Operations + Maintenance = Production – Parts 1 through 5
Christer Idhammar, IDCON Inc.
Part 1
In this and following columns, I will elaborate concerning the vital relationship between operations, maintenance, and engineering. In this first column, I will focus on the relationship between operations and maintenance. I have written about this before, but the question has come up very frequently in the last year, so it is worth repeating some of the information.
From my experience, it is more common than not to find that the working relationship between operations and maintenance is one of adversity instead of a relationship of close and productive cooperation. Operations often sees itself as the customer of maintenance, and, consequently, maintenance is viewed as a service provider. In such a relationship, it should be obvious that operations is responsible for the cost of the maintenance work it requests and gets delivered. However, in a bad relationship, this is not the case. As long as maintenance work requests are performed, operations views maintenance as the good guys. But, if at the end of the year it shows that the maintenance budget is exceeded, it is not unusual to find the maintenance manager in the hot seat having to explain why more money than budgeted was spent. Continue reading →
Part 2
In the last column, I discussed joint goals and how to promote the operations/maintenance partnership through a different way of reporting and solving operations problems, as well as maintenance ones. In this and in the December article, I will continue to elaborate around the vital relationship between operations, maintenance, and engineering.
ESTABLISH THE RIGHT FOCUS. If you agree with the ideas presented in the August column—that the relationship between operations and maintenance should be a partnership, not a customer/supplier relationship—the next step in promoting this partnership is to establish the right focus in your joint improvement effort.
Continue reading →
Part 3
In the previous two columns, I discussed joint goals and how to promote the operations/maintenance partnership through a different way of reporting and solving operations as well as maintenance problems. In this article, I will continue to elaborate on the vital relationship between operations, maintenance, and engineering.
A JOINT VENTURE. One thing is to agree to that operations and maintenance are equal partners in a joint venture resulting in reliable production. Another thing is to make it happen, and, to make it happen, you need to do things differently than you have done in a customer-supplier relationship. For example, you should:    Continue reading →
Part 4
In the previous columns, I discussed joint goals and how to promote the vitally important operations/maintenance partnership through a different way of reporting and solving operations, as well as maintenance, problems. In this article, I will continue to elaborate on the very important relationship between operations, maintenance, and engineering.
PROMOTING PARTNERSHIPS. To make a partnership between maintenance and operations successful, you need to do things differently than you have done in a customer-supplier relationship. For example, you should:  Continue reading →
Part 5
In the previous columns, I discussed how to promote the vitally important operations/maintenance partnership. To find those columns, visit www.paperloop.com and look for back issues of Pulp & Paper. This is the last in my series of columns covering the operations/maintenance partnership, and it ends where it is more common to start a series like this with the vision and mission statements.
VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS.
As most of us know, vision and mission statements do not always exist, and, if they do exist, they are seldom well-communicated or understood. Not long ago, I sat in a meeting to discuss these statements with a group of operations and maintenance managers from a large international company, along with their vice president of manufacturing. After presenting the many different statements used in different plants, it all became very confusing. “Do we all understand the difference between vision and mission?” a frustrated manager asked. It showed that most people in the meeting could not clearly define the difference, yet they all had documented statements.   Continue reading →
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