SCOPE OF RESPONSIBILITIES

Unique though actual maintenance practice may be to a specific facility, a specific

industry, and a specific set of problems and traditions, it is still possible to group
activities and responsibilities into two general classifications: primary functions
that demand daily work by the maintenance function and secondary ones
assigned to the function for reasons of expediency, know how, or precedent.
Primary Functions
1. Maintenance of Existing Plant Equipment. This activity represents the
physical reason for the existence of the maintenance professional.
Responsibility here is simply to make necessary repairs to production
machinery quickly and economically and to anticipate these repairs and
employ preventive maintenance where possible to prevent them. For this, a
staff of skilled engineers, planners, and technicians who are capable of
performing the work must be trained, motivated, and constantly retained to
assure that adequate skills are available to perform effective maintenance.
2. Maintenance of Existing Plant Buildings and Grounds. The repairs to
buildings and to the external property of any plant—roads, railroad tracks, in
plant sewer systems, and water supply facilities are among the duties
generally assigned to the maintenance engineering group. Additional aspects
of buildings and grounds maintenance may be included in this area of
responsibility. Janitorial services may be separated and handled by another
section. A plant with an extensive office facility and a major building
maintenance program may assign this coverage to a special team. In plants
where many of the buildings are dispersed, the care and maintenance of this
large amount of land may warrant a special organization.
Repairs and minor alterations to buildings—roofing, painting, glass
replacement—or the unique craft skills required to service electrical or
plumbing systems or the like are most logically the purview of maintenance
engineering personnel. Road repairs and the maintenance of tracks and
switches, fences, or outlying structures may also be so assigned. It is
 important to isolate cost records for general cleanup from routine maintenance
and repair so that management will have a true picture of the true expense
required to maintain the plant and its equipment.
3. Equipment Inspection and Lubrication. Traditionally, all equipment
inspections and lubrication has been assigned to the maintenance
organization or function. While inspections that require special tools or partial
disassembly of equipment must be retained within the maintenance function,
the use of trained operators or production personnel in this critical task will
provide more effective use of plant personnel. The same is true of lubrication.
Because of their proximity to the production systems, operators are ideally
suited for routine lubrication tasks.
4. Utilities Generation and Distribution. In any plant generating its own
electricity and providing its own process steam, the powerhouse assumes the
functions of a small public utilities company and may justify an operating
department of its own. However, this activity logically falls within the realm of
maintenance engineering. It can be administered either as a separate function
or as part of some other function, depending on management’s requirements.
5. Alterations and New Installations. Three factors generally determine to what
extent this area involves the maintenance department: plant size, multi-plant
company size, company policy. In a small plant of a one plant company, this
type of work may be handled by outside contractors. But its administration and
that of the maintenance force should be under the same management. In a
small plant within a multi-plant company, the majority of new installations and
major alterations may be performed by a companywide central engineering
department. In a large plant a separate organization should handle the major
portion of this work. Where installations and alterations are handled outside
the maintenance engineering department, the company must allow flexibility
between corporate and plant engineering groups. It would be self defeating for
all new work to be handled by an agency separated from maintenance policies
and management.
ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE MAINTENANCE FUNCTION
Secondary Functions
1. Storekeeping. In most plants it is essential to differentiate between
mechanical stores and general stores. The administration of mechanical stores
normally falls within the maintenance engineering group’s area because of the
close relationship of this activity with other maintenance operations.
2. Plant Protection. This category usually includes two distinct subgroups:
guards or watchmen; fire control squads. Incorporation of these functions with
maintenance engineering is generally common practice. The inclusion of the
fire control group is important since its members are almost always drawn from
the craft elements.
3. Waste Disposal. This function and that of yard maintenance are usually
combined as specific assignments of the maintenance department.
4. Salvage. If a large part of plant activity concerns off grade products, a special
salvage unit should be set up. But if salvage involves mechanical equipment,
such as scrap lumber, paper, containers, and so on, it should be assigned to
maintenance.
5. Insurance Administration. This category includes claims, process equipment
and pressure vessel inspection, liaison with underwriters’ representatives, and
the handling of insurance recommendations. These functions are normally
included with maintenance since it is here that most of the information will
originate.
6. Other Services. The maintenance engineering department often seems to be
a catchall for many other odd activities that no other single department can or
wants to handle. But care must be taken not to dilute the primary
responsibilities of maintenance with these secondary services. Whatever
responsibilities are assigned to the maintenance engineering department, it is
important that they be clearly defined and that the limits of authority and
responsibility be established and agreed upon by all concerned.
 ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT
There are many elements of effective maintenance management whose effectiveness is
the key to the overall success of the maintenance activity. Many of these elements are
described below.

