So, to start your journey towards maintenance excellence, you need to have a plan with a start point and an endpoint with the desired outcome at the end. A fully integrated process, supported by senior management and embraced by all site personnel, a plan that includes:

• CMMS Development, including hierarchy build and standard table definitions
• Process Flow Development
• CMMS User Profiles developed around approved process flows
• CMMS Process Driven Documentation and Training
• Criticality Analysis
• Predictive and Preventative Maintenance Task Development
• Bills of Material Development – including consumables, operating, critical and capital spares

CMMS Development

One of the many challenges that occur during the construction of an operation is ensuring naming conventions for assets have a “standard” applied. 

Many sites I have visited have varying naming for the same type of asset “CV”, “CY”, “CT” all meaning “Conveyor”. The problem is we think that the EPC will adhere to “our” standard, unfortunately not, so it is in the company’s best interest to have a naming standard, before engineering drawings are created.

The development of an asset hierarchy again requires an agreed standard. This standard will ensure that going forward the standard will be maintained either over the present operation or any new operation in the future. 

For any efficient work order reporting process, the master data within the CMMS also requires an agreed standard. This means that each of the applicable tables within the CMMS need to have a standard.

Process Flow Development

Work management processes are the key to good work management and to support this, a minimum of six key processes should be developed, approved and used!

• Work Identification – a process which shows how work is identified, by whom and how this work is entered into the CMMS and who is responsible for the planning of the work
• Work Planning – a process which identifies the stages of work order planning, from developing a scope of work, through to material purchase, resource allocation and if required, safe work instruction
• Work Execution – a process which highlights the work execution process, pre-start meetings, issuing of the task and material, the monitoring of the job front, ensuring unused parts are returned to the store and the physical completion of the task and subsequent hand back of the plant item to operations.
• Work Close-Out – a process that identifies the stages of closing a work order, from physical completion through to close out within the CMMS, including provision for reliability engineering support to carry out any RCA (Root Cause Analysis) processes that may be required
• Unscheduled Work – a process flow that shows who is responsible for “unscheduled work” from planning to execution and close out.

CMMS User Profiles

Once a set of work management process flows have been created, then the CMMS User Profiles can be created. These profiles identify the functions within the CMMS that the user can access, of course being based on the agreed process flows.

There are many benefits in the application of defined user profiles:

• Correct security levels for the user
• Ensuring that users tasked with the maintenance of “master data” are the only users allowed to maintain this data
• Master data is not “diluted” by unapproved table values

CMMS Process Driven Documentation and Training

Now that we have User Profiles defined for each role, we can now create CMMS Process Driven Training Documentation. This documentation generally covers the following roles for a site:

• General User
• Maintenance Clerk
• Maintenance Trade
• Maintenance Supervisor
• Engineer
• Maintenance Superintendent
• Maintenance Planner 

Based on these training documents, personnel are trained on the use of the CMMS for their role

Criticality Analysis

One of the main tasks that should be undertaken across an operation is the identification of critical assets, those assets deemed to present a risk to the operation either from a Health and Safety, Environmental, Financial, Damage or Reputation point of view. 

The Criticality Analysis is usually conducted at site and attended by representatives of the maintenance, production and safety departments, where each asset is assessed for impact of failure, its consequence and the likelihood of failure. Assets are then ranked with a value; this value then drives those assets considered “critical” to the operation.

Predictive and Preventative Maintenance Task Development

The development of both predictive and preventative maintenance strategies is imperative to the reliability of plant assets. An incorrect maintenance strategy could lead to lower-than-expected availability, reliability, and higher operational costs.

The development of the strategies should come from the OEM and take into consideration both the operational requirements of the asset and the operating conditions. Consideration also needs to be given to any statutory requirements around the maintenance / inspection of the asset (Classified Plant, Electrical Statutory Inspections etc)

If you would like to discuss any opportunities to improve your maintenance processes, then contact us today!