophy. In

almost all instances, plants perform basic preventive tasks (i.e.,
lubrication, machine adjustments, and other adjustments) even

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in a run-to-failure environment. How ever, in this type of
management, machines and other plant equipment are not
rebuilt nor are any major repairs made until the equipment fails
to operate.

The major expenses associated with this type of maintenance

management are: (1) high spare parts inventory cost, (2) high
overtime labor costs, (3) high machine downtime, and (4) low
production availability.

Since there is no attempt to anticipate maintenance

requirements, a plant that uses true run-to-failure management
must be able to react to all possible failures within the plant.
This reactive method of management forces the maintenance
department to maintain extensive spare parts inventories that
include spare machines or at least all major components for all
critical equipment in the plant. The alternative is to rely on
equipment vendors that can provide immediate delivery of all
required spare parts. Even if the latter is possible, premiums for
expedited delivery substantially increase the costs of repair parts
and downtime required for correcting machine failures. To
minimize the impact on production created by unexpected
machine failures, maintenance personnel must also be able to
react immediately to all machine failures.

The net result of this reactive type of maintenance management

is higher maintenance cost and lower availability of process

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machinery. Analysis of maintenance costs indicates that a repair
performed in the reactive or run-to-failure mode will average
about three times higher than the same repair made within a
scheduled or preventive mode. Scheduling the repair provides
the ability to minimize the repair time and associated labor
costs. It also provides a means of reducing the negative impact
of expedited shipments and lost production

2- Preventive Maintenance Management

There are many definitions of preventive maintenance, but all

preventive maintenance management programs are time driven.
In other words, maintenance tasks are based on elapsed time or
hours of operation.

The actual implementation of preventive maintenance varies

greatly. Some programs are extremely limited and consist of
lubrication and minor adjustments. More comprehensive
preventive maintenance programs schedule repairs, lubrication,
adjustments, and machine rebuilds for all critical machinery in
the plant. The common denominator for all of these preventive
maintenance programs is the scheduling guideline. All
preventive maintenance management programs assume that
machines will degrade within a time frame typical of their
particular classification. For example, a single-stage, the
horizontal split-case centrifugal pump will normally run 18
months before it must be rebuilt. When preventive management

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techniques are used, the pump would be removed from service
and rebuilt after 17 months of operation.

The problem with this approach is that the mode of operation

and system or plant-specific variables directly affect the normal
operating life of machinery. The mean time between failures
(MTBF) will not be the same for a pump that is handling water
and one that is handling abrasive slurries. The normal result of
using MTBF statistics to schedule maintenance is either
unnecessary repairs or catastrophic failure. In the example, the
pump may not need to be rebuilt after 17 months. Therefore the
labor and material used to make the repair was wasted. The
second option, use of preventive maintenance, is even more
costly. If the pump fails before 17 months, we are forced to
repair by using run-to-failure techniques. Analysis of
maintenance costs has shown that a repair made in a reactive
mode (i.e., after failure) will normally be three times greater
than the same repair made on a scheduled basis

8- Bathtub (Life span characteristic) curve

According to the principles of reliability engineering, the causes

of equipment failure change with the passage of time. In figure
2, breakdowns, or the failure rate, appear on the vertical axis.
The failure rate curve is also referred to as the "life span
characteristics curve" or the "bathtub" curve (for its
characteristic shape). When equipment is new, there is a high

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failure rate (early failure period), which eventually drops and
levels off. Then the failure rate stabilizes at a certain level for a
long period of time (accidental failure period). Finally, as
equipment approaches the end of its useful life, the failure rate
increases once again (wear-out failure period).

Early period failures, accidental failures, and wear-out failures

each have different causes, as illustrated in figure 2. Therefore,
to achieve successful results each type of breakdown must be
treated by different countermeasures.

The causes of early period failure are design and

manufacturing errors. To combat them, the design department
must conduct test runs at the earliest stage. Furthermore,
maintainability improvement should be pursued to discover and
treat weaknesses in design and manufacturing.

Accidental failures are caused primarily by operation errors, so

the most effective countermeasure is to ensure that operators use
equipment properly.

Wear-out failures are due to the limited natural lifespan of

equipment parts. Equipment life can be extended by preventive
maintenance and by maintainability improvement (through
changes in design). This will reduce the wear-out failure rate.

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 Figure 2: Lifespan characteristics and breakdown
countermeasures.

