Asset Management
The “no brainer” opportunityLet’s say that you run your own business. You have an opportunity to invest some money and get a payback that is more than your total investment within the first year (payback is more than 100% in the first year). Moreover, that payback will continue for many years. Would you invest? Read more “Why do you let your budgets hold you back?”
Blog
Contributed by: David A DeCastro (Salvador, Brazil).
In traveling the world in search of excellence in MRO Materials Management (indirect materials / spare parts), I noticed two curious facts. First, even in developed countries, both the industrial companies and providers of ERPs (enterprise management systems) are often technologically quite backwards outside the realm of their product specialization. Secondly, those typically smaller companies or subject matter experts who have developed differentiated technology, tend to keep it as a safe and guarded trade secret, failing to commercialize their brilliance. Read more “Increase Productivity and Competitiveness”
Asset Management
If you can’t sell all you can produce, then reducing costs is often the only way to improve margins, but that simplistic accounting perspective is not always the case. Cost control is often thought to be key to attaining profitability but it the case of maintenance it can get you into trouble. Cost control can have a big opportunity cost if you don’t take advantage of the opportunities you have. Consider that what you might really want is greater value – more for less, no just less. Read more “Trick question: Do you want value or low costs?”
Blog
Outsourcing is a form of alternative service delivery where one company hires another to perform some of its functions. It’s fairly common in some fields, such as accounting, manufacturing, human resources, procurement and IT, but not as common when it comes to maintenance and asset management. It has it’s advantages and risks and must be approached carefully.
Read more “Should we outsource”
Blog
This article first appeared in PEM magazine, April / May 2014. PEM is now incorporated into MRO Magazine. I’ve updated it with the benefit of another 5 years experience dealing with this very problem.
In my client work I find myself helping many companies who have tried, yet failed to improve their performance in maintenance and reliability. For those that are making their second (or more) attempt there are many reasons for the failures, some technical, may related to company culture and, almost always, things were done on the cheap and rushed. Read more “Silver bullets can backfire!”
Blog
In 2014, at an IMEC conference organized by the University of Toronto, Art Rice of Maintenance Technology Magazine said that in many cases “Lean is a form of Anorexia”. He was right then, and he is still right today.
When I heard him, I realized that in many cases where I’ve seen attempts at “lean manufacturing” the lean really means “understaffed”. In those cases some of the lean manufacturing tools have been implemented, often with the help of outside expert help but lean results haven’t occurred. The introduction of “lean” in those companies was yet another attempt to cut costs without any deep thought as to what caused the high costs before introducing “lean”. Read more “Lean or Industrial Anorexia”
Asset Management
Many of you may be surprised to learn that Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was actually developed with cost cutting in mind! Aircraft maintenance costs were huge. For example the Douglas DC-8-32 aircraft (a four engine narrow body jet liner built from 1958 to 1967 that carried 150 passengers) required upwards of 4,000,000 man hours of maintenance work for only 20,000 hours of flying time! Read more “Myth busting 28: RCM is expensive”
Asset Management
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was developed in the airline industry to be used for developing maintenance programs for new aircraft. There’s no doubting it – originally RCM was intended for new designs and arguably where the results of failure could be catastrophic, specifically the loss of life and where costs of maintaining had grown ridiculously high. Read more “Myth busting 27: RCM is only for new assets”
Asset Management
Maintenance and finance may not seem like natural “allies” in the battles for business achievement. However, they share common concerns and can both do a lot of good – albeit from behind the scenes. Financial managers, directors and CFOs are primarily concerned with company financial performance. They are often the watchdogs for regulatory compliance. They are in an excellent position to see what’s going on, and spotting problem areas, but not always what to do about them. Like all of us, their expertise only goes so far. Read more “The bottom line”
Asset Management
We are often asked about the impact of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) on equipment maintenance for industrial companies. When it comes to repairs, we don’t anticipate that much will change because of the IIoT, except in identifying when repairs are needed. Making systems safe after they’ve suffered failures and taking things apart and replacing components will always require human intervention. In the area of proactive maintenance however, we see a big impact and huge potential benefits. Read more “IIoT for Predictive Maintenance and Big Data”
