As pointed out in previous installments of this series, deployed properly, operators can provide the most efficient and effective form of preventive maintenance in a plant. The key, however, is to change our thinking on this issue from the idea of operator “maintenance” to operator “care.” When we think “care” rather than “maintenance,” a completely different set of tasks and skills comes to mind. Such “care,” though, must be defined to focus on specific results as part of an overall equipment-improvement strategy. The subject of this installment, equipment-improvement teams and the power they offer, is certainly in line with that type of strategy.
TEAMWORK FOCUSED ON COMMON GOALS
The role of operator care in the bigger reliability improvement picture can be compelling. When the goals are reliability improvement in the quest for achieving profit and loss goals, market share, or customer satisfaction the gains can become tangible for all to see.
In many plants, teamwork is launched as a goal and operator care as an assistance to maintenance improvement. But that’s not enough. Teamwork and maintenance assistance as a means to a bigger goal makes much more business sense. Sustainable teamwork in action with operator care can be the culture change that achieves breakthrough results.
Almost 10 years ago, a manufacturing firm launched an innovative team approach to improving equipment performance using the fundamentals of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), which, was the origin of the operator-performed-maintenance concept back in the 1980s. Today, that manufacturer’s efforts continue to reap results. Let’s focus on how its teams were developed and deployed, with the operators playing a most critical role.
Critical equipment in known production flow bottleneck departments was identified along with performance history including work orders, productivity, quality, and delays. Equipment-improvement team (EIT) members were selected to represent the most experienced machine mechanics and electricians, lead operators, area supervisors, area managers, and production planners. The team meetings were initially facilitated by the quality control/employee-involvement director, and later by an “Equipment Improvement Team Leader.”
ROLE OF PRODUCTION PLANNERS
In past attempts to improve equipment maintenance, it became very difficult to maintain a regular preventive maintenance (PM) schedule. Such jobs were deferred or cancelled altogether in favor of sticking to the production schedule. The ensuing breakdowns and emergency repairs contributed to more scheduled reductions of PMs, along with more production overtime just to meet the production quotas.
Involvement of the production planner in the EITs was the key to breakthrough performance. Having this type of planner engaged in open discussions about pressing equipment problems and potential failures led to scheduled windows for planned maintenance work with minimal production interruption.
An added benefit was realized when the production planners met and discussed planned-maintenance needs in their overall daily production planning/scheduling meetings. Scheduled windows could easily be identified at critical machines when looking at upstream and downstream production flows.
ROLE OF THE OPERATORS
Machine operators were recognized as the front-line defense against production-stopping problems as well as accurate data collection. Rapid and sustainable improvements happened when the operators were engaged in the EIT discussions about the problems (and opportunities) they were seeing. Through these discussions, maintainers and supervisors could better understand the nature (and the causes) of the problems and develop the corrective actions whether repair, preventive, or equipment modification in nature.
Addressing Problem Areas: One of the most important tasks for operators was to keep an eye on known wear-causing and potential problem areas. Most often, this involved regular cleaning or removal of production-material debris buildup in the equipment. While compressed air was preferred for removing dusty buildup, it was discouraged in favor of vacuuming. Routinely removing grease, oil, and dried glue buildup also contributed to reduced downtime and improved quality.
Tagging Problems: Operators were the eyes and ears of maintenance. Using two-part “problem tags” (and “opportunity tags”) hung on the machines at or near points needing attention created a visual shift-to-shift communication tool for all to see where action was needed.
The other (second) part of the problem/opportunity tags would be posted on an EIT board at the machine and collected by the maintenance-team leader for review, questions, and converting to official work orders. When the issues on the tags were addressed, the two parts of the tags were stapled together, along with comments from the maintainers and placed in the “completed” pocket on the EIT board.
Problem (and opportunity) tag logs were maintained in spreadsheets by a designated person on the EIT. Each new tag was entered along with its completion date. Tags that went unresolved each week were annotated in the “comments” field. This would typically include “waiting for parts,” “in process,” “waiting for engineering,” etc.