9- Maintenance technologies

The development of maintenance technologies can be summed

up as follows:

1- No-maintenance

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There are two kinds of situations in which no maintenance will
occur:

** No way to fix it: the maintenance technique is not available

for a special application, or the maintenance technique is at too
early a stage of development.

** Isn‟t worth it to fix it: some machines were designed to be

used only once. When compared to maintenance cost, it may be
more cost-effective just to discard it.

Neither of the scenarios above is within the scope of the

discussion here.

2. Reactive Maintenance

The aim of reactive maintenance is just to “fix it after it‟s

broken”, since most of the time a machine breaks down without
warning and it is urgent for the maintenance crew to put it back
to work: this is also referred to as “fire-fighting”

This fire-fighting mode of maintenance is still present in many

maintenance operations today because accurate knowledge of
the equipment's behaviour is lacking. Essentially, little to no
maintenance is conducted and the machinery operates until a
failure occurs. At this time, appropriate personnel are contacted
to assess the situation and make the repairs as expeditiously as
possible. In a situation where the damage to equipment is not a
critical factor, plenty of downtimes is available, and the values

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of the assets are not a concern, the fire-fighting mode may prove
to be an acceptable option

3. Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance (PM) is an equipment maintenance

strategy based on replacing, overhauling, or remanufacturing an
item at fixed or adaptive intervals, regardless of its condition at
the time. These maintenance operations models can be
characterized as long-term maintenance policies that do not take
into account instantaneous equipment status. Scheduled
restoration tasks and scheduled discard tasks are both examples
of preventive maintenance tasks.

In preventive maintenance, breakdowns are tracked and

recorded in a database, and the information accumulated
provides a base for general preventive actions.

The age-dependent PM policy can be considered as the most

common maintenance policy in which a unit‟s PM times are
based on the age of the unit. The basic idea is to replace or
repair a unit at its age T or failure whichever occurs first.

Another preventive maintenance policy that received much

attention is the periodic PM policy, in which degraded machines
are repaired or replaced at fixed time intervals independent of
equipment failures.

The preventive maintenance schemes are time-based without

considering the current health state of the product, and thus are

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inefficient and less valuable for a customer whose individual
asset is of the most concern.

4. Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance (PdM) is a right-on-time maintenance

strategy. It is based on the failure limit policy in which
maintenance is performed only when the failure rate, or other
reliability indices, of a unit, reaches a predetermined level.

This maintenance strategy has been implemented as condition-

based maintenance (CBM) in most production systems, where
certain performance indices are periodically or continuously
monitored. Whenever an index value crosses some predefined
threshold, maintenance actions are performed to restore the
machine to its original state, or to a state where the changed
value is at a satisfactory level in comparison to the threshold.

5. Proactive maintenance

Proactive maintenance (PaM) is a new maintenance concept that

is emerging along with the development of business
globalization. It encompasses any tasks that seek to realize the
seamless integration of diagnosis and prognosis information and
maintenance decision-making via a wireless internet or satellite
communication network.

Machine health information should represent a trend, not just a

status so that a company‟s productivity can be focused on asset-
level utilization, not just production rates. Moreover, through

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integrated life-cycle management, such degradation information
can be used to make improvements in every aspect of a
product‟s life cycle. Intelligent maintenance systems (IMS) is a
PaM representative. Specifically, it has three main working
directions as follows:

* Develop intertwined embedded informatics and electronic

intelligence in a networked and tether-free environment and
enable products and systems to intelligently monitor, predict,
and optimize their performance.

* Change “failure reactive” to “failure proactive” by avoiding

the underlying conditions that lead to machine faults and
degradation. Focus on analyzing the root cause, not just the
symptoms. That is, seek to prevent or to fix failure from its
source.

* Feed the maintenance information back to the product,

process, and machine design, and ultimately make
improvements in every aspect of product life cycle.

6. Self-maintenance

Self-maintenance is a new design and system methodology.

Self-maintenance machines are expected to be able to monitor,
diagnose, and repair themselves in order to increase their
uptime.

The development of maintenance technologies is depicted in

figure 3.

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 Figure 3: The development of maintenance technologies

10- Classification of maintenance

Maintenance can be classified into two main categories: planned

and unplanned maintenance. Planned maintenance can also be
subdivided into preventive and corrective maintenance.
Preventive maintenance comprises scheduled (time-based)
maintenance and condition-based maintenance. Both corrective
and unplanned maintenance include emergency (breakdown)
maintenance. The relationship between different forms of
maintencne can be depicted in figure 4.

