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<TITLE>Joel Levitt, maintenance management, maintenance management consulting, tpms</TITLE>
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<b><font face="PC Tennessee" size="4">
<p align="left">
Stalking the elusive maintenance quality beast.</p></b></FONT><font face="PC Tennessee"><p align="left">
Quality control is hard to define in maintenance. Everyone knows when its missing
but its hard to tell when its there. The usual definition in production is quality
is to consistently produce parts with low variation. Maintenance quality usually
deals with the consequences of the repair not the repair itself. The emotional context
of the response is also tied up in maintenance quality (a surley, dirty maintenance
technition is low quality even if their work is surperb) .
</p>
<p align="left">
In some circumstances 	maintenance quality might	=	Reduced downtime</p>
<p align="left">
In others:			maintenance quality		=	Reduced scrap</p>
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maintenance quality		=	Faster start-up</p>
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maintenance quality		=	Quicker response</p>
<p align="left">
maintenance quality		=	No repeat repairs</p>
<p align="left">
maintenance quality		=	Keep unit in spec</p>
<p align="left">
maintenance quality		=	No interruptions</p>
<p align="left">
maintenance quality		=	Satisfied user</p>
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<p align="left">
Every maintenance operation should define quality in a way to be useful to their
operating environment. The late W.E Demming was considered the quality guru for
the last generation of Japanese quality experts. In fact, the quality award in Japan
today is the Demming award. He had much to say about quality in manufacturing. The
surprise is that Deming's points apply to maintenance also. We just have to see
what quality is in our plant, site or division.</p>
<b>
<p align="left">
W.E. Deming's Fourteen Points:</b> First discussed in 1950! See 20 Steps to
World Class Maintenance section in first chapter for additional discussion.</P>
<p align="left">
1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and services with the
aim to stay competitive, stay in business and provide stable employment. Maintenance
deterioration usually takes a long time. Any effective maintenance strategy must
also have a long horizon. Resources must be allocated for good maintenance practice
and not taken away with every bump in the quarterly results.</p>
<p align="left">
2. Adopt the new philosophy. Awaken to the challenge. Take responsibility for and
leadership in change. Our maintenance departments often are the last areas of the
organization to realize the need for change. The department is dragged kicking and
screaming into the new corporate culture. Looking toward the future I see a maintenance
department providing leadership for the rest of the organization. No where else
is high quality so closely related to safety, high self esteem. Quality is intertwined
with the very history and culture of the crafts.</p>
<p align="left">
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Build quality in. Quality
comes from skilled and knowledgeable mechanics given good tools, adequate materials
and enough time to do the job. Quality comes from choosing well designed equipment
that doesn't need much maintenance. What maintenance the equipment does need is
easy to perform and get to. Quality comes from pride in a job well done. Lead by
example with ceaseless training, coaching and systems analysis. When defects occur
concentrate on the system that delivered the defect rather then having a preoccupation
with finger pointing.</p>
<p align="left">
4. Endthe practice of awarding business on the basis of price alone. Instead, minimize
total cost. Move toward a single source for each item and on a long term relationship
of loyalty and trust. A revolution in purchasing is at hand. More and more organizations
are looking at the total costs of a part or the life cycle cost of a machine. Some
economies are false and hurt the overall goals of the organization. A low cost bearing
might be the most expensive bearing you ever buy.
</p>
<p align="left">
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve
quality and productivity, and thus constantly reduce costs. In today's market the
way it used to be done is never going to be good enough for the future. All improvements
and growth flow from dissatisfaction with the status quo. Build measurement into
the maintenance information system. Continually strive to improve both the visible
and the invisible performance.</p>
<p align="left">
6. Institute training on the job. Training should be mandatory for mechanics the
way it is for doctors or teachers. Our factories and facilities have today's levels
of technology and our maintenance people have yesterday's skill sets. To maintain
effectiveness we must train to bridge to gap. Special effort should be given to
the people on your staff who deliver the on the job training. These informal trainers
need instruction in how to teach adults. They also need back-up materials to deliver
the best possible training.
