Managing Machine Shop

MAINTENANCE By Bryan Christiansen

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 LIBRARY

CONTENTS
The Challenges of Implementing Condition-Based Maintenance..................... 2

Using Automation and Robotics in Maintenance Management........................ 4

Introducing Precision Maintenance to the Shop Floor....................................... 6

Dealing with Productivity Loss in Maintenance Management............ 8

Dealing with Hard-to-Track Costs in Maintenance Management...... 10

How to Improve Your OEE Score with Condition Monitoring............ 12

Bryan Christiansen is the founder and CEO at Limble CMMS. Limble is a modern,
easy to use mobile CMMS software that takes the stress and chaos out of main-
tenance by helping managers organize, automate, and streamline their mainte-
nance operations.

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The Challenges of Implementing
Condition-Based Maintenance
CBM can increase system
reliability and productivity
and decrease maintenance
costs. That means high ROI
— which is appealing to ev-
ery manufacturer.
Bryan Christiansen
T
he machine condi-
tion-monitoring market
is expected to grow from
$2.38B in 2018 to $3.5B
by 2024, according to the
MarketsandMarkets, mainly due to
the increased availability of condition
monitoring sensors and the growing
number organizations looking to im-
plement advanced maintenance strate-
gies like Condition-Based Maintenance
(CBM) and Predictive Maintenance.
For such projects, the right preparation
is half the battle.
CBM is an aspect of “predictive
maintenance” that relies on monitor-
ing and networking technologies; it’s
sometimes known as “Condition-Based
Monitoring.” CBM maintenance is the
procedure that follows when indicators
show critical equipment performance
is declining or nearing a catastrophic
incident.
The best way to ensure the success-
ful implementation of Condition-Based
Maintenance is to understand the chal-
lenges and pitfalls that companies may
face when first deploying this mainte-
nance strategy.
High upfront costs — Implementing
CBM can be expensive because it re-
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Dmitry Kalinovsky | Dreamstime
Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) is one dimension of “predictive maintenance” that relies
on monitoring and networking technologies, and alternately referred to as “Condition-Based
Monitoring”: CBM maintenance follows when indicators show equipment performance declining or
nearing failure.
quires the machine operators to install ing sensors, as you will have to ensure
condition-monitoring sensors to mea- that it will be able to cope with the op-
sure degradation, which can be particu- erating conditions and help your com-
larly costly if you need to retrofit them pany’s bottom line.
on some old assets. Of course, you can’t get those sen-
This doesn’t mean that CBM is not sors for free, which is another reason
for you, only that you should determine that the initial implementation cost
which equipment will give the highest may seem high.
returns on this investment. Carefully Training the staff — While
select which assets will get CBM based the sensor readings will give you a
on asset criticalities, such as safety, en- real-time insight into the condition of
vironmental and operational impact, your equipment and warn you of up-
and failure rates of the equipment. coming failures, that information will
In case you do not have the in-house be useless if your staff cannot react to
expertise necessary for this analysis, it in a timely fashion. Each detection
consult an expert who can help you of a fault may trigger some questions:
make the most cost-effective strategy • Does a part need to be replaced?
using failure modes, effects, and criti- • Is it in stock?
cality analysis (FMEA) and RCM anal- • How long do we have before the
ysis. equipment reaches functional failure?
Another challenge you may face is • Does the replacement need to be
choosing the right condition-monitor- done by a vendor?
2