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 Maintenance

Planned Unplanned
Maintenance Maintenance

Preventive
Maintenance

Corrective Corrective
Scheduled Condition- (Emergency- (Emergency-
(Time-based) based Breakdown) Breakdown)
Maintenance Maintenance
Maintenance Maintenance

Figure 4: Chart depicting the relationship of various forms

of maintenance.
11- Definitions and terminology related to maintenance

In the following section, different terms related to maintenance

will be defined, explained, and discussed.

Planned maintenance: The maintenance organized and carried

out with forethought, control and use of records to a
predetermined plan.

Note, preventive maintenance is always part of planned

maintenance; corrective maintenance may or may not be.

Unplanned maintenance: The maintenance carried out to no

predetermined plan.

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Preventive maintenance: It is the maintenance carried out at
predetermined intervals or corresponding to prescribed criteria
and intended to reduce the probability of failure or the
performance degradation of an item.

Condition based maintenance: It is the preventive

maintenance initiated as a result of knowledge of the condition
of an item from routine or continuous monitoring.

Scheduled maintenance (routine maintenance): The

preventive maintenance carried out to a predetermined interval
of time, number of operations, mileage, etc.

Corrective maintenance: It is the maintenance carried out after

a failure has occurred and intended to restore an item to a state
in which it can perform its required function.

Emergency maintenance: It is maintenance that is necessary to

put in hand immediately to avoid serious consequences.

Down time: It is the period of time during which an item is not

in a condition to perform its intended function.

Note 1: The down time of an item will be made up of active

maintenance time and delays due to reporting, awaiting labour,
awaiting spare, facilities, movement, etc.

Note 2: Unless otherwise stated, down time of an item, due to

failure, is considered to commence at the instant the item is
determined to have failed.

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Breakdown: Failure resulting in the non-availability of an item.

Running maintenance: Maintenance which can be carried out

whilst the item is in service.

Shut down maintenance: Maintenance which can be carried

out when the item is out of service.

Repair: To restore an item to an acceptable condition by the

renewal, replacement or mending of worn, damaged, or decayed
parts.

Overhaul: A comprehensive examination and restoration of an

item, or a major part thereof, to an acceptable condition.

Restoration: Maintenance actions intended to bring back an

item to its original appearance or state.

Reliability: It is the ability of an item to perform a required

function under stated conditions for a stated period of time.
Also, reliability denotes the probability of success or a success
ratio.

Maintainability: It is the ability of an item, under stated

conditions of use, to be retained in or restored to a state in which
it can perform its required function, when maintenance is
performed under stated conditions and using prescribed
procedures and resources.

Failure: Failure is the termination of the ability of an item to

perform a required function.

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A system failure occurs due to the failure of one or more of its
components. Henley and Kumamoto (1981) proposed the
following classification for failures:

- Primary failure: A primary failure of a component occurs

when the component fails due to natural causes (for example,
aging). An action (for example, repair or replacement by a
working unit) is needed to make the component operational

- Secondary failure: A secondary failure is the failure of a

component due to one or more of the following causes: (i) the
(primary) failure of some other component(s) in the system, (ii)
environmental factors, and/or (iii) actions of the user.

- Command failure: A command failure occurs when a

component is in the non‐working (rather than a failed) state
because of improper control signals or noise (for example, a
faulty action of a logic controller switching off a pump). Often,
no corrective action is needed to restore the component to its
working state in this case.

Fault: A fault is the state of an item characterized by its

inability to perform its required function. Note that this excludes
situations arising from preventive maintenance or any other
intentional shutdown period during which the system is unable
to perform its required function.

A fault is, hence, a state resulting from a failure

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Failure mode refers to how a device, equipment, or machine
can fail.

Failure mode is a description of a fault.

Failure modes can be identified by studying the performance

(function) of the item. In general, failure modes can be classified
as follows:

- Intermittent failures: Failures that last for only a short time.

A good example of this is a software fault which occurs only
under certain conditions that occur intermittently.

- Extended failures: Failures that continue until some

corrective action rectifies the failure.

Also, failure modes can be divided into the following categories

- Complete failures: Failures which result in a total loss of

function.

- Partial failures: Failures which result in a partial loss of

function

Each of these can be further subdivided into the following:

- Sudden failures: Failures that occur without any warning.

- Gradual failures: Failures that occur with signals to warn of

the occurrence of a failure.

