Every year 200,000 people leave the U.S. military service. Now, not all are suited for manufacturing or maintenance careers. I would say a small percentage of them intend to jump right into manufacturing by design. Yet, many end up falling into manufacturing careers after their transition, like I did. Why is that?
In today’s highly competitive markets, organisations are strongly looking to achieve strategic objectives to meet stakeholder needs and smart returns on investment. Managing assets and equipment optimally has become crucial for organisations to stay competitive in today’s global market. Such a demand places enormous pressure on maintenance systems to improve efficiency and reduce operational costs. Therefore, it has become imperative for maintenance managers to adopt tools, methods, and concepts that could stimulate performance growth, minimize errors, and utilize resources effectively to transform the organization into a winner.
Choosing a model for maintenance and engineering projects, problem solving, process improvement or business change scenarios can become confusing with many models on offer. So, how do you get the best out of what is available, and why use just one?
When looking at HVAC units for K-12 schools, it is important to install a system that will create the optimal learning environment. Installing a single-room, single-packaged vertical unit (SPVU) ventilator provides important benefits that will keep the air fresh, clean and safe for students. These units are installed in individual classrooms, so they can be adjusted to optimize and address individual needs. Since these operate within a single room, unit ventilators eliminate cross-contamination. Airborne pathogens, such as the flu virus or RSV, will be contained within that room.
So, let’s start with my hypothesis that TPM drives all three elements of OEE, namely: machine availability, speed and quality. Traditionally as a Maintenance Leader and then Operational Excellence (OpEx) leader in paper mills and packaging manufacturing plants, my focus was all about machine availability. If the machine was running, it belonged to operations and I could focus on writing PMs, improving RCM and building Gantt charts for my next planned outage. However, experience has taught me that just focusing on availability is missing 2/3 of the opportunity to improve business by not embracing the entire OEE metric through maintenance action.
In 2023, speed and accuracy are driving forces in the facilities management industry, to keep costs low, track and maintain assets and mechanicals and be always compliant. To do this, you need technology that’s easy to use and affordable. Using paper-based floor plans, maps, blueprints that are usually dog eared, stained, and filed away where nobody can find them is a recipe for disaster.
There are three significant trends that are causes of concern for the real estate industry and large enterprises globally in 2023. While most of these are common problems real estate owners and operators encounter, they threaten the very existence of such businesses during economic downturns. How do they keep themselves afloat and profitable? Real estate owners and operators are turning to technology solutions to find ways to curb spend and improve bottomline in 2023 and beyond.
If you are managing a large facility using blueprint floor plans and spreadsheets to track assets, this article is for you. If, the last time you had a water leak during off hours and it took the emergency repair tech a half hour to get to it after wading thru paper maps, this is for you. If your HVAC repair technician got lost on the roof while looking for unit #34 that required maintenance, this might be useful. If your employees have your facilities management team on speed dial, then this was written for you.
When I moved into the civilian world of continuous process manufacturing in the USA, I saw no reason to change my methods or philosophy when it came to ensuring we had a mission like focus to ensuring our plant and machinery had maximum availability, to run at maximum speed and to produce first quality product ‘right first time every time. Thus, for me, mission focus turned into the three elements of business focus described in Overall Equipment Efficiency OEE, i.e. availability, quality and speed.
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Torbjorn Idhammar is the blog manager for MaintenanceWorld.com.
A maintenance and reliability management consultant, Torbjorn has spent 25+ years in the profession and provides advice to clients around the world.
Natalie Johnson is the site administrator for MaintenanceWorld.com.
She is responsible for reviewing submitted content for the site and ensuring that it provides value to the readers of the site.
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