One of the scariest topics ever touched by manufacturing or maintenance management is operator performed maintenance (OPM). The basic concept is accepted by consultants and top managers throughout the manufacturing world: The people most familiar with equipment are generally the operators. Given their familiarity with the equipment, they should be important partners in maintaining the equipment. With appropriate training they should be able to perform simple maintenance operations, especially those that are required frequently.

The web version of Plant Services contains an update of the November issue's Strategic Maintenance column, "Consider the Motor's Life." The correction comes thanks to Rich Gushman, a loyal reader from Longview, Washington. Rich pointed out a payback error in the original version of the chart below.  Here is the updated chart, along with a couple of additional points about taking advantage of the Energy Independence Security Act (EISA) motor opportunity.

At the Ultrasound World VII Conference last May I got a great reminder during a discussion of root cause analysis (RCA). One of the speakers, wish I could remember who, said that any RCA process that doesn't end with solving the root cause of a failure sends the wrong message to the organization. Boy was he right.

There are a lot of manufacturing organizations suffering as a result of Sandy's rampage over the Eastern Seaboard last week. Some are dealing with damage to plants and equipment. Others face utility outages and other problems. Still more are stymied by shipping delays for incoming material and outgoing products. It's a mess, and at this writing another storm threatens the East Coast.

While we at Plant Services were talking about mother nature's latest sucker punch, the following message came in. It's from VibrAlign, a laser alignment firm in Richmond, VA (vibralign.com):

There is no more frustrating job than maintenance, at least as it is practiced in most of the shops I have visited. Lack of planning, surprise breakdowns, poor communication, and Murphy himself all conspire to keep tradespeople from doing the work they come in to do every day. It is common for wrench time, as a percentage of paid time, to be in the low 30 percent range at the beginning of an improvement effort. By the time the department reaches the 60 percent range, they are sneaking up on world class performance.

Nowhere does the old saying about draining the swamp when you have alligators nipping at your tail apply more intensely than it does in maintenance. Moreover, most of us in maintenance value that intensity and try to bring it to our work. We just have to channel the energy, not let it channel us.

Back in the early days of American JIT manufacturing, a colleague asked me what would be the proper number of inventory turns for car parts going into an auto assembly plant we were overhauling. Back then magic numbers were, for me at least, much more important than they are now. This was a Big 3 plant, so magic numbers were important to them, too.

One of the many services our production equipment will perform for us, if we let it, is self-scheduling maintenance. If we fail to pay adequate attention to operating conditions of our equipment the equipment will notify us of the need for repairs. These repairs and production losses will cost something like five times what planned maintenance would have, and the notification will come with zero advance warning, but otherwise the service is free of charge.

Maintenance performance upgrades are becoming common these days. The improvements may come from several directions: Reliability is becoming better understood and respected. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is driving some of the efforts by raising expectations of equipment performance. Popularization of leading maintenance indicators and easy-to-use condition based tools are also making it clear that new levels of reliability and equipment life are attainable.

Some of your editorial staff just returned from three days at Houston and the 41st Turbomachinery Symposium. It really was fun to see the contrast between the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago and the more academic gatherings in Houston. Both shows are stunning tours de force in their respective fields.