- A complete and sudden failure is called a catastrophic

failure.

- Gradual and partial failure is designated a degraded failure.

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Example: Hydraulic valves are used in refineries to control the
flow of liquids. If a valve does not shut properly, the flow is not
reduced to zero and this can be viewed as a partial failure. If a
valve fails to operate (due, for example, to the spring not
functioning properly), then the failure is a complete failure. A
valve usually wears out with usage and this corresponds to a
gradual failure.

-Failure causes and severity

Failure cause is the circumstances during design, manufacture,

or use which have led to a failure.

The failure cause is useful information in the prevention of

failures or their reoccurrence. Failure causes may be classified
(in relation to the life cycle of the object), as indicated below:

- Design failure: Due to inadequate design;

- Weakness failure: Due to weakness (inherent or induced) in

the system so that the system cannot stand the stress it
encounters in its normal environment;

- Manufacturing failure: Due to non‐conformity during

manufacturing;

- Aging failure: Due to the effects of age and/or usage;

- Misuse failure: Due to misuse of the system (operating in

environments for which it was not designed);

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- Mishandling failure: Due to incorrect handling and/or lack of
care and maintenance.

The severity of a failure mode signifies the impact of the failure

mode on the system as a whole and on the outside environment.
A severity ranking classification scheme (MIL‐STD‐882D,
2000) is as follows:

- Catastrophic: Failures that result in death or total system loss;

- Critical: Failures that result in severe injury or major system
damage;

- Marginal: Failures that result in minor injury or minor system

damage;

- Negligible: Failures that result in less than minor injury or

system damage.

12- Planned maintenance and emergency shutdown

In the emergency maintenance (also known as breakdown

maintenance) less concern is given to the operating condition of
critical plant machinery, equipment, or systems. Since most of
the maintenance tasks are reactive to breakdowns or production
interruptions, the only focus of these tasks is how quickly the
machine or system can be returned to service. As long as the
machine will function at a minimum acceptable level,
maintenance is judged to be effective. This approach to
maintenance management is both ineffective and extremely
expensive. Breakdown maintenance has two factors that are the

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primary contributors to high maintenance costs: (1) poor
planning and (2) incomplete repair.

The first limitation of breakdown maintenance is that most

repairs are poorly planned because of the time constraints
imposed by production and plant management. As a result,
manpower utilization and effective use of maintenance
resources are minimal. Typically, breakdown or reactive
maintenance will cost three to four times more than the same
repair when it is well planned.

The second limitation of breakdown maintenance is that it

concentrates repair on obvious symptoms of the failure, not the
root cause. For example, a bearing failure may cause a critical
machine to seize and stop production. In breakdown
maintenance, the bearing is replaced as quickly as pos sible
and the machine is returned to service. No attempt is made to
determine the root cause of the bearing failure or to prevent a
recurrence of the failure. As a result, the reliability of the
machine or system is severely reduced. This normal result of
breakdown maintenance is an increase in the fre quency of
repairs and a marked increase in maintenance costs.

Emergency maintenance is often confused with other types of

unplanned maintenance. The most common mix-ups happen
between emergency maintenance, reactive maintenance, and run
to fail maintenance. There are a lot of similarities between all

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three types of maintenance, so it‟s easy to see why they sound
interchangeable. However, there are a few key differences that
make them unique.

Reactive maintenance occurs when failure happens

unexpectedly with no plan in place to prevent or fix it. The
difference between reactive and emergency maintenance lies in
the timing and urgency of repairs. Reactive maintenance is
triggered when equipment experiences a failure-level
maintenance issue of any sort (not just a total break down) and
can happen on any type of asset (not just the ones that pose the
biggest risk to production or safety.

Run to fail maintenance is the deliberate choice by the

maintenance team to allow a piece of equipment to run until it
breaks down. While nothing is done to prevent the failure (just
like in emergency and reactive maintenance), this is a choice
that is made beforehand (unlike emergency and reactive
maintenance). It is a strategy commonly used on non-critical
assets that are quick and easy to repair, have short lifespans, or
are not designed to be repaired.

The best way for your maintenance team to prevent emergency

maintenance is to ensure that effective planned and scheduled
maintenance strategies are in place. This can take the form of
preventive maintenance, condition-based maintenance, or
predictive maintenance. Planned and scheduled maintenance

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strategies proactively identify issues and put in place processes
to repair the asset before total failure occurs.

