sm a l l & m i d s i z e m a n u fac t u re rs

with very little margin of error when it comes to downtime, small and midsize manufacturers are adopting multipronged maintenance strategies to keep their equipment going.
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orget about finding a run it till it breaks philosophy of equipment maintenance at Quality Float Works. This 93-year-old manufacturer of metal floats relies both on very large equipment as well as some pieces that are more than 50 years old to get its product out. A cavalier attitude toward maintaining such equipment could be costly indeed, particularly if the equipment would need to be replaced. For a smaller company like us, [avoiding that cost] is particularly important, says Jason Speer, Quality Float Works vice president and general manager. Twenty-seven employees work at the firm. Speer points out that the older equipment has lasted for as long as it has because we do maintenance so that it will last. A stringent maintenance policy includes a checklist of processes that must be addressed for the equipment. The company follows both weekly and monthly maintenance schedules that are addressed by internal personnel, and each checklist is tailored to a particular piece of equipment. Additionally, the equipment operators perform daily maintenance on their machines at the end of each shift, and outside professional maintenance personnel are called upon as well. Maintenance doesnt always receive its proper due, though; as writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once observed, Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. That said, if you dont maintain your lawn, your homes curb appeal takes a hit. Dont maintain your car, and youre likely to end up stranded on the side of the road. Dont maintain your plant equipment, however, and the ramifications are more dire: lost production time and missed delivery dates if the equipment breaks down; poor quality and increased scrap when machines functioning at substandard levels produce substandard parts. If those arent bad enough, add increased costs if you are one of those who

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the raymond corp. addresses maintenance at its facilities using a variety of methods, including operator preventive maintenance, visual management tools, training and root cause analysis. small to medium-size manufacturers also are exploring total productive maintenance, a program that calls for companywide involvement in the maintenance process.
p h ot o c ou r t es y th e ray m on d co rp.

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s m a l l & m i d s ize ma nufact urers

builds excessive finished-goods inventory for just in case nance needs, both short-term and long-term. my equipment breaks situations or who builds up spare Running to failure is not in the cards for The Raymond parts inventory because you have no idea when the next Corp., a manufacturer of material handling solutions, inmalfunction may occur. The ultimate end result could well cluding lift trucks. The manufacturer requires reliable and be lost customers and lost business. efficient operations from a wealth of machinery, including Despite the consequences, maintenance remains less robotic welders, laser CNC machines, machining centers than a priority for many manufacturers until or unless and paint systems. And Raymond is constantly making they cant meet the needs of their customers, or their sales efforts to improve that reliability. The company has a mainfigures start to slide. Then it becomes an issue, notes Rod tenance strategy that in the last year alone helped it to Ellsworth, vice president of EAM (enterprise asset managereduce its unplanned downtime by 50%. The firms goal is ment) business solutions for software provider Infor. to reduce that metric by another 20% in 2008. Indeed, Robert Lyscas says he continues to see a tremenRaymond has three primary areas of focus in the maindous amount of fire-fighting going on when it comes to tenance arena for 2008, says Dave Brigham, director of maintenance. Lyscas is the dimanufacturing engineering: oprector of lean business solutions erator preventive maintenance, total Productive maintenance for Michigan Manufacturing root cause analysis and visual implementations Technology Center (MMTC), an management. While preventive organization that provides asmaintenance by the equipment Percentage of plants at which total productive sistance to small and midsize operators is a focus this year, Plant size maintenance occurs manufacturers as part of the Nathe practice is already in place tional Institute of Standards and at the companys facilities, he all plants 34.2% Technologys Manufacturing Expoints out. However, while opless than 100 workers 27.5% tension Partnership. erators have been performing 100 to 249 workers 31.0% [The question] is not necesdaily checks, not every operator sarily, Is maintenance impordid it the same way. In short, 250 to 499 workers 38.6% tant? The answer is clearly, the company is aiming to both 500 or more workers 57.8% yes, observes John Pucillo, standardize its operator prevenproduct manager for Predictive tive maintenance as well as add outsourcing maintenance Service LLC, a predictive mainrigor to it, Brigham explains. tenance technology and services Addressing the focus on root Percentage of plants provider. The question, he says, cause analysis, Brigham notes outsourcing maintenance/ Plant size asset management is what strategy to use to minithat while this problem-solving mize the maintenance spend but method has been used in other all plants 7.1% maximize the equipment uptime areas of the company, to this less than 100 workers 9.0% and availability. point it hadnt been employed 100 to 249 workers 4.0% Answering that question is in the maintenance area. The particularly important for small maintenance staff of about 10 has 250 to 499 workers 7.4% and midsize manufacturers that received training in root cause 500 or more workers 7.1% most likely dont have the mainanalysis and plans to employ the tenance spend or the personnel technique to unplanned downavailable that larger companies time incidents. have. Size, however, should not be a deterrent to implementTaking a page from lean manufacturing, Raymond incorpoing maintenance improvement strategies. rates visual management in maintenance. Among the visual indicators are a display board that shows all of a facilitys machines and their current status; a daily assignment board for workers; the departmental training plan; and graphs that track several key performance indicators (e.g., number of ompanies that operate in a reactive maintedowntime occurrences and minutes of downtime). nance modebasically running equipment Among other metrics the company tracks, at the factory until it stopsremain prevalent regardless level and/or machine level, are percentage of unplanned of firm size, Pucillo notes. Its a choice, or downtime (vs. scheduled uptime), the ratio of unplanned a gamble, he says. But if it fails, you typito planned downtime, mean time between failures, and cally cant get product out. mean time to respond and fix an issue. At the corporate A reactive strategy, he adds, may be as much as four or level, several cost metrics are collected as well. five times more expensive than a planned or proactive apBrigham notes several additional maintenance goals proach. You do more damage running to failure. Instead, Raymond has in addition to reducing unplanned downget proactive, Pucillo suggests. That way, youre controltime. One of them is to reduce spare parts inventory in dolling your costs. Youre reducing your overall maintenance lars. The other is to update training. Given the increasing costs. More importantly, youre predicting your maintesophistication of equipment and the growing interaction