To make the most of your CBM
strategy, train your employees so that
they can use the technology effectively
and leverage the intelligence to make
informed decisions.
Keep in mind that this is an added
expense, and it may involve pulling
some employees from normal duties in
order to train them.
Along with training, effective
“change management” is crucial to
help your business fully benefit from
CBM. Change management consists of
activities and steps you can take to help
your organization and team adapt to
changes in a technology and workflow.
Operating conditions — The
accuracy and performance of condi-
tion-monitoring sensors sometimes de-
pend on the environment and operating
conditions in which they are installed.
In harsh operating conditions, the sen-
sors may not work properly, or they
may even get damaged, so it is a good
idea to double-check the results from
time to time, when you know the con-
ditions are not perfect. For example, in
some plants, high heat and humidity
levels affect electronics, while in others
corrosive chemicals may damage sen-
sors or other components that help you
get the accurate readings.
Because sensors play a critical role,
you should evaluate the various op-
tions available and get the appropriate
sensors that consider both the type of
equipment you’re using it on and the
operating conditions they must endure.
The unpredictable volume
of maintenance work — Unlike
scheduled periodic maintenance, main-
tenance work based on a CBM strat-
egy is carried out whenever the sensors
warn you about impending equipment
failure. Unpredictable maintenance pe-
riods will cause costs to be divided un-
equally, so you need to factor this into
your annual budget.
For instance, it is possible that multi-
ple assets will need maintenance at the
same time, so your team should be pre-
pared to deal with managing repairs or
parts replacement with a time crunch.
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Software requirements — To have
an accurate insight into the current
condition of your machines, you need
to be able to handle all the data that is
coming in from the various sensors you
have installed.
A modern CMMS or another spe-
cialized software can help you achieve
this by tracking, collecting, and analyz-
ing the data gathered from the condi-
tion-monitoring sensors.
This leads us to another challenge.
Despite getting some help from the
software you use; you will need a per-
son with a specialized set of skills to
analyze the data and make accurate
fault predictions. In an ideal situation,
that would be your maintenance man-
ager. However, it is common for com-
panies to hire a third-party expert until
they can handle it in-house.
Lastly, don’t forget that you need What is CBM?
to have a stable Wi-Fi network imple-
Condition-based mainte-
mented in your plant if you want the
nance, briefly, is mainte-
sensor data to actually reach your se-
nance when need arises.
lected software. Albeit chronologically
Is it worth it? — After getting to much older, CBM is consid-
know all the challenges you can face ered one aspect or practice
when implementing CBM you may be within the broader and
wondering, “Is it worth it?” Introduc- newer field of predictive
ing CBM is not cheap and it can take maintenance, where new
some time to fully implement the pro- AI technologies and con-
cesses, but the reason many organiza- nectivity abilities are put
tions decide to adopt it is the value of into action, and where
the acronym CBM is more
the benefits CMB delivers great.
often used to describe
When implemented correctly and
‘Condition-Based Mon-
leveraged by a well-trained team, it itoring’ rather than the
can lead to increased system reliability, maintenance itself. CBM
increased productivity, and decreased maintenance is performed
maintenance costs. That means it has after one or more indica-
the potential to provide a high return tors show that equipment
on investment — which is appealing is going to fail or that
to every business that wants to re- equipment performance is
main competitive in their market. AM deteriorating.
This concept is appli-
cable to mission-critical
systems that incorporate
active redundancy and
fault reporting. It is also
applicable to non-mission
critical systems that lack
redundancy and fault re-
porting.
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Using Automation and Robotics

in Maintenance Management

By adopting innovations on the plant floor, manufacturers have production automation, and the same
improved many aspects of their operations, including line effi- principle applies to maintenance activ-
ciency, product quality, and worker safety, just to name a few. ities. Technicians provide more value
when working on complex tasks, such

A
utomation, robotics, and sim-
ilar digital trends have spread
throughout manufacturing for
years and remain hot indus-
try trends today. By adopting
innovations on the plant floor, manu-
facturers have improved many aspects
of their operations, including line ef-
ficiency, product quality, and worker
safety, just to name a few.
Just as the production floor has em-
braced the use of automation and robot-
ics, the maintenance department is be-
ginning to see similar value by putting
their own spin on the topics. As experts
are predicting more tech in post-pan-
demic plants, this trend will only grow.
Key drivers for automation
and robotics — There are a few
factors driving these trends, includ-
ing automation of repetitive, low-skill
tasks. This has been a main driver in
as root cause analysis and correction.
Thus, robots can be employed for sim-
ple, arduous tasks that don’t require
much thought.
This application can be especially
true for a preventive maintenance pro-
gram. Some PM tasks are tedious and
time-consuming, and do not lead to in-
sights on the asset.
Another factor driving plant main-
tenance automation and robotics is
worker safety. Many maintenance tasks