13. Fundamental Requirements of Effective Maintenance

Effective maintenance is not magic, nor is it dependent on

exotic technologies or expensive instruments or systems.
Instead, it is dependent on doing simple, basic tasks that will
result in reliable plant systems. These basics include the
following.

Inspections

Careful inspection, which can be done without „„tearing down‟‟

the machine, saves both technician time and exposure of the
equipment to possible damage. Rotating components find their
own best relationship to surrounding components. For example,
piston rings in an engine or compressor cylinder quickly wear to
the cylinder wall configuration. If they are removed for
inspection, the chances are that they will not easily fit back into
the same pattern. As a result, additional wear will occur and the
rings will have to be replaced much sooner than if they were left
intact and performance-tested for pressure produced and metal
particles in the lubricating oil.

Human Senses

We humans have a great capability for sensing unusual sights,

sounds, smells, tastes, vibrations, and touches. Every
maintenance manager should make a concerted effort to increase

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the sensitivity of his own and that of his personnel‟s human
senses. Experience is generally the best teacher. Often, however,
we experience things without knowing what we are
experiencing. A few hours of training in what to look for could
have a high payoff.

Human senses are able to detect large differences but are

generally not sensitive to small changes. Time tends to have a
dulling effect. Have you ever tried to determine if one color is
the same as another without having a sample of each to compare
side by side? If you have, you will understand the need for
standards. A standard is any example that can be compared with
the existing situation as a measurement. Quantitative
specifications, photographs, recordings, and actual samples
should be provided. The critical parameters should be clearly
marked on them with a display as to what is good and what is
bad.

Sensors

Since humans are not continually alert or sensitive to small

changes and cannot get inside small spaces, especially when
machines are operating, it is necessary to use sensors that will
measure conditions and transmit information to external
indicators.

Sensor technology is progressing rapidly; there have been

considerable improvements in capability, accuracy, size, and

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cost. Pressure transducers, temperature thermocouples, electrical
ammeters, revolution counters, and a liquid height level float are
examples found in most automobiles.

Accelerometers, eddy-current proximity sensors, and velocity

seismic transducers are enabling the techniques of motion,
position, and expansion analysis to be increasingly applied to
large numbers of rotating machines. Motors, turbines,
compressors, jet engines, and generators can use vibration
analysis.

Lubrication

The friction of two materials moving relative to each other

causes heat and wear. Friction-related problems cost industries
over $1 billion per annum. Technology intended to improve
wear resistance of metal, plastics, and other surfaces in motion
has greatly improved over recent years, but planning,
scheduling, and control of the lubricating program is often
reminiscent of a plant handyman wandering around with his
long-spouted oil can.

Anything that is introduced onto or between moving surfaces to

reduce friction is called a lubricant. Oils and greases are the
most commonly used substances, although many other materials
may be suitable. Other liquids and even gases are being used as
lubricants. Air bearings, for example, are used in gyroscopes

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and other sensitive devices in which friction must be minimal.
The functions of a lubricant are to:

1. Separate moving materials from each other to prevent wear,

scoring, and seizure

2. Reduce heat

3. Keep out contaminants

4. Protect against corrosion

5. Wash away worn materials.

Good lubrication requires two conditions: sound technical

design for lubrication and a management program to ensure that
every item of equipment is properly lubricated.

Calibration

Calibration is a special form of preventive maintenance whose

objective is to keep measurement and control instruments within
specified limits. A „„standard‟‟ must be used to calibrate the
equipment. Standards are derived from parameters established
by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). Secondary
standards that have been manufactured to close tolerances and
set against the primary standard are available through many test
and calibration laboratories and often in industrial and university
tool rooms and research labs. Ohmmeters are examples of
equipment that should be calibrated at least once a year and
before further use if subjected to sudden shock or stress.

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The purpose of a calibration system is to provide for the
prevention of tool inaccuracy through prompt detection of
deficiencies and timely application of corrective action. Every
organization should prepare a written description of its
calibration system.

This description should cover the measuring of test equipment

and standards, including the following:

1. Establishment of realistic calibration intervals

2. List of all measurement standards

3. Established environmental conditions for calibration

4. Ensuring the use of calibration procedures for all equipment

and standards

5. Coordinating the calibration system with all users

6. Ensuring that equipment is frequently checked by periodic

system or cross-checks to detect damage, inoperative
instruments, erratic readings, and other performance-degrading
factors that cannot be anticipated or provided for by calibration
intervals

7. Provide for timely and positive correction action

8. Establish decals, reject tags, and records for calibration

labeling

9. Maintain formal records to ensure proper controls.

14- Maintenance cost

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The costs of maintenance may be divided into two major
categories:

1- Direct costs: These costs are incurred due to maintenance

and repair actions, broadly represented by the cost of labor, the
cost of material and spare parts, the cost of contractors, and the
costs of infrastructures used and related tax (service tax, etc.).
Often, these are the costs which may be tracked down easily in
account books.

