by R.T. “Chris” Christensen

We all are looking for the most cost-effective way to have the most reliable facilities while, at the same time, minimizing the total maintenance cost of the operation.

Many companies place this challenge among the objectives of their maintenance manager. Nothing to it, right?

The easy way to accomplish this is to stop producing anything. Shut down all of the equipment and then it won’t break or need repair. Problem solved. You have eliminated the entire maintenance cost of operation and have aggressively achieved your maintenance cost-reduction goal.

The second choice is to never repair anything and let the equipment fall into total ruin. This is how Dilbert might do it.

But, obviously, neither of these two options is acceptable.

If you choose Option 1, you’d be out of business. If you choose Option 2, a run-it-until-it-dies mentality consumes the plant and equipment, all to meet the objective of reduced cost.

You and I know that these are totally bizarre approaches to maintenance, and no one in their right mind would even consider doing something like this. But nevertheless, I see companies challenge their maintenance managers to do just that. Reduce costs. Consume the plant, wear it out to get the revenue, and we’ll worry about fixing it later. Or, there’s the all-too-common, “I’ll let my successor figure out how to get the equipment back in order. I got the savings on my resume and am on to bigger and better things.”

Can we have it both ways — reduced maintenance costs and improved equipment?

There is a concept that just might accomplish both tasks. It’s CMM, or Condition Maintenance Management. If you look at CMM, understand it and implement the philosophy, you can, as they say, light both ends of the candle.

Condition Maintenance Management is a way of doing business. It’s a way to look at your equipment and implement a maintenance program that actually contributes to the equipment’s welfare. You don’t just repair the equipment and fix it when it fails. CMM goes beyond this. It goes beyond TPM, PM and all the other maintenance tasks that you perform.

In CMM, you look at the equipment and, through the use of diagnostic tools, determine the condition of the equipment. Conditional maintenance states that you move from a reactive environment to a proactive environment in your approach to equipment maintenance.

Simplistically speaking, using an automobile example, this means that even though the maintenance schedule or PM calls for 7,500 miles between oil changes and 15,000 miles between filter changes, you up the maintenance schedule in order to change the oil and filter every 3,000 miles. I don’t know about you, but I do this. In the last 20 or so years that I’ve doing this, I’ve never had a problem with any component in any of my cars that relies on engine oil for lubrication and cooling. And, I routinely get more than 200,000 miles on my cars (263,000 miles on my VW Sirocco). I manage the equipment for the long haul. By doing this, I’ve reduced the maintenance cost and increased equipment life.

This is CMM, a philosophy of maintaining the equipment for the long haul. You spend your money up front on predictive maintenance, proactive maintenance, noise analysis, vibration analysis, infrared analysis and ultrasound. CMM means that you identify the cause of the problem before it becomes a problem. And if there is a problem, you resolve it there and then. By doing so, you maintain the equipment at a high level.

And, do you know what? Like my car, you will get the 200,000 miles out of your equipment. By maintaining the equipment before there is a problem, you will, in fact, significantly reduce your maintenance costs. You will meet the goal of reduced maintenance costs. But, most importantly, you will get the cost reductions, too. You will generate revenues beyond anything you have seen. Why? Because the equipment runs at optimum levels with virtually no unplanned outages. That equipment will deliver at a high volume and at an exceptional quality level for your products.

CMM lowers maintenance costs, increases yields, improves ongoing quality levels, and minimizes unscheduled and costly downtime. Take a look at the philosophy.

If you want to chat about CMM in further detail, send me an e-mail or give me a call.

R.T. "Chris" Christensen is the director of the University of Wisconsin School of Business' operations management program. If you have a question, contact Coach Christensen by phone at ore-mail . 

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