Assessing Over-Maintenance: by Jesus R. Sifonte, P.E.

   Several years ago, my first assignment as a Maintenance Engineer was to implement a comprehensive Predictive Maintenance Program in a pharmaceutical facility; it quite a challenge for a junior engineer with zero field experience. A colleague of mine with 15+ years in the field of maintenance engineering told me not to concern myself with implementing this new philosophy, instead, he encouraged me to strengthen the PM program in order avoid unexpected failures.  I was new to the business and wasn’t biased against Predictive Maintenance, so I did not pay too much attention to my colleague’s counseling and went ahead with my project.  Besides that, my boss had also given me a very interesting Predictive Maintenance book where I learn that 500 companies reporting success after 5 years of implementing a PdM program had experienced a 50% average in maintenance costs reductions. That first program we implemented was a complete success in terms of failure prediction and is still running today. Sometime after that, I was put in charge of the plant’s PM program and faced a new challenge: “How do I make sure these two programs are not overstepping each other’s boundaries?

   Maintenance costs represent a major part of the total operating costs for most manufacturing plants.  Depending on the specific industry, maintenance costs can represent between 15 to 60 percent of the cost of goods produced.  Surveys of maintenance management effectiveness indicate that 33% of the money spent in maintenance is wasted because of unnecessary and improperly applied maintenance.  The result of ineffective maintenance management in the United States represents a loss of about $60 billion each year. The losses in production time and product quality (according to reference 1) that result from inadequate maintenance management have had a dramatic impact on the US industries’ ability to compete against other countries with more advanced manufacturing and maintenance management philosophies.

   Over-Maintenance is killing our Maintenance Budget.  There is no doubt that Predictive Maintenance (PdM) is good and proven to detect first stages of machine failures.  Successful programs have reported an average reduction of unexpected failures by 55% and top notch programs were reportedly able to reduce them by more than 90% after 5 years of implementation.  But, What do you do after you get the tools, the contracts, tech reports, etc?  How can you convert your  Maintenance Program into real savings?  The first step you should take is having your PdM program talk to your PM to avoid redundancy.  It makes no sense to use Oil Analysis Techniques as part of your PdM program and at the same time perform time based oil changes in your PM program.  Likewise, time based bearing overhaul is no longer needed as part of your PM’s if you have a fine tuned vibration analysis program for rotating equipment.  Even then, PdM is not able to reach a high level of excellence just by itself.  There has to be a perfect synchronization between PM, PdM, and Corrective Maintenance crews, and this is achieved through proper maintenance management systems.  This sounds very simple, but requires the touch of an experienced maintenance professional; certainly PM and PdM program assessment is not a job for amateurs, since giving the task to an inexperienced person to reduce implementation costs may result in taking too long to implement a comprehensive maintenance program and thus paying less now certainly would not mean getting more later.  Even the spare parts room is a key player in cost reduction, since most failures can be predicted, and parts can be ordered accordingly instead of having them on the shelf.Some successful companies have reported a 30% reduction in parts inventory. Secondly, revise your PM contractssince most of them rely on costly time based repairs or overhauls that can be assessed properly in your PdM program. Maintenance for machines like Chillers, Air compressors, Electric Generators and Turbines are mostly outsourced and represent a big piece of the maintenance budget pie.

    I have a good and a bad story about OEM PM contracts.  One of our customers was able to move a PM based OEM recommended bearing overhaul of two chemical bulk product centrifuges forward about one year to accommodate extra production volume by just monitoring them bi-monthly with vibration signature analysis which revealed no bearing wear signs for both units.  This successful move brought them extra capacity (Productivity), saved money by avoiding unnecessary maintenance, and extended the machines useful life for and extra year.  Also they avoided running their machines through a “Break In” stage after repair in the middle of an aggressive production campaign.  On the other hand, another customer was forced to an early bearing overhaul on a similar machine due to high vibration problems.  But the machine still presented high vibrations after the bearing overhaul performed by the manufacturer and vibration analysis was then performed: unbalance was detected.  The problem was due to an incorrect rotor assembly that shifted factory placed balancing weights out of position during a cleaning operation.  This customer production was delayed by several days and  had to pay for a costly overhaul, which ultimately did not fix their problem. 

   There are many sources of Over-Maintenance, that if addressed properly can make a real positive impact in your maintenance costs.  Some of them are:

1)  Your PM Program

2)  Most Maintenance Contracts for Specialized Machinery

3)  Unnecessary Equipment Overhauls

4)  PM based Oil Changes

5)  Your Calibration Program

6)  PM based filter changes

7)  Excessive Spare Parts

8)  Unreliable Predictive Maintenance Programs

   You may ask yourself “Where do I start from and how big is my cost reduction potential?  Well, start by taking a look at your maintenance costs for the last fiscal year.  Then, carry out a Pareto Analysis to identify the major offenders.  Also have your finances department tell you how much maintenance costs represent to the total operation costs of the plant.  You will find that the saving potential opportunities are significant, and will join the number of plants reporting an average of 50% savings on maintenance related costs.  I will give you some tips that will help you to cut down your maintenance costs:

1)  Invest in a Comprehensive PdM Program including: Oil and Vibration Analysis as well as Infrared and Ultrasound Surveying. You may contract an external company, or do it yourself, depending on the skill level of your personnel, training and, availability.

2)  Perform periodical Energy Conservation Audits as part of you PM program. This was referenced to in an earlier paper (LINK TO: There is profit in your Power House)

3) Synchronize your PdM and PM program by evaluating your PM program tasks to avoid redundancy.

4) Evaluate your Maintenance Contracts.  You will find a lot of expensive time based tasks.

5) Get rid of Unnecessary Maintenance Overhauls by strengthening you PdM program detection capabilities.

6) Train your people to become proficient in modern and cost effective maintenance techniques.

7) Eliminate PM based Oil changes.  Rely on your oil analysis program.

8) Calibrate your Calibration Program.  These programs become inefficient and time consuming.  This subject will be assessed in an upcoming technical article.

9) Revise your Spare Parts Inventory.  The less you know about your machine failure modes, the more parts you have to keep. 

10)Eliminate PM based Filter Changes.  Other indicators, like pressure drops, may be used as criteria for a filter change instead of it being time based.

   Over-Maintenance is one of the aspects leading to an increase in maintenance and total operation costs in a manufacturing plant.  Let’s identify it, face it and let those expenses become profit to your organization.  You have the power to increase your machinery’s useful life and to boost your plant productivity and profitability by just taking care of the factors contributing to Over-Maintenance.  Just, do it!