2- Indirect costs: These are costs resulting from the

consequences associated with failure or unplanned maintenance
actions and include loss of revenue due to the production stops
owing to maintenance and repair actions, cost of accidents,
demurrages, insurance policies, and so on.

The maintenance costs shown in Table 1.1 are the direct costs.

Table 1: Maintenance as a percentage of operating cost

Industry sector Maintenance cost (%)

Mining (highly mechanized) 20 – 50
Primary metals 15 - 20
Electric utilities 5-15
Manufacturing processing 3 – 15
Fabrication/assembly 3 -5
The indirect costs are, in general, higher and depend on the
engineered object. These indirect costs are difficult to measure
but, in general, they are roughly equal to or greater than the
direct costs The maintenance costs increase with time due to the

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aging effect and increasing labor costs. This implies that
maintenance is a significant issue for businesses and
government agencies.

Figure 5 illustrates the relationships between preventive

maintenance, corrective maintenance, and lost production
revenues. The vertical scale is dollars. The horizontal scale is
the percentage of total maintenance devoted to preventive
maintenance. The percentage of preventive maintenance ranges
from zero (no PMs) at the lower left intersection to nearly 100
percent preventive at the far right. Note that the curve does not
go to 100 percent preventive maintenance because experience
shows there will always be some failures that require corrective
maintenance. Naturally, the more of any kind of maintenance
that is done, the more it will cost to do those activities. The
trade-off, however, is that doing more preventive maintenance
should reduce both corrective maintenance and downtime costs.
Note that the downtime cost in this illustration is greater than
either preventive or corrective maintenance. Nuclear
power generating stations and many production lines have
downtime costs exceeding $10,000 per hour. At that rate, the
downtime cost far exceeds any amount of maintenance, labor, or
even materials that we can apply to the job. The most important
effort is to get the equipment back up without much concern for
overtime or expense budget. Normally, as more preventive tasks
are done, there will be fewer breakdowns and therefore lower

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corrective maintenance and downtime costs. The challenge is to
find the optimum balance point

Figure 5: The relationship between cost and amount of

preventive maintenance.

As shown in Figure 5, it is better to operate in a satisfactory

region than to try for a precise optimum point. Graphically,
every point on the total-cost curve represents the sum of the
preventive costs plus corrective maintenance costs plus lost
revenues costs.

If you presently do no preventive maintenance tasks at all, then

each dollar of effort for preventive tasks will probably gain

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savings of at least $10 in reduced corrective maintenance costs
and increased revenues. As the curve shows, increasing the
investment in preventive maintenance will produce increasingly
smaller returns as the breakeven point is approached. The total-
cost curve bottoms out, and total costs begin to increase again
beyond the breakeven point. You may wish to experiment by
going past the minimum-cost point some distance toward more
preventive tasks. Even though costs are gradually increasing,
subjective measures, including reduced confusion, safety, and
better management control, that do not show easily in the cost
calculations are still being gained with the increased preventive
maintenance. How do you track these costs? Figure 6 shows a
simple record-keeping spreadsheet that helps keep data on a
month-by-month basis

Figure 6: Preventive maintenance, condition

monitoring, and lost revenue cost.

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15- Maintenance workers characteristics

In general, the structure of a maintenance organization is

composed of a number of engineers, managers, supervisors, and
technicians. Each has its own function and responsibility.

Maintenance supervisor

The maintenance supervisor manages the daily activities of the

maintenance department in assigned area(s) to ensure the safe,
effective, efficient, continuous plant operation through
maintenance and repair of assigned facilities and equipment

The maintenance supervisor‟s responsibilities include

- Ensuring that individual safety

- Using data, reports, and graphics to pinpoint potential problem

areas and enhance the productivity of assigned crew(s).

- Assessing and providing for the learning and training needs of

crew members.

- Monitoring apprentice progress and logbooks, evaluating and

counseling as required.

- Supporting company policies, departmental instructions, and

objectives in a positive manner with employees.