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are inherently dangerous to the techni-
cian, and removing this risk provides
great value to the worker and the busi-
ness.
A third cause is standardization.
Anyone with some experience in man-
ufacturing knows how much a process
can vary from operator to operator.
When this variation is removed, signif-
icant gains can be recorded.
Robotic inspections — One
area where robots have been used for
repetitive tasks is in maintenance in-
spections. These duties are often te-
dious or difficult to complete, which
leads to inconsistent results. Further-
more, the results can vary by inspector
leading to non-standard work.
The automobile industry has begun
to use robots for inspections. Rolls-
Royce is using flexible snake robots
to inspect engine lines. They can even
make patch repairs while in the engine.
Many other types of robots are being
used in automotive industry. For exam-
ple, Robotic Vision Technologies have
developed a robot that can use vision
technology with picture capture. The
RVT robots can scan an engine and de-
tect a part within 0.1 seconds.
The airline industry is another
adopter of robotic inspection. Though
airlines may be slow to change their
maintenance practices, some oper-
ations have adopted robotics-based
processes. Lutfhansa Technik is using
robots to inspect for cracks on engine
components. Previously this involved
a messy and tedious, manual process
involving dye testing. There is a gen-
eral recognition that these tasks are
performed better by robots. There are
other robots used in Lufthansa’s MRO
process – component repair, cockpit
control testing, and an automated scarf-
ing system called CAIRE.
Automation for maintenance
management — A lot of automation
in maintenance is the sole result of soft-
ware support. In an effort to maximize
the benefits of industrial maintenance,
computerized maintenance manage-
ment software (CMMS) and other
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solutions have focused on automating signed to assist human technicians in
maintenance tasks like PM schedul- the maintenance of other robots.
ing, spare-parts inventory forecasts, The concept is that the robot will rec-
and various parts of asset management. ognize when the technician needs help
Along with sensors this concept can – a tool, assistance lifting something
be taken further. When a sensor meets heavy, or precision in a technique. This
a pre-defined threshold, CMMS solu- robot will augment the human techni-
tions with adequate integrations can cian and is designed to make their life
send out instant alerts and automati- easier.
cally schedule work orders. . Automation and robotics are proving
Risk mitigation through ro- their worth in maintenance. Technol-
botics —There are numerous other ogy and cost have come to point where
enterprises using robots for inspec- the benefits are clearer than ever before.
tions, with a goal of removing work- Whether driven by efficiency, risk re-
ers from hazardous environments. The duction, standardization, or a combina-
Frauenhofer Institute’s Robotics Sys- tion of these reasons, robots are guiding
tems business is one of these, and has maintenance into the future. AM
developed several robot inspectors. For
example, they have robots for sewer
system inspections. In this case, the
system represents a health hazard for
human inspectors, and it cannot be shut
down and drained for inspections. So,
robots take on the undesirable task of
inspecting the sewer line.
There are various other scenarios
where robots are performing inspection
services. The DOE’s Sandia National
Labs has partnered with International
Climbing Machines and Dophitech to
develop a climbing robot that closely
inspects wind turbine blades by climb-
ing across the surfaces. There are nu-
merous examples of tank inspection ro-
bots. Any facility with hazardous tanks
understands the rigmarole and risk of
sending people into a tank; A robot in-
spector is a much better option.
Maintenance assistant — Nat-
urally, all these robots need to be prop-
erly maintained themselves. Enter the
maintenance robot designed to main-
tain robots! Secondhands is a robot de-
Dashark | Dreamstime
5