</p>
<p align="left">
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines
do a better job. The supervisor should serve their subordinates by removing the
impediments from production. The supervisor should insure that the mechanic, the
tools, the parts and the unit to be serviced converge at the same time. The supervisor
should also be the lightning rod for disruptions from management and production
(unless there is an emergency the mechanic will not be disturbed because interruptions
reduce quality and worker satisfaction).</p>
<p align="left">
8. Drive out fear, so everyone may work effectively for the company. Fear of the
lose of a job interferes with the mechanic's ability to concentrate. Fear gets in
the way of the pride a mechanic feels in a job well done. A flexible and highly
productive department where people can shift from trade to trade, maintenance to
construction to production is the safest one.</p>
<p align="left">
9. Breakdown the barriers between departments. Everyone's expertise is needed for
constant improvement. With scarce resources we must include knowledge from other
departments and groups to come up with the best overall solution for the organization.
Maintenance problems can get complex quickly with financial, marketing, purchasing,
quality and engineering ramifications. The best solution to a problem might not
be the best maintenance solution (like run until destruction to fill an important
order). Information for the best solution might come from another department and
another expertise.
</p>
<p align="left">
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the work force asking for zero
defects, new levels of production. Such exhortations create adversary relationships.
A bulk of the problems for quality and production belong to the system not the people.
Stable processes create quality. Create stable processes producing quality outputs
and the people will feel the way the slogan without cohersion and alienation.</p>
<p align="left">
11. Eliminate work standards, quotas, and management by objectives (MBO). Work standards
and quotas are associated with management styles that treat the maintenance worker
as someone needing to be told exactly what to do and how long to take. Standards
are useful for scheduling and to communicate management's expectations. It is difficult
to not use them as a production whip. That is a disaster in maintenance situations
because we want the mechanic to take the time needed to fix everything they see
(within reason!), not just the original job. We must trust the mechanic to look
out for our interests particularly when we are not there. The problem with MBO is
that it focuses on visible, measurable aspects of maintenance. Many of the real
issues of maintenance concern aspects of the environment that are hard to measure.</p>
<p align="left">
12. Remove the barriers that rob the worker, engineer of his/her right of pride
of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be shifted from numbers to
quality and improvement. Tradespeople must be allowed to feel pride in their jobs
that are well done. Maintenance managers and supervisors must not allow anything
to stand in the way of that pride.</p>
<p align="left">
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self improvement World class maintenance
departments make a commitment to invest 1-3% of their hours in training for all
maintenance workers. Technologies are changing skills must change too. A world class
auto manufacturer mandates 96 hours of training per year for everyone. A high tech
manufacturer requires 110 hours.</p>
<p align="left">
14. Put everyone in the organization to work to accomplish the transformation. This
transformation is everyone's job. This transformation requires the talents of all
the employees. It requires all of the talents of each person. When a hotel chain
had the housekeepers meet with the architects (for a new hotel) the result was concrete
suggestions to improve the designs that reduced maintenance costs and improved the
rooms for the customers.</p>
<p align="left">
</p>
<b>
<p align="left">
Deadly diseases and obstacles to success</p>
</b>
<p align="left">
1. Lack of constancy of purpose to plan product and service that will have a market
and keep a company in business and provide jobs. Maintenance issues (like the wearing
out and failure of a compressor or boiler) take a long term to develop. Only an
equally long term view will be effective. A moving agenda for the goals of maintenance
work against the department.</p>
<p align="left">
2. The supposition that solving problems, automation, gadgets and new machinery
will transform industry. Maintenance problems are people problems. The systems,
attitudes and approaches are at issue. The paradigm of maintenance as a necessary
evil, or of maintenance workers as grease monkey slobs must be transformed. The
transformation starts in the minds and hearts of the maintenance department and
then flows to the rest of the organization..
</p>
<p align="left">
3. Emphasis on short term profit, short term thinking feed by fear of unfriendly
takeover, and by a push from bankers and owners for dividends. Top management will
squeeze maintenance to reduce costs below the level that is necessary to avoid deterioration.
The cost reduction is temporary, the asset will deteriorate and long term integrity
of the process will be compromised. Maintenance requires long term planning and
commitment.