- Spending time with each crew member to develop personal

and working relationships and listen to new ideas, problems, and
suggestions.

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- Setting a leadership example supported by crew participation
in decisions and activities.

- Demonstrating a long-term view and approach to work.

Maintenance planner and scheduler

The maintenance planner/scheduler works in a team

environment assisted by a maintenance super visor to

● Inspect jobs that are candidates for planning or scheduling.

● Determine the various craftspeople that may be required to

complete the job.

● Estimate the work hours required to complete the job by each

craft.

● Anticipate the permits necessary to execute the job.

● Determine the parts, tools, and equipment necessary to

complete the job.

Maintenance and engineering manager

The maintenance and engineering manager ensures continuous,

effective, efficient, and safe plant capacity and operations
through the application of total proactive maintenance
management systems and the principles of maintenance
reliability, equipment modification, and supply of operating and
maintenance materials to the plant. Also, this manager is
expected to improve plant operations and efficiencies through
the administration of capital projects encompassing purchase,

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design, and replacement of existing equipment and revisions to
plant layout.

The maintenance and engineering manager

- Maintain and repair plant and equipment at the least possible

cost while ensuring continuous plant opera tions 365 days per
year.

- Prepare and monitor the maintenance and repair annual budget

for the department to ensure costs are in line with approved
budgets and determine variances and the cause of variances.

- Participate in the capital improvement and replace ment

budget for the entire plant to meet goals and objectives for asset
management.

- Manage, direct, and motivate subordinate personnel to achieve

annual and standing department goals and objectives in a timely
and safe manner, while continuously improving subordinate
skills.

- Manage, direct, coordinate, and organize the engineering and

maintenance departments to meet the goal of providing
production capacity equal to or exceeding plant design
specifications at the least cost in the most efficient, effective,
and safe manner.

Area manager of warehouse and inventory control

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The area manager and inventory control provides supervision
and direction for the operation of the total warehouse and
inventory control function

The area manager of warehouse and inventory control is

expected to

- Supervise inventory control and warehouse personnel in the

performance of their duties, make the necessary job
assignments, and schedule workloads as appropriate to meet the
plant demands.

- Coordinate and work closely with all supervision throughout

the plant to ensure a totally effective material control system.

- Provide or arrange for the training of an efficient warehouse

and inventory control staff and develop leadership capabilities
for potential advancement.

- Inform and counsel subordinates on policy or procedural

matters, handle suggestions and work related problems in
accordance with established policies and procedures, appraise
individual job performance, and maintain the required records.

Reliability engineer

The reliability engineer reports to the maintenance and

engineering manager and is responsible for implementing
advanced reliability tools and work processes and supporting
reliability efforts in manufacturing plants.

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Also, the reliability engineer is expected to

● Provide engineered solutions to complex equipment problems.

● Identify and set priorities on opportunities for reli ability
improvement by mining information using the reliability
databases.

● statistically analyze equipment and process performance to

assess reliability, maintainability, and availability.

-Lead maintenance planning and process procedure

improvements via reliability tools.

● Translate reliability opportunities into bottom-line cost

savings and top-line growth (e.g., implement Six Sigma work
processes in support of reliability projects and high-impact
projects to deliver bottom line cost reductions).

● Provide training and facilitation on root cause failure analysis

with maintenance and production personnel.

● Provide training and facilitating failure modes and effects

analysis (FMEA), a process by which maintenance strategies are
developing identifying known and likely failure modes and what
there effects on a system, with maintenance and production
personnel.

● Provide “design for reliability” input to capital projects.

- Technicians

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Maintenance technicians are responsible for the upkeep of a
facility, such as an apartment building or business office. They
are skilled in a variety of areas including plumbing, carpentry,
and electrical systems. Duties include inspecting buildings,
maintaining inventory, and scheduling repairs.

The responsibilities of maintenance technicians are as

follows:

- Inspecting buildings, equipment, and systems to identify any

issues.

- Repairing faulty equipment units and damaged structures.

- Developing and implementing preventative maintenance

procedures.

- Managing heating and plumbing systems to guarantee

functionality.

- Planning and scheduling repairs.

- Conducting periodic quality checks on equipment and systems

to ensure everything is up to standard.

- Performing general maintenance tasks including landscaping,

painting, and carpentry.

- Helping develop and implement the budget for the maintenance

department.

- Maintaining the inventory records for equipment and supplies.

