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Feature Article:
Maintenance
Scorecards - You Cannot Manage What You Cannot Measure
by Michael Cowley, CPMM
Scorecards offer an easy way to track and evaluate maintenance
effectiveness. Here's how to put them to work in any environment.
Note:
This newsletter version of "Maintenance Scorecards" has been
shortened for use here. Please click here to read the entire article.
Maintenance
is beyond the days when it was called to action only when equipment failed.
Facility managers know that maintenance plays a key role not only in
equipment uptime, but in production and overall efficiency. Nonetheless, it
can be difficult to determine the real effectiveness of even top
maintenance crews without a way to measure what they do, how well they do
it, and how their actions further company goals.
A
measurement technique many pros use is the Maintenance Scorecard.
Maintenance scorecards either in electronic format or actual cards marked
by hand are used for two main reasons: first, to measure performance
against established goals; and second, to help justify obtaining additional
resources to assist a maintenance team on its mission of continuous
improvement. Both of these are critical to maintaining staff and capital
expenditure levels.
Over the
years I have used maintenance scorecards to justify the following:
- Capital expenditures when equipment
maintenance costs were rising
- Additional overtime hours and pay for PM and PdM
work
- Increased maintenance training
- Contractor assistance when backlog man-hours were
increasing
- Hiring planner/schedulers to improve maintenance
efficiency
- Increased stock when downtime waiting on parts
became a concern
- PdM programs based on savings from equipment
history of failures
- Component or system reengineering based
on history of repeat failures
Prerequisites
If maintenance scorecards are to assist in measuring maintenance
performance and justify equipment expenses, they must be rooted in
objective, detailed information. A key part of the information gathering
process involves use of a properly installed and maintained CMMS
(Computerized Maintenance Management System) or EAM (Enterprise Asset
Management) software. The operation of the CMMS/EAM must be disciplined and
driven by the passion that leads the overall maintenance improvement initiative.
Basic information categories include:
- Maintenance labor: All work assignments completed
by the maintenance team must be captured by the CMMS.
- Maintenance repair parts and supply costs:
Capturing the cost of all maintenance parts and supplies associated
with each work order is as important as knowing the cost of
maintenance labor.
- Contractor costs: Contractor costs can be
significant and, sometimes, hidden.
Key
maintenance scorecards
There are hundreds of potential scorecard measurements available to a
maintenance team. And while every industry likely will have unique
measurements and scorecards, those explained below are the top scorecards,
with applications in all industries and in most facilities. They include:
- Backlog
- Machine downtime/uptime
- Work distribution
- Interrupt
- Schedule effectiveness and compliance
- Percent PM work
- Pareto analysis of interrupts and downtime
- Cost of maintenance vs. ERV
- Cost savings
- Inventory control
With
scorecards, it's key to remember that they must be meaningful to the
maintenance team and, ultimately, to management. To get started in the
scorecard business, you must have a vehicle in place to provide the
information necessary to properly measure all aspects of the maintenance
function. A properly installed and maintained CMMS/EAM is essential to this
process. And if you take only one thing away from reading this article let
it be this: "You cannot manage what you cannot measure."
Mike
Cowley is president of CE Maintenance Solutions, LLC, an industrial
maintenance consulting company based in Buffalo Junction, VA. Mike's
experience includes over 30 years in production maintenance and facility
engineering. He can be reached at 434-378-8484 or mike@cemaintenancesolutions.com.
Visit www.cemaintenancesolutions.com for
more information or click here for info on upcoming
training courses, including their "Smarter Asset Management"
seminar next week in Baltimore.
For Mike's
complete article, please click here.
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