Introducing Precision Maintenance
to the Shop Floor
This PM concept — starting from vibration monitoring
— is simple, but it can be effective against complex
issues like product-quality consistency and the
manufacturing skills gap.
M
anufacturing managers
today face many prob-
lems. Some of these
seem to be ever-present
– increasing production
efficiency, and scheduling to customer
demand come to mind. However, other
problems have become more even
prevalent in modern manufacturing,
problems that concern changing work-
force demographics and the increas-
ingly complex philosophies that direct
manufacturing activity.
One method for overcoming these
newer challenges is to implement Pre-
cision Maintenance principles at your
operation.
Today’s shop floor — Currently,
the manufacturing environment is bur-
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tent skill among personnel on the job,
poor understanding of and adherence
to procedures, and errors in work prac-
tices. It also underscores the impor-
tance of training and developing new
employees.
Many plants will implement preven-
tive maintenance programs — which
certainly is helpful — but preventive
maintenance is not enough.
Enter Precision Maintenance to help
address these issues.
Precision Maintenance — The
Serjlogrus | Dreamstime
roots of Precision Maintenance were
developed by Wernher von Braun, the
German-born American aerospace en-
A piezoelectric transducer for
vibration monitoring.
gineer who led NASA’s rocket research
and development program in the 1950s
and 60s. Von Braun and his team found
that reducing vibration on a bearing by
only 20% would double its life. They
realized that this concept could be ap-
plied not only to all bearings, but to all
equipment in service.
The term “Precision Maintenance”
was coined later by Ralph Buscarello,
dened with some cold truths about the another pioneer of vibration study.
modern work force. Mainly, it is much Buscarello spent decades spreading his
more difficult to develop and retain vision of maintenance practices, and he
good workers than it was 20 or 30 years espoused some core principles for PM:
ago, when most operations could draw • Maintenance employees are
from a wide pool of competent, expe- knowledgeable and capable.
rienced workers on the floor. In such a • They perform their work accord-
workplace, many problems were han- ing to thoroughly understood industry
dled through shop floor knowledge that standards.
was developed over years of on-the-job • The work instructions are clear,
practice. detailed, and easily accessed.
Of course, this is no longer the • Records of all maintenance activ-
case for most manufacturers. Today, ities are meticulously kept up to date.
the shop floor not only deals with the • A culture of constant improvement
standard production problems but also is established.
must contend with worker shortages • Managers take ownership of Preci-
and high rates of transfers and/or turn- sion Maintenance and act as enablers of
over. This manpower churn leads to the PM philosophy.
many other problems: a lack of consis- These are simple concepts, yet they
6