1. MAINTENANCE POLICY
A maintenance policy is one of the most important elements of effective maintenance
management. It is essential for continuity of operations and a clear understanding of the
maintenance management program, regardless of the size of a maintenance
organization. Usually, maintenance organizations have manuals containing items such
as policies, programs, objectives, responsibilities, and authorities for all levels of
supervision, reporting requirements, useful methods and techniques, and performance
measurement indices. Lacking such documentation, i.e., a policy manual, a policy
document must be developed containing all essential policy information.

2. MATERIAL CONTROL
Past experience indicates that, on average, material costs account for approximately 30
to 40% of total direct maintenance costs. Efficient utilization of personnel depends
largely on effectiveness in material coordination. Material problems can lead to false
starts, excess travel time, delays, unmet due dates, etc. Steps such as job planning,
coordinating with purchasing, coordinating with stores, coordination of issuance of
materials, and reviewing the completed job can help reduce material related problems.
Deciding whether to keep spares in storage is one of the most important problems of
material control.

3. WORK ORDER SYSTEM

A work order authorizes and directs an individual or a group to perform a given task. A
well-defined work order system should cover all the maintenance jobs requested and
accomplished, whether repetitive or one-time jobs. The work order system is useful for
management in controlling costs and evaluating job performance. Although the type and
size of the work order can vary from one maintenance organization to another, a work
 order should at least contain information such as requested and planned completion
dates, work description and its reasons, planned start date, labor and material costs,
item or items to be affected, work category (preventive maintenance, repair, installation,
etc.), and appropriate approval signatures.

4. EQUIPMENT RECORDS
Equipment records play a critical role in effectiveness and efficiency of the maintenance
organization. Usually, equipment records are grouped under four classifications:
a) maintenance work performed,
b) maintenance cost,
c) inventory, and
d) files.
The maintenance work performed category contains chronological
documentation of all repairs and preventive maintenance (PM) performed during the
item’s service life to date.
The maintenance cost category contains historical profiles and accumulations of
labor and material costs by item.
Usually, information on inventory is provided by the stores or accounting
department. The inventory category contains information such as property number, size
and type, procurement cost, date manufactured or acquired, manufacturer, and location
of the equipment/item.
The files category includes operating and service manuals, warranties, drawings,
and so on. Equipment records are useful when procuring new items/equipment to
determine operating performance trends, troubleshooting breakdowns, making
replacement or modification decisions, investigating incidents, identifying areas of
concern, performing reliability and maintainability studies, and conducting life cycle cost
and design studies
5. PREVENTIVE AND CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE
The basic purpose of performing PM is to keep facility/equipment in satisfactory
condition through inspection and correction of early-stage deficiencies. Three principle
factors shape the requirement and scope of the PM effort:
1. process reliability,
2. economics, and
3. Standards compliance.
A major proportion of a maintenance organization’s effort is spent on corrective
maintenance (CM). Thus, CM is an important factor in the effectiveness of maintenance
organization