Collecting Data: Operators, being on the front line, were best suited to identify the specific nature of equipment problems and the locations. Collecting data relating to machine performance proved most critical in improving equipment performance. The operators’ data collection was facilitated by a system that used machine-specific barcodes for known machine problems, a data base, visual electronic display, and printed reports.
Preparing the downtime-data-collection formats for each machine was a critical step. Equipment was divided up by section, a diagram of the machine prepared, problems typical to that section were listed, and a page of problem barcodes was produced for each section. When a downtime incident occurred, the machine sensor would indicate “down,” and the timer would start recording the duration. At any time during or after the downtime incident, the barcode could be scanned to log the nature of the problem.
Counting Inventory: Work in process (WIP) inventory count also played a key role in improving production flow and schedule compliance. Operators in bottleneck areas would verify the count of incoming and outgoing materials. Under counts in the incoming WIP were communicated to production planning and supervisors BEFORE starting the production run to assure that the planned production counts could be achieved. There were times when a 20,000-piece production order was scheduled but the incoming WIP only counted 12,000 parts, despite being labeled 20,000. This helped point to significant upstream production problems or errors.
Reporting Production Counts: Production reports also served as an invaluable tool to equipment improvement. Again, operators were asked to consistently and accurately log incoming and processed counts, quality defects/scrap, and reasons for delays.
The downtime and production reports were reviewed in the weekly EIT meetings as part of the root-cause and improvement discussions.
REGARDING THE EIT MEETINGS
Productive team meetings have a specific start and end time that are part of the work schedule for EIT members. Missing a meeting was highly discouraged by top management. In the beginning, the weekly EIT meetings were held to one hour. Problem (and opportunity) tag logs were reviewed, tag by tag, and the status noted, along with a likely completion date.
Next, the production report summaries were reviewed. Departures from the schedule were discussed, clarified, and plans to resolve were identified.Downtime reports for the week were then reviewed. Repetitive (chronic) problems were identified, along with new improvement plans. Progress on improvement plans already underway was also noted.
CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS
Sometimes, a new approach to equipment improvement is passively resisted only because it’s new and different. While this was not widespread there were pockets of resistance. For example, off-shift operators and supervisors found excuses for not having time to log problems or use the problem tags. Even though the day-shift lead operator and supervisor communicated with them at shift changeover, the involvement of the off-shift personnel tended to be sporadic in some areas of the plant.
One of the best driving forces to maintain the actions and results from the equipment-improvement teams came from top management. Macro-level equipment improvement progress was reviewed at the weekly management strategic planning meetings. The VP of manufacturing would also convene area-specific discussions with operators, supervisors, and maintainers at the critical machines when an extra nudge was needed. In addition, an occasional VP drop-in at EIT meetings was used to provide encouragement, show support, listen to concerns, and help boost team performance.
In conclusion, let me restate the basic call-to-action message that I’ve sought to convey throughout this series of discussions. It’s simple: Deploy operator care as part of an overall equipment-improvement strategy AND as part of the bigger equipment reliability-improvement effort, rather than as “autonomous” operator maintenance. Now, stay tuned for Part V on not forgetting about work instructions.TRR
Click The Following Links To Read Previous Columns In This Series:
“Operator-Performed Maintenance (Part I): Benefits And Barriers”
“Operator-Performed Maintenance (Part II): Focus On Results”
“Operator-Performed Maintenance (Part III): Enabling ‘Care’ With The Five Pillars Of TPM”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Williamson is a long-time contributor to the people-side of the world-class-maintenance and manufacturing body of knowledge across dozens of industry types. His background in maintenance, machine and tool design, and teaching has positioned his work with over 500 companies and plants, facilities, and equipment-oriented organizations. Contact him directly at 512-800-6031 or [email protected].
Tags: reliability, availability, maintenance, RAM, operator care, maintenance management, planning and scheduling
