5

SYMPTOMS YOUR
MAINTENANCE STRATEGY
NEEDS OPTIMIZING
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Page 3

SYMPTOM 1 Page 4
Increase in unplanned maintenance

SYMPTOM 2 Page 5
Rising maintenance costs

SYMPTOM 3 Page 6
Excessive variation in output

SYMPTOM 4 Page 7
Strategy sticks to OEM recommendation

SYMPTOM 5 Page 8
An inconsistent approach

SUMMARY Page 9

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 2

INTRODUCTION

When you are sick, you visit the doctor. There, a simple but effective series of
assessments are performed to evaluate your current condition. The doctor takes
note of your symptoms – high fever, itchy eyes, upset stomach – and diagnoses the
flu. From this diagnosis, appropriate treatment is prescribed.
Just as doctors are trained to connect the dots to diagnose
and treat an illness, maintenance teams in mining and
other industries should know how to identify the symptoms
of a poor maintenance strategy so they can then set a path
to recovery – that is, to an optimized maintenance strategy.

The diagnosis and treatment is worth it. Without an effective

maintenance strategy in place, companies experience:

• Recurring problems with equipment

• Budget blow-outs from costly fixes to
broken equipment
• Unplanned downtime that has a flow-
on effect on production
• Using equipment that is not performing at 100%
• Risk of safety and environmental incidents
• Risk of catastrophic failure and major events

These costly effects can be avoided.

The primary question in diagnosing the health of your

maintenance strategy is a simple one. Does your
maintenance strategy need optimizing?
Ideally, it is already optimized. Perhaps it was, but is in need
of a tune-up. Or, as is the case in many companies, there
are endemic symptoms that lead to the effects listed above.
In these cases, there is much to gain by working through
maintenance strategy optimization.
To identify where your company’s maintenance strategy
sits on the spectrum, you can perform a simple self-
assessment that looks for the most common symptoms,
which are described in detail in this guide. If the symptoms
are evident, then there is a strong business case to invest in
maintenance strategy optimization.

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 3

SYMPTOM 1
Increase in unplanned maintenance

A sure sign that your maintenance strategy is not working is the simple fact
that you are performing more “unplanned” maintenance, which is caused by
an increase in the occurrence of breakdowns.

The simple truth is that more breakdowns occur

when a maintenance strategy is not optimized.
Optimal maintenance strategies are designed to keep
known failure modes under control, and to reduce the
more costly unplanned work. Conversely, in a reactive
mode, maintenance is applied too soon or too late,
resulting in a chain reaction of poor maintenance and
more breakdowns.

Once you slip into the domain of reactive

maintenance, you start spending much more than
you should. Unplanned maintenance can cost two to
three times more than planned maintenance – due
to the cost impacts of supply logistics, lower labor
utilization and the associated downtime, loss of
production and failure effects.

By not making a repair when it is cost-effective – that

is, during the proactive maintenance phase – you
face higher repair costs down the track. And, with
more unplanned work, maintenance budgets are
consumed faster, so there is less to spend on repairs
or proactive maintenance. The problem worsens.

Monitoring the level of planned vs unplanned

maintenance is a very important step in measuring Unplanned maintenance should
comprise of less than 15%
the effectiveness of your maintenance strategy. Source: http://www.maintenancebenchmarking.com/best_
practice_maintenance.htm

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 4

SYMPTOM 2
Rising maintenance costs

In companies that apply best practice maintenance strategy optimization,

total maintenance costs are flat or slightly decreasing month-on-month.
These optimized strategies combine preventative tasks with various
inspection and root cause elimination tasks – which in turn produces the
lowest cost solution.
Thus, another key symptom of an under-optimized
maintenance strategy is an increase in total maintenance
costs. The rise in costs is caused because the condition
of your equipment is deteriorating as defects go
unattended and degradation mechanisms continue.

When reviewing your maintenance cost performance,

remember that the assessment can present a “false
positive” if the cost has fallen due to an arbitrary budget
cut. Many companies, when seeking ways to reduce
operational costs, cut back on the cost of planned
maintenance. This line item in the budget is not a fixed
input or overhead – instead, it’s a figure that can easily
be varied.

Globally, maintenance can be subject to intense cost restrictions. In some industries, the
direct maintenance cost comprises up to 50% of discretional costs, so it is easy to see
why some managers use maintenance as a budget lever. Yet, reducing spend on planned
maintenance has a boomerang effect –one which can take some time to come back and
negatively impact the company.

By reducing the amount of planned maintenance, you

will inevitably experience a significant increase in costs
associated with reactive repairs, equipment failure and
lost production. These effects accumulate over time and
begin to snowball.

For your immediate assessment, if maintenance costs

have fallen, it is crucial to identify whether it is due
to this false positive effect – that is, a cut in planned
maintenance – or because of optimized maintenance.

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 5

SYMPTOM 3
Excessive variation in output

A simple definition of the reliability of any process is that it does the same
thing every day. In other words, equipment should run at nameplate
capacity day in and day out. When it doesn’t, this is an indication that some
portion of the maintenance strategy is misaligned and not fully effective.
Production variance is one of the most common
issues faced by operations managers. There are two
key types: major variance at low frequency; and minor
variance at high frequency.

