Do any of the following statements sound familiar?
- We want more uptime from our plant.
- Our maintenance events take too long.
- When we come back on-line, it takes forever to get back in full production.
- We seem to have more failures right after an outage.
If you recognize any of these statements, you would probably also agree with the statement that there is room for improvement with your maintenance events. What would it be like if you could turn your maintenance event into a racecar pit stop?
Yeah right, you say. There is no way we can do our maintenance events in 13 seconds. You are right. However, let's explore what it is about a racecar pit stop that lets them do fixes in 13 seconds and see how we can use those principles to make your maintenance event a precision maintenance event.
I think it is reasonable to say that a racecar pit stop is a maintenance event. The car comes into the pit and gets tires, fuel, adjustment, etc. The maintenance event starts when the car arrives in the pit box and stops when the car leaves.
It can be said that a racecar pit stop is the ultimate precision maintenance event, maintenance that is completed as quickly as possible and done right the first time. That should be the goal of any maintenance event. What is quick and what is right will depend on the specific maintenance event. This definition includes all safety, environmental, and human factors requirements in "doing it right."
The first step in turning your maintenance event into a precision maintenance event is to define the event. When does the maintenance event start and when does it stop? An example of a defined maintenance event might be performing annual routine maintenance on a bank of pumps. It starts when the pumps are shut down or cleared for maintenance and ends when the pumps are operating at required capacity.
With the pump routine maintenance event as the pit stop, the CORE Principles of Precision Maintenance can be applied: Choreography, Organization, Resources and Execution. The challenge is to determine how you can apply these principles to your specific maintenance event.
Choreography
Movement of Resources Into, Within and Out
As with a racecar, the goal of a maintenance event is to minimize downtime. Every movement of the pit crew is well planned and choreographed to minimize the time the car is in the pit. To minimize the downtime of the pump bank, it is useful to think about the movement of resources into, within, and out of the maintenance event. What resources need to be prepositioned and where do they need to be so they are most efficiently used for the maintenance event?
For example, let's say that three people carry out the pump routine maintenance. Normally, the operator shuts the pumps down or the pumps are cleared for maintenance. Then the maintenance team leader is called to let him know the pumps are ready. The maintenance team leader gathers the team and they begin work. How much downtime could be saved if the maintenance team were on the floor, stationed at the point of their first task at the time the pumps are shut down or cleared for maintenance? That could take 15-30 minutes off of the downtime.
What other resources need to be pre-positioned? It would also be useful to perform time motion studies of the activities performed during the maintenance event to see where wasted motion can be eliminated. With some creative thinking, the pump bank routine maintenance event can be as highly choreographed as a racecar pit stop and lead to significant reductions in the downtime.
Organization
Requirements, Procedures and Policies
Racecar requirements can vary: gas only, a two tire stop, or a four tire stop. The requirements are clearly communicated to the pit crew before the maintenance event begins. For the pumps, the question is what really needs to be accomplished. Are the tasks being performed the right ones? This question is answered by performing a reliability-centered maintenance analysis to identify the tasks that need to be performed.
The point is that to keep downtime to a minimum; only those tasks that are needed to ensure failure-free operation until the next maintenance event should be performed. It is also important to have very detailed procedures that are specific to the maintenance event and to fully communicate those requirements to the team before the maintenance event begins. How much more time will it take during the maintenance event for a technician to look up a procedure? Wouldn't it be better to look up the procedure before the maintenance event begins and make sure that every technician has all of the procedures they need?
Each step should be fully documented to reduce the risk of the pumps not coming to full load quickly after the maintenance event is completed. Finally, the procedures must document the safety policies that need to be accomplished and any other policies that apply. Once all of this is completed, the maintenance event is fully organized and ready to be performed with minimal downtime.
Resources
People, Parts, Tools
(Including Procurement, Training, Maintenance and Storage)
There are a number of resources required to carry out a pump routine maintenance event. At a minimum, they include people, tools, and spare parts. The people need to be qualified and well trained to perform the tasks they are assigned.
In the racecar pit stop, each member of the team, whether they go over the wall or not, has been trained and qualified to do his job. The jack man is always the jack man, the tire carrier is always the tire carrier and so forth. That does not mean that the jack man cannot do the tire carrier's job if he needed to, but the team understands that by having him do that, the precision of the pit stop is likely to go down.
Similarly, members of the pump routine maintenance team must be fully qualified and trained to do their tasks. It is best if the same people do the same task every time. It may be more difficult if the maintenance event occurs every 12 months and there is only one pump bank, but every effort should be made to keep the team together. If there is more than one pump bank such that a similar maintenance event is carried out more often, the team will get more efficient over time, making all of the maintenance events go quicker.
Every tool should be checked for proper operation before the maintenance event begins. Every spare part should be drawn from the storeroom and verified that it operates properly, as much as possible, before the maintenance event begins. All of the procedures must be in-hand and understood by the team members. The bottom line is that once the maintenance event starts, everyone is in their place, knows what they need to know, and has everything they need to carry out the maintenance event as quickly as possible and perform their tasks correctly the first time.
Execution
Performing Tasks Correctly, Efficiently and Quickly
Now that everything is ready to go, it is time to execute. Racecar pit crews are taught that performing a task quickly does not necessarily mean doing it fast. I am sure you have heard the old saying, "haste makes waste." The goal of executing the maintenance event is to perform every step of every task methodically and correctly without any wasted motion or time.
As each task is completed, it should be communicated to the crew chief that has the responsibility of making sure nothing is missed. This communication does not need to add extra time if it is set up properly. The technician communicates that the task is complete while starting the next task.
The execution begins with the pre-stop meeting. Before each racecar pit stop, the crew chief meets with the pit crew to tell them exactly what is expected. If there is nothing unusual it may be as simple as saying, "This is a four tire stop." If the car needs repairs, the pit crew discusses the repairs before the car comes into the pits.
Similarly, a pre-stop meeting should precede each of your maintenance events. At this meeting all of the personnel involved in the maintenance event learn exactly how the event is to be executed.
Turning a maintenance event into a pit stop requires a coordinated effort, a lot of planning, and good leadership. The payoff can be huge if the cost of downtime is high. Think about a maintenance event in your plant that is a good candidate for a pit stop. Apply these CORE principles of precision maintenance and reap the rewards.
Pumps & Systems, January 2008