</p>
<p align="left">
4. Evaluation of performance, merit rating, or annual review. The question about
annual reviews, performance rating is what useful outcome flows from these procedures.
In most cases the production of a mechanic is more related by how much management
gets in their way rather than by their actual qualities. Annual reviews rarely change
behavior.
</p>
<p align="left">
5. Mobility of managers and job hopping. In one beverage bottler the average tenure
of the maintenance manager was 22 months. Some lasted as few as 9 months. Every
one came with bright ideas and wanted to prove themselves. The result was a complete
lack of focus on long term goals and plans. As each manager tried to cut costs the
negative results impact fell to the next player. This job hopping in management
without a master plan dramatically exacerbates the short term view.
</p>
<p align="left">
6. Management by use of only visible figures, with little or no consideration of
figures that are unknown or unknowable. For example, when you invest in training
for your maintenance crew where does the increased asset show up? When, after spending
$100's of thousands in a long expensive trial and error development process a firm
finally develops expertise in a new process. This expertise, this new asset is nowhere
on the balance sheet. It is important to measure and also to realize that much of
what goes on in maintenance is unknowable.
</p>
<p align="left">
7. Hope for instant pudding. Change of fundamental processes take time. In the current
US culture it is hard to imagine instituting a change in processes that could take
5 or 6 years. In actuality if you start with a typical reactive maintenance department
it could take you 5 years or more to create a proactive TPM type partnership in
maintenance and production.</p>
<p align="left">
8. Search for examples. We think that if something worked in another machine shop
or foundry it will work in ours. Since maintenance in factories has no strict rules
examples from our industry may not be useful or even relevant.
</p>
<p align="left">
9. "Our problems are different." Actually many people's problems are the same. In
the PM area while no two plants will have the same exact schedule the problems will
be the same. In our public sessions maintenance managers in widely different industries,
sizes, and sophistication marvel at the similarity of the problems.</p>
<p align="left">
10. Poor teaching of statistical methods in industry. Industry is just waking up
to the value of statistical methods of explaining what happens in the shop. Application
of simple statistics to PM or PCR intervals would improve effectiveness. Simple
relationships such as failures to PM's would show the effectiveness of the frequency
you have chosen. Statistics replaces seat of pants reasoning, panic logic, historical
prejudices with testable and verifiable conclusions.
</p>
<p align="left">
11. "Our truble lies entirely within the work force." Your production system is
a stable system to produce a certain number of defects. Changes in the work force
are irrelevant to the output. Only changes to the system can have an impact.</p>
<p align="left">
12. False starts with inadequate planning, top level support and lack of follow
through kill quality improvement transformation in most places. Serious thought
and planning are needed before starting. Commitment must start in the highest levels
is the organization. Buy-in at each level must be earned, worked and appreciated
before proceeding to the next level.</p>
<p align="left">
13. "We installed quality control." The quality control is a way of life. It is
a daily diet. You don't install it you become it.</p>
<p align="left">
14. The unmanned computer is one of the dangers of wholesale computerization of
maintenance. The computer is a great tool that like any great tool is frequently
misapplied. Allow the people to have their say and make sure the computer answers
to someone (a real person) and they can overrule the machine.</p>
<p align="left">
15. The supposition that it is only necessary to meet specifications. Many of the
important aspects of a component are not included in the specifications. You never
know which attributes are important until you try changing vendors and find out
that your entire process depends on qualities of a particular vendor's products
that are not covered by the specifications.</p>
<p align="left">
16. The fallacy of zero defects. Every system produces defects. Ultra high quality
requires enormous sample universes to establish the defect rate.</p>
<p align="left">
17. Inadequate testing of prototypes. By starting manufacturing on inadequately
tested prototypes we strain the system of improvements. There will be so much ground
to cover before everything stabilizes that the product will be half baked for a
long time. To leapfrog this phase exhaustive testing should be built in.
</p>
<p align="left">
18. "Anyone that comes to try to help us must understand all about our business."
The sad truth is that if the solution to your problem was commonly known in your
industry you would probably know what to do.
</p>
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<a name="QuickMark"></a>
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