Consider this typical scenario of major variance.

Production targets are met on day one, but then
something breaks (called a “crash and burn” event)
and production is cut back on day two whilst repairs
are made. On day three, the production output climbs
back up again, and so on.

This “seesaw” in production is endemic in companies

that lack an optimized maintenance strategy. Crash
and burn events indicate gaps in the maintenance
strategy – it does not cover the failure mode(s) that
result in the breakdown event.

Minor variance is like a persistent illness. When you

have a long-term illness, you do not run at 100%.
For equipment and operations, this manifests as an
increasing number of days when production output
fails to meet targets.

A simple examination of the reliability of the process

will diagnose if these conditions exist. A process
reliability graph helps here – particularly for the crash
and burn events (as indicated in red in this graph).
These graphs are quick and easy to build, and can be
trended over time, or compared to similar equipment
and operations. Using the data, operations and
maintenance teams should work together to optimize
maintenance strategies and attain steady-state
production that meets realistic output goals.

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 6

SYMPTOM 4
Strategy sticks to OEM recommendation

Sticking to the maintenance schedule prescribed by Original Equipment

Manufacturers (OEMs) may seem like a good starting point for new
equipment. But it’s only that – a starting point. There are many reasons
why you should create your own optimized maintenance strategy soon after
implementation.
In many cases, OEMs have never maintained their equipment
in the field. They are not a reliable source of truth about how
to maintain equipment – particularly as it relates to your
unique environment.

Further, some manufacturers price their spare parts at five

times the market value, and use their OEM maintenance
recommendations to enhance their aftermarket sales
volume of spare parts.

Given the commercial hazards and putting them aside, OEMs

cannot take into account your specific operational goals,
your operating environment, the quality of your maintenance
practices and the rate at which your equipment ages. Things
change, and the OEM specifications should only provide one
source of information in your maintenance strategy.

OEMs produce a single maintenance manual for a piece

of equipment – it’s not their job to supply an “optimal
recommendation” for every unique application of a piece of
equipment.

Thus, a clear symptom of an under-optimized maintenance

strategy is where you stick with the OEM maintenance
strategy. On the flip side, an optimized maintenance strategy
evaluates the maintenance needs of a piece of equipment at
any point in time, and in its particular context.

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 7

SYMPTOM 5
An inconsistent approach

Consistency implies lack of deviation. And this implies standardization. When

it comes to maintenance strategies, standardization is essential.

For any given asset type, the mechanisms of failure and the
tasks to address them are consistent. At a very simple level, SAME
the way in which we describe a particular task can also be MAINTENANCE
consistent. This key maintenance strategy information can STRATEGY
be used as the baseline for every instance of a particular
asset type, rather than being generated time and time again.

Of course, if you optimize a diesel generator for lowest

cost operation in the Arctic Circle, it is reasonable to
expect that the maintenance strategy will not perform
optimally if the unit is operated in a sandy hot desert. It
is obvious that variation is required for these two states
of temperature. However, the underlying baseline failure
mechanisms and mitigating tasks available are the same.
The temperature difference and operating context may well
change the likelihood of failure modes occurring, which can
then support changing the interval or inclusion of specific
maintenance tasks.

Yet this “deviation” argument gets used far too often, with
maintenance managers stating that their equipment is
“special” and hence warrants its own maintenance strategy.

It is important to monitor these variations or deviations and

ensure that only real variations are applied. The rest of the
machine should have the same maintenance strategy.

The value gained through a consistent approach is efficiency.

It supports the rapid deployment of any changes to baseline
strategies through to the actual asset types where relevant.
It also drives best practice through the review of baseline
changes of specific variations via appropriate subject matter
experts.

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 8

SUMMARY

The most obvious sign that your maintenance strategy isn’t working is that
you are spending more than anticipated on keeping your equipment up and
running. All of the symptoms outlined in this guide can manifest in a very
tangible diagnosis – financial losses through a fall in production or a rise in
safety and environmental issues from faulty equipment.
Across a range of industries, maintenance costs are one
of the biggest budgetary line items – so it is important to
seek out safe and reliable methods to reduce these costs.
This is what an optimal maintenance strategy is all about.

The first step is to identify whether your organization

suffers from the symptoms attributed to under-optimized
maintenance strategy, including:

– Unplanned maintenance of greater than 15%

(as per page 5)
– Rising maintenance costs
– Excessive variation in output
– No change to maintenance practices
– A lack of standardization

If your company suffers from any of these symptoms,

then it is important to identify ways to treat the problem.
“Recovery” is a matter of implementing solutions to
overcome these pain-points. In doing so, you will create
an optimized maintenance strategy – and you will find
that the improvements to profit and loss are substantial.

To learn more about the road to recovery, let’s start a conversation.

ENQUIRE NOW

5 Symptoms your Maintenance Strategy needs Optimizing Page 9