get out of the reactive mode

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source: 2007 iw/mpi census of manufacturers

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between mechanical and electronics, training is a must for sible for the routine maintenance and operations of their effective troubleshooting of equipment, he says. machine. Those tasks may include cleaning, lubricating, His opinion is shared by Predictive Services Pucillo. adjusting and inspecting. It calls for continuous improveOne of the aspects of training that may be overlooked is ment and companywide involvement. the amount of training [companies] give their folks. ToOn a positive note, Lyscas says some of the smaller manudays maintenance personnel are computer technicians facturers his center serves have begun to see the need for TPM. rather than hammer and screwdriver guys, he opines. To illustrate, he says that while 10 or fewer companies have What shouldnt be overlooked is the importance of mainindicated a need for a TPM program in the past 18 months, tenance to a lean operation. Over at Baldor Electric Corp.s three or four companies already in 2008 have said they want Marion, N.C., plant, maintenance excellence recently won to be more proactive in developing a TPM program. They the facility the 2007 North American Maintenance Excelsee it as an opportunity to be more competitive, Lyscas says. lence Award, presented by the Foundation for Industrial (As a side note: TPM implementation isnt widespread even Maintenance Excellence. Maintenance excellence is simamong the general U.S. manufacturing populace. According ply part of the facilitys focus on meeting the customers to the 2007 IW/MPI Census of Manufacturers, TPM strategies needs. Everyone here realizes that machine reliability is are occurring at about one-third of all U.S. manufacturing the foundation for consistently delivering outstanding cusplants. The larger the plant, the more likely it is to be impletomer service, said Harley Freshour, maintenance supermenting TPM. Lyscas calls TPM the weakest link in many visor, in the companys announcement of the accolade. manufacturers lean implementations.) The Marion plant, which manufactures mounted spheriLyscas points out that todays manufacturing environcal and tapered roller bearings, is also a superbly lean ment calls for an ability to run smaller quantities with operation. That fact won the facility (under a different quicker turnarounds, and maintenance is a key element moniker) an I ndustry Week Best Plants award in 2004, in making that possible. Our belief is its all about time. but it also meant that the facilIf you shorten time, you can be ity focused its lean initiatives competitive in whatever marcomprehensively, including on ket you participate in. a fire-fighting approach its maintenance operations.

consider total productive maintenance

ight now, MMTCs Lyscas says, what he sees among smaller manufacturers is marginally okay preventive maintenance practices but little to no established, effective predictive maintenance programs. They can do better, and the Michigan organization aims to help. This year, he explains, the MMTC is making a concentrated effort to introduce and encourage manufacturers to implement total productive maintenance (TPM) into their facilities. TPM is a comprehensive program to maximize equipment availability that includes both preventive and predictive maintenance. A central idea in TPM is the notion of autonomous maintenance, in which machine operators are respon-

to maintenance

where to start?
our resources are limited, and your maintenance efforts need a helping hand. The question is: Where do you start? Predictive Services Pucillo suggests that focusing on the problems that are causing you the most sleepless nights and/or on the problems that are happening on a repeatable basis. He also points out that sometimes manufacturers get focused on addressing maintenance the way its always been done. Take a step back, he says, and get new data. Go to trade shows, explore new techniques and talk to people outside of your facility. Particularly for manufacturers spending too much time fighting fires, I would recommend they get a second opinion to expand their thought process, Pucillo says. If theyre in that fire-fighting mode, theyre probably not happy because theyre working too hard. iW

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tlas machine & supply is a beneficiary both of manufacturers decisions to outsource some of their maintenance activities, as well as the firefighting mentality other manufacturers take toward maintenance. among the services the 200-person company provides is equipment rebuilding and repair. President and owner rich Gimmel says hes seen a surge in this business over the past decade. interestingly, the company takes a firefighting approach to the fire-fighting mentality of manufacturers.Weve adopted the theme that were an industrial fire department, with 24 hour a day, seven day a week availability if needed, Gimmel explains. the company also has an engineering staff who will redesign and reengineer equipment for manufacturers to make it less maintenance intensive.While that may seem counter-intuitive, given the services it offers, Gimmel says, it creates a more loyal customer for us. He must be right. atlas machine & supply has been in business for 100 years.

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