Challenges facing maintenance management departments in industry

The paper “Challenges Facing Maintenance Management Departments in Industry” is a pathetic example of a case study on management. The term ‘maintenance’ means to keep something in its operational condition or repair it so that it is brought back to its operational mode. Very few people appreciate the idea of concentrating on and regularly maintaining their equipment. Operating costs and availability of plant equipment are the most important things that contribute to profitable performance. Therefore, maintenance management is a critical part of each and every industry successfully existing today.
The facilities that exist in a company are its important assets which require regular maintenance for their orderly and proper working. The main objective involving maintenance management in the industry is to ensure increased availability of production systems and/or any equipment that exists in an organization. Maintenance management involves managing the tasks of maintaining all equipment in an organization with increased safety and optimized costs.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, maintenance has been a challenging task. Organizations have seen tremendous damages/losses as a result of lack of concentration on managing the maintenance of their assets. Therefore, the Maintenance Management Department (MMD) is responsible for performing this function. This task is not simple and the MMD faces various types of challenges in performing its role.
Significant improvements and progress have been made since then in order to maintain equipment in an effective manner on the field. Equipment and plant designs are becoming much more sophisticated, expensive and complex, day by day. (University of Central Queensland n.d.). To cope up with these technological advancements, the MMD faces even more challenging situations to maintain such equipment in the industrial environment.
The Roles and Benefits of Maintenance Management Department
A successful MMD must ensure a system which has an Effective Maintenance Policy, Material Controlling. It must also ensure Preventive Maintenance, Plan Jobs, Control Priority and Backlog, Record Data and carry out Performance Measurement. The MMD aims to achieve reliability as its prime goal. This aim poses numerous challenges for this department. If the MMD does not function aptly, reliability is affected which in turn also affects the availability, efficiency, and quality of any equipment in use (Blann 1999). The material management department needs to track Overall Equipment effectiveness (OEE), which constitutes of three major components (FacilitiesNet Staff n.d.):
1. Availability of the equipment under its management. This can be determined in terms of the percentage of time the equipment is ready to work i.e. the uptime of the equipment.
2. Utilization of the equipment in terms of the rating that is provided by the manufacturer making the equipment. This should be recorded by the MMD so that regular maintenance can be carried out once the utilization is complete.
3. The quality rate determining the quality of work performed by the equipment when it operates.
If the MMD performs this function well, this can deliver huge benefits to the organization. It allows the MMD to determine delays and interruptions before hand and reduce the amount of the equipment downtime. MMD also needs to ensure proper training of staff to enable them to perform their tasks with expertise.
The MMD is responsible for the collection of data related to the equipment in order to generate regular reports and keep track of history (for their maintenance) (University of Central Queensland n.d.). Since the prime goal of MMD is achieving reliability, it must ensure the availability of the required skilled staff. MMD must also carry out manpower scheduling (Descon Engineering – Plant Maintenance 2009) i.e. resource assignment and time management (Techno Trade 2010). Proper training of the workforce is also ensured by this department.
Integrated alarm management practices are implemented by the MMD by using the Computerized Maintenance Management System to perform long distance plant management and their history tracking (Marvan n.d.). This proactive approach of the MMD towards maintenance enables it to achieve reduced maintenance backlog i.e. the accumulation of maintenance work over time. This, in turn, reduces the overtime work since regular maintenance has been taking place. The problems are determined before hand and the maintenance and repair costs go down. There is lesser paperwork and follow ups by supervisors is reduced (FacilitiesNet Staff n.d.).
Other Advantages
Proper maintenance management allows easy error spotting since the goals and objectives of employees are well stated in the department’s policy. The resource waste is reduced enabling greater efficiencies and profits.
The proactive approach being followed by the MMD actually does a lot good to the organization. Safety level in the organization is also brought up. Regular data collection examines the risk of all potential hazards and finding ways of dealing with them before they pose any risks. (What Are the Benefits of Maintenance Management? n.d.)