can be hard to implement or maintain.
So, how can you start to implement
Precision Maintenance at your oper-
ation?
Implementing Precision
Maintenance — Precision Mainte-
nance is not always easy to establish. It
takes consistent effort throughout mul-
tiple levels of the organization to set up
an efficient maintenance department.
The first step is to gain sponsorship
from the organization’s senior leader-
ship. Though they do not need to be
involved in the execution of PM, the
leaders’ support will go a long way to
securing success for the program. Man-
agers can enable success by resourcing
and clearing barriers.
Once the leadership buys into the
vision, take stock of your current sit-
uation. Where is the level of exper-
tise? What are the development needs?
Which procedures are in good shape? A
comprehensive assessment of the exist-
ing maintenance program will help you
find the holes in your operation.
The next step is to train the main-
tenance team in order to convey the
concepts of Precision Maintenance,
as well as to address any gaps found
in the previous assessment. Because
knowledgeable employees are a key
component to Precision Maintenance,
this step is crucial.
Next is the somewhat arduous task
of improving procedures. Precision
Maintenance requires clear, detailed
procedures that are followed similarly
by all personnel. This is time-consum-
ing but necessary, as a standard should
be established for all to follow.
After the Precision Maintenance
program has been implements, you can
start to measure its effectiveness. Con-
sider maintenance metrics that would
show some detail on performance – like
mean time to repair, hours on repeat
jobs, etc. Do not simply track spending;
Adjust the program as necessary so that
you can show actual improvement.
Improvement does not end there,
however. An important element of the
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Precision Maintenance philosophy is If that is not impressive enough,
the desire for continuous improvement. consider this case. A company wanted
Keep finding the problems, learning to increase its team’s intelligence for
where more precision is needed, and pump performance. They implemented
take the steps to address them. a Precision Maintenance program with
Case studies — As Buscarello detailed procedures outlining shaft and
stated, the benefits of Precision Main- belt alignment, vibration, oil analysis,
tenance are enormous. Once mainte- and more. Through education they be-
nance is focused in proper directions, came aware of laser-alignment technol-
the operation can see massive gains. ogy. This technology was deployed and
In one case, a manufacturer was expe- technicians were trained on the new
riencing multiple repeat failures with tools. With laser-shaft alignment and
its pumps. Inspectors focused on the the Precision Maintenance program,
problem using Precision Maintenance the plant realized a 40% overall de-
principles and techniques. Time and crease in maintenance spending.
money were put into their mainte- Properly executed, Precision Main-
nance department – through training tenance can be a huge benefit to a man-
and documentation. The maintenance ufacturing operation. Precision Main-
staff soon understood that they were tenance techniques can increase the
not following OEM specifications and life of production equipment, boosting
their pumps were out of tolerance. By uptime and saving maintenance costs
adhering to the proper tolerances, they along the way. It takes some effort to
dramatically reduced the failures, and implement a PM program, but the re-
thereby increased the uptime of the sults are well worth the effort. AM
pumps.
In another case, a mill wanted to fo-
cus on its motors. The maintenance
team knew that the average life of a
motor onsite was roughly 20 years —
not bad, but with hundreds of motor
failures per year they were looking for
improvement.
After a Precision Maintenance fo-
cus on vibration levels, they reduced
the threshold for acceptable vibration,
resulting in an increase in average ser-
vice life from 20 years to more than 46
years.
Properly executed, Precision
Maintenance can be a huge benefit
to a manufacturing operation.
7

Dealing with Productivity Loss
in Maintenance Management
Are you leaking resources due
to unorganized work practices?
How would you know? How
would you correct those prob-
lems and improve overall mainte-
nance performance?
L
ike most businesses, manufacturing
operations are organized according
to processes or functions: produc-
tion, finishing, shipping, etc., and
every department contains hidden costs
– costs that are not easily captured but still
affect the results. When the management
team is unaware of these expenses, they
can become a part of the operation, affect-
ing performance as well as costs and lead-
ing to problems that are hard to correct.
Maintenance departments are not ex-
empt from this phenomenon, and can be
particularly vulnerable to certain types of
hidden costs.
Undetected expenses may have mul-
tiple causes — but one major source is
known to nearly everyone. It is the “hid-
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been wasted and more resources need to
be committed.
• Waiting. The affected equipment is
down, but the maintenance work cannot
commence (… because the maintenance
technician is waiting on a part that must
be delivered from an OEM, wait for a spe-
cific tool that is in use at the moment, wait
for a safety manager to perform LOTO
procedure, etc.) This results in a lot of idle
time, which by definition is unproductive.
Puengsamrong | Dreamstime
• Inventory. Too many parts and tools
are kept in an unorganized matter all over
the site. Resources are tied up in parts that
sit on a shelf, cluttering, and collecting
dust. Lack of documentation and tracking
leads to unnecessarily long searches for
den cost” of unorganized and non-stan- the right spare parts.
dard work practices that undercut produc- Transportation. The maintenance
tivity. It is a particularly troublesome issue technician travels to affected equipment,
because plant or shop managers often will ready to work. They realize that they need
not know the problem exists until they a tool that was left in the maintenance
start to look for it. shop. Now they need to make an extra trip,
Are you leaking resources due to unor- wasting valuable time.
ganized work practices? How would you Each form of waste may be present in
know? If so, how would you patch up your differing levels, adding up and potentially
cost leaks and improve your overall main- resulting in overtime, contractors, and ex-
tenance performance? Read on to find out. tra manpower. There also can be ripple
Problems stem from funda- effects: If a technician is not diligent in his
mentals — Because these are problems work practices, the costs add up quickly.
that are not easily uncovered, you must Finding the problems — Where
be proactive and take stock of your exist- exactly are you leaking money? The pro-
ing practices. Start with the fundamentals. cess of finding these costs is not always
Consider the seven sources of waste in easy, but there are some proven tech-
lean manufacturing (some suggest there niques. A detailed review of training, work
are even more …): procedures, equipment, and inventory will
If you are unfamiliar with the seven likely be needed.
wastes, there are many resources available Traditional exercises — A work
to explain them in more detail. study may be useful in determining the
How can these wastes be observed in costs that may hide in your maintenance
maintenance practices? Here are some ex- practices. One option is to follow the tech-
amples. nicians as they go about their work. Care
• Defects. A performed Work Order on must be taken to build trust before this
some equipment did not fully repair the happens. And this method has some seri-
machine. Thus, some resources may have ous downsides, as technician surely will
8