6. JOB PLANNING AND SCHEDULING

Job planning is an essential element of the effective maintenance management. A
number of tasks may have to be performed prior to commencement of a maintenance
job; for example, procurement of parts, tools, and materials, coordination and delivery of
parts, tools, and materials, identification of methods and sequencing, coordination with
other departments, and securing safety permits.
Although the degree of planning required may vary with the craft involved and
methods used, past experience indicates that on average one planner is required for
every twenty craft-persons. Strictly speaking, formal planning should cover 100% of the
maintenance workload but emergency jobs and small, straightforward work
assignments are performed in a less formal environment. Thus, in most maintenance
organizations 80 to 85% planning coverage is attainable.
Maintenance scheduling is as important as job planning. Schedule effectiveness
is based on the reliability of the planning function. For large jobs, in particular those
requiring multi-craft coordination, serious consideration must be given to using methods
such as Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method
(CPM) to assure effective overall control.
7. BACKLOG CONTROL AND PRIORITY SYSTEM
The amount of backlog within a maintenance organization is one of the determining
factors of maintenance management effectiveness. Identification of backlogs is
important to balance manpower and workload requirements. Furthermore, decisions
concerning overtime, hiring, subcontracting, shop assignments, etc., are largely based
on backlog information. Management makes use of various indices to make backlog
related decisions.
The determination of job priority in a maintenance organization is necessary since it is
not possible to start every job the day it is requested. In assigning job priorities, it is
important to consider factors such as importance of the item or system, the type of
maintenance, required due dates, and the length of time the job awaiting scheduling will
take.

8. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
Successful maintenance organizations regularly measure their performance through
various means. Performance analyses contribute to maintenance department efficiency
and are essential to revealing the downtime of equipment, peculiarities in operational
behavior of the concerned organization, developing plans for future maintenance, and
so on. Various types of performance indices for use by the maintenance
ROLE OF MAINTENANCE ORGANIZATION

Too many maintenance organizations continue to pride themselves on how fast they
can react to a catastrophic failure or production interruption rather than on their ability to
prevent these interruptions. While few will admit their continued adherence to this
breakdown mentality, most plants continue to operate in this mode. Contrary to popular
belief, the role of the maintenance organization is to maintain plant equipment, not to
repair it after a failure. The mission of maintenance in a world-class organization is to
achieve and sustain optimum availability.

1. Optimum Availability
The production capacity of a plant is, in part, determined by the availability of
production systems and their auxiliary equipment. The primary function of the
maintenance organization is to ensure that all machinery, equipment, and
systems within the plant are always on line and in good operating condition.

2. Optimum Operating Condition

Availability of critical process machinery is not enough to ensure acceptable plant
performance levels. The maintenance organization has the responsibility to
maintain all direct and indirect manufacturing machinery, equipment, and
systems so that they will be continuously in optimum operating condition. Minor
problems, no matter how slight, can result in poor product quality, reduce
production speeds, or affect other factors that limit overall plant performance.

3. Maximum Utilization of Maintenance Resources

The maintenance organization controls a substantial part of the total operating
budget in most plants. In addition to an appreciable percentage of the total plant
labor budget, the maintenance manager, in many cases, controls the spare parts
inventory, authorizes the use of outside contract labor, and requisitions millions
of dollars in repair parts or replacement equipment. Therefore, one goal of the
maintenance organization should be the effective use of these resources.
4. Optimum Equipment Life
One way to reduce maintenance cost is to extend the useful life of plant
equipment. The maintenance organization should implement programs that will
increase the useful life of all plant assets.

5. Minimum Spares Inventory

Reductions in spares inventory should be a major objective of the maintenance
organization. However, the reduction cannot impair their ability to meet goals 1
through 4. With the predictive maintenance technologies that are available today,
maintenance can anticipate the need for specific equipment or parts far enough
in advance to purchase them on an as-needed basis.

6. Ability to React Quickly

Not all catastrophic failures can be avoided. Therefore the maintenance
organization must maintain the ability to react quickly to the unexpected failure.
Ten questions for maintenance managers to self-evaluate their maintenance effort:

1. Are you aware of how your craft-persons spend their time; i.e., travel, delays, etc.?
2. Are you aware of what facility/equipment and activity consume most of the
maintenance money?
3. Are you aware if the craft-persons use proper tools and methods to perform their
tasks?
4. Have you balanced your spare parts inventory with respect to carrying cost vs.
anticipated downtime losses?
5. With respect to job costs, are you in a position to compare the “should” with the
“what”?
6. Do you ensure that maintainability factors are considered properly during the
design of new or modified facilities/equipment?
7. Are you aware of how much time your foreman spends at the desk and at the job
site?
8. Do you have an effective base to perform productivity measurements, and is
productivity improving?
9. Are you aware of whether safety practices are being followed?
10. Are you providing the craft-persons with correct quality and quantity of material
when and where they need it?