Lean Maintenance By Kevin Saunders  A recent blog site featured a question from a maintenance supervisor asking the question "What is Lean Maintenance?"  Various responders attempted to answer the question.  One response read, "it's nothing but a company wide TPM".  Another said, "the idea is to move as much of the maintenance to the machine operators as possible".  And one response was less hopeful stating that, "it's about cutting manpower and you better make sure you know what the guy is doing before you let him go". Lean Maintenance Defined “Lean Manufacturing cannot happen in a factory that lacks dependable, effective equipment.” from TPM for the Lean Factory; Ken’ichi Sekine, Bridgestone Tire Corporation Lean Maintenance is quite simply the application of lean principles in a maintenance environment.  That application of principles must happen in two ways.  The first addresses the quote above, maintenance must be able to support a lean production operation.  In lean environments, the reliability of our systems is critical, because we don't build in costly capacity in excess of requirements.  Equipment downtime removes capacity from our systems, and can never be recaptured.  Secondly, the principles of lean must be applied to the maintenance organization itself.  Too often the only involvement a maintenance organization has in a lean effort is to make the necessary changes requested by production.  The valuable tools and methods are never applied to processes, procedures, equipment, material, and transportation in the maintenance organization.   Reducing Costs and Improving Reliability  There are two ways to reduce maintenance costs and improve equipment reliability. Identify and Eliminate Maintenance Defects - resulting in less items to work on and less man hours needed to expend for this activity allowing more time for proactive activity Improve the Efficiency of the Workforce - do more with the same resources, improve 'Wrench Time', use good planning and scheduling practices, and give the craftsmen the tools, materials, and procedures needed to do their jobs.  In other words, waste must be reduced or eliminated.  In a typical maintenance operation sources of waste include outdated procedures, overstocked & underused inventory of equipment, material, and parts, as well as wasted time, wasted labor, wasted transportation.  A recent study showed that up to 60% of wasted maintenance labor results from activities that add no value to the overall performance measurements of the plant.   Reasons for Waste   One might jump to the conclusion at this point to say that the reason a maintenance organization is inefficient is because the craftsmen intentionally waste a lot of time.  Not True.  Let's take a look at the seven forms of waste in lean and how they translate to a maintenance operation: Overproduction - one example would be performing obsolete PM's or performing PM's at a frequency more often than needed Waiting - waiting for tools, parts, drawings, usually a result of poor planning and scheduling Transportation - an example would be traveling to get parts and materials repeatedly including repeat trips to a poorly organized storeroom Extra Processing - in a reactive maintenance mode, repairs are done to restore production as quick as possible and follow up repairs are usually needed because a high quality repair was not done Inventory - in a storeroom needed materials are not 100% in supply and obsolete materials are significant, secret inventories are stored throughout the plant Motion - completing PM tasks that do not add value Defects - improperly performed repair work because instructions were not clear or root cause analysis was not done Lean Maintenance Tools So what are the tools of lean that will help address these and other wasted activities in the maintenance organization?  These lean tools can be successfully applied to create a culture of Lean Maintenance and improve the efficiency of the maintenance function: Value Stream Mapping  Total Productive Maintenance Overall Equipment Effectiveness 5S Implementation Establishment of Standard Work Visual Management tools and techniques  Mistake-Proofing techniques Reliability Kaizens Lean Maintenance Applied You will find that changing from a reactive to a proactive maintenance strategy is made easier when a preliminary focus is applied to eliminating waste in the maintenance delivery and management system.  Adopting and maintaining a culture of lean in your maintenance organization takes discipline and a commitment all are not willing to make.  But for those that do, they will achieve bottom line results.

In addition to  Maintenance and Reliability Services, TAG provides   Lean Consulting Services, Project Management, Engineering & Technical Support, Training Services, and Architectural & Design Services.  Call us toll free at 877-824-3647 or visit  www.tag.bz for more information. About the Author: Kevin Saunders is Vice President of Client Services and Business Development with The ACCESS Group. Kevin has over 25 years of experience in management, marketing, and program development. Kevin has also held various management positions where he had responsibility for operations and facility management. Kevin has worked in many different capacities with client companies such as Nissan, Ford, Volvo, GE, Bosch, Tower, AO Smith, Dana, Olin Corp., Parker Hannifin, and American Greetings. Kevin has a BS degree in business from the University of Tennessee and has completed numerous courses in Lean principles and methodologies.