From lowering operating costs to boosting efficiency and reducing the risk of costly or dangerous equipment failures, the ability to reliably measure the performance of critical equipment and systems can be very important when it comes to managing a successful business. But simply measuring everything won’t necessarily help you manage your business any better. Without a plan in place for how, what, and when to measure, you can end up no better off than when you started. For instance, measuring the wrong things, or having too many measures can lead to confusion about what’s really important, which can lead to wasted time, money and energy. In order to run an effective preventative maintenance program, try following these principles of performance measurement:
Don’t Game the System
The whole idea of measuring performance is to identify weaknesses so they can be improved. But all too often, easy performance measures are set up to just make the company look good, without actually exposing and improving problem areas. This can be done by omitting things like short stops start-up and shutdown losses. But while this might make your operation look good on paper, it can lead to serious losses and problems down the road. To get the most out of your measures, you need to be willing to confront maintenance issues head-on.
Coordinate Maintenance and Production
When one area of your organization negatively impacts another, the whole organization will feel the burden. For instance, if production is forced to meet quotas and deadlines that conflict with maintenance schedule compliance, or if maintenance is responsible for handling the cost of maintenance and repairs, but has no control over the activities that cause the defects and failures in the first place, you can end up with costly inefficiencies throughout your organizational structure. That’s why it is important to integrate maintenance into your production plan, rather than keeping them in separate silos.
Keep Your Measures Current and Available
Operations run better when everyone is on the same page. When performance measures are not kept up to date, people tend to underestimate their importance or lose interest. Similarly, if your measures are displayed only in a manager’s office and are not made available to employees, you’ll create an ‘out of sight out of mind’ mentality towards maintenance.
Make Maintenance Important
In order to get any value out of your preventive maintenance program, your measures have to be important to your employees. If you want to change your employees’ attitude and behavior toward maintaining your equipment and systems, you have to engage them in a culture of improvement. If they have little or no incentive to put in the extra work involved in preventive maintenance, it is natural for them to ignore it. That is why it is important to give them a sense of purpose and control by inviting them to participate in the development or enhancement of any preventive maintenance program.
Research Available Methods
Finally, there are a number of available methods and techniques for measuring and diagnosing equipment and systems. So, it is crucial that you look into the available options, and learn exactly what you need before jumping into a whole new preventive maintenance regimen. Talk to a professional today, and find out how you can boost efficiency and save valuable time and money with a strategic, common sense preventive maintenance plan.