The Lean theory describes seven major areas where you can identify Muda activities, more popularly
known as “the Seven Wastes of Lean.” (kanbanize.com)
try to be more productive when they know
that they are being watched.
Another method of finding gaps in pro-
cedures is a value-stream mapping exer-
cise. Gathering all team members togeth-
ers and drawing out the process steps can
be illuminating for all involved.
The value of a CMMS — A Com-
puterized Maintenance Management Sys-
tem also could be an asset when searching
for inefficiencies. For example, you could
investigate standard deviations on repeat
jobs. Or, examine variation between tech-
nicians, equipment, or shifts. With proper
CMMS reports, this data can be found
quickly.
To find inventory issues, reviews will
be needed of current inventory. Are parts
sitting on shelves for long periods of time,
or are they turning through quickly? Are
all critical spares accounted for? How of-
ten is the work delayed because of a miss-
ing spare part. This may be a painstaking
process.
Finding the problems is one matter
though. Once some of these issues are un-
covered, you must work to correct them.
Addressing the costs — Here are
two ways to tackle productivity losses in
maintenance management.
Culture change. In many facilities, the
biggest barrier for improvement is exist-
ing culture. When you suggest that some-
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thing needs to be improved, be it a switch
to proactive maintenance or commitment
to continuous improvement, you are let-
ting people know that what they are doing
right now is not good enough.
The improvement plan must take this
into account. The benefits need to be
clearly understood by all, and every party
needs to buy-in. Change management is
crucial, and all voices should be consid-
ered.
To promote buy-in, work on improving
technician priorities first. In this way they
should benefit immediately, which will
help them to see the value of standardiza-
tion and waste reduction.
Workflow standardizations. If the
problem is unorganized and non-standard
work practices, the solution presents itself:
you need more workflow standardization.
Once maintenance processes are
understood in detail, they can be stan-
dardized easily. Process standardiza-
tion cuts down on variation and out-
lines the most optimal method in which
a technician can perform the required
task.
The most straightforward way to
streamline maintenance work is:
• Write standard operating proce-
dures;
• Write emergency operating proce-
dures;
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• Define clear EHS guidelines;
• Define clear lock out tag out pro-
cedures;
• Use a CMMS or standalone inven-
tory-tracking software and standard-
ize the way items are stored and pulled
from inventory;
• Write maintenance checklists for
all complex routine maintenance tasks.
There are two things to keep in mind
when defining the above listed proce-
dures. First, they should be written in
collaboration with experienced tech-
nicians that have a good overview of
current health of all assets, and how
things work in practice on the produc-
tion floor
The second thing is to insist on con-
tinuous improvement. People are not
perfect and you might not get every-
thing right the first time. Additionally,
as technology grows and as new main-
tenance tools and techniques become
available, your current procedures eas-
ily become obsolete.
The first step — Organizing an
efficient maintenance department is not
something that can be done overnight.
Identifying the waste is the first step.
Though it may seem difficult, often
these wastes are hiding in plain sight and
uncovered with only a little effort — if
you know where to look. This is why
reviewing processes and maintenance
data is an integral part of this effort.
Once the leaks are found, they must
be addressed through a combination
of policy, training, and culture shift.
Though it’s not always easy, the pro-
cess can be very beneficial. By rooting
out waste in your maintenance proce-
dures, you will improve the value of the
maintenance department – as well as
the entire operation. AM

Dealing with Hard-to-Track Costs
in Maintenance Management
The first step is to implement
a system that accurately
tracks operating costs. Once
you understand how those
costs add up, you can start to
formulate a plan to eliminate
unnecessary expenses.
Bryan Christiansen
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T
here are hidden costs in every The good news is that some of these
part of your organization, and expenditures can be driven down with-
maintenance activities are no out the use of fancy tools or equipment.
exception. Beneath the standard Are you leaking resources? How
costs, like labor and spare parts, ex- would you know? If so, how would
penses creep in, bloating the budget. you patch up your cost leaks and im-
It can be hard to understand just how prove your overall maintenance per-
much these are costing your operation formance?
and what exactly is driving them. Get- Let’s dive straight in by looking at
ting to the bottom of this is surely im- some frequently overlooked drivers of
portant, as if the costs are not reigned in maintenance costs.
they may quickly run the maintenance Unorganized and non-stan-
budget’s already stretched budget into dard work practices. Sloppy work
distress. practices can lead to many downstream
Numerous costs stem from poor costs. This is usually an area that should
execution of maintenance fundamen- be visited periodically, as is often ripe
tals. Why is that? Well, mostly because for improvement.
they are hard to measure. You will not It is helpful to start by considering
work to improve things you don’t know the 7 Wastes in Lean Manufacturing (or
are problematic in the first place. You more, as some suggest.) For example,
might need to perform more data anal- a technician may arrive to a job with-
ysis with a better understanding of your out the proper tools. In this case, waste
maintenance metrics to get to the bot- may be found in the time gathering ma-
tom of the problem. The data may not terials and tools for the job (both “Wait-
even be readily available, so the first ing” and “Transport”.) If a technician
step may be to collect information. is not diligent in his work practices, the
unforeseen costs can add up quickly.
With each inefficiency, the hours add
up until more technicians are needed
to maintain the same level of equip-
ment maintenance. The effect can be-
come compounded if more unexpected
breakdowns occur.
Though it won’t cost much capital,
solving this problem can take consid-
erable effort. Procedures need to be
reviewed and updated (mainly SOPs
and maintenance checklists); and staff
needs to be trained and committed to
change. However, this type of shift can
Buranaprasertsuk | Dreamstime
potentially provide the biggest savings.
Inefficiencies in equipment
operation. Improperly maintained
equipment can financially burden the
business in several ways. These bur-
dens may or may not be hidden, de-
10

pending on what is actually being
tracked. This may include:
• Increased energy costs;
• Loss in product quality;
• Reduced asset life;
• Wasted materials;
• Negative environmental impacts;
• Safety risks.
If you think your operation may be
suffering from some of these issues,
the first step is to measure their im-
pact. In some cases,
software may be re-
quired (more on this Once you have a better understanding of the
below.) Once you
have a handle on the impact of your operational activities, you
damage being done
to your bottom line, can start to formulate a plan to eliminate
you can target the
losses and tighten up unnecessary costs.
your maintenance
approach on the affected equipment.
Typically, this means implementing
more advanced maintenance strategies.
Overtime-driven labor costs.