- Job skills

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Maintenance personnel especially engineers, managers and
supervisors should have the following skills in order to perform
their duties perfectly:

- Strong basic engineering skills (mechanical, electrical,

chemical, industrial, and materials).

- Solid verbal and written communication skills.

- Robust computer skills (at a minimum, Word, Access,

Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, and SAP).

- Effective interpersonal skills and the ability to work with and

lead loosely knit, cross-functional working teams.

- Basic skill in root cause analysis work process methods and

tools.

- Proven facilitation and group leadership experience and skills.

- Skills in basic reliability engineering principles, such as

mechanical components and systems; properly categorizing and
analyzing failure data and modes; translating failure data to cost;
fault tree analysis; data mining and management; reliability
growth methods (Crow-AMSAA); failure reporting and analysis
(FRACAS); basic reliability models, block diagrams, impact on
reliability; and availability, reliability and maintainability.

- Practical statistical analysis skills, including failure statistics

(normal, exponential, lognormal, binomial, Poisson); failure
rates, hazard rates, expected life, and Weibull analysis.

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- Basic understanding of common predictive technologies:
vibration analysis, lubrication, thermography, motor analysis,
ultrasonics, machinery analysis, alignment and balancing
procedures, and fixed equipment diagnostic technologies.

- Project value identification, including the ability to convert the

cost of unreliability into bottom-line profit, and apply reliability
business case tools.

- Lean and Six Sigma skills are a plus. (This is specialized and
requires additional training).

On the other hand, maintenance technicians should have the

following skills:

- High school diploma or equivalent qualification.

- Certificate in maintenance technology, or a relevant field is

preferred.

- A minimum of 2 years experience in a similar role.

- In-depth knowledge of mechanical, electrical and hydraulic

systems.

- Advanced understanding of general maintenance procedures and

techniques.

- Physically capable and available to work overtime including

weekends, public holidays, and evenings.

- Effective problem-solving abilities.

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

- Must be well-organized and have the ability to prioritize tasks.

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16- Workers evaluation

Job-evaluation approaches may include nonquantitative plans

such as “rank order” or “comparable” types. The
nonquantitative-type plans do not stand the test of time,
objective scrutiny, or clarification of the differences between
jobs. Quantitative approaches are objective and reduce the
judgmental influence to the minimum. Quantitative plans
combine point systems and factor comparisons.

The factors used in evaluating jobs can be as many as desired,

but all traditional factors can usually be found in the following
categories

• Skills

• Responsibilities

• Efforts

• Working conditions

The factors must be complete enough to identify differences

over a wide variety of work. An example of a plan in effect over
many years is as follows:

• Knowledge

• Experience

• Judgment

• Manual skill

• Responsibility for materials and products

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• Responsibility for tools and equipment

• Mental effort

• Physical effort

• Surroundings

• Hazard

This plan was sufficiently broad to cover all the jobs in a large
manufacturing plant. Nevertheless, some recently recognized
factors or sub-factors which apply specifically to maintenance
may be useful in achieving a more accurate evaluation of
maintenance jobs. Some examples are:

• Multi-skill capabilities

• Specialized production or processing knowledge

• Troubleshooting knowledge and skill

• Communications with users of maintenance services

• Construction or fabricating skills

• Planning maintenance work

• Purchasing maintenance parts and materials

• Directing or coordinating contractor work

• Preventive maintenance recommendations

RELATIVE WEIGHTS OF FACTORS

The relative weights of these factors should be compatible with

the “culture” in which the company operates. In some parts of

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the world the values given to education as compared with skill
and effort are considerably different than the weights that would
be assigned in the United States. A recent analysis of the actual
points assigned in four well-accepted plans showed the
following:
Percent of total points

Plan A Plan B Plan C Plan D

Experience 32.2 52.2 46.3 43.3

Responsibility 14.8 18.1 22.3 23.2

Effort 35 15.5 12.4 21.2

Condition 17.9 14.2 19 12.3

The same type of analysis but based only on the maximum point
values showed the following:
Maximum Factor Points Percent of Total Points

Plan A Plan B Plan C Plan D

Experience 36.2 50 48.8 46.3

Responsibility 35.6 21 24.2 21.5

Effort 18.7 15 7 17.8

Condition 9.5 15 20 14.5

The analyses show that there are differences in each plan, but
the weight given to “experience” is predominant in each case
and “responsibility” follows. These two factors provide about 70

51
percent of the weighting. The plan finally chosen should
approximate these guidelines to ensure compatibility with
generally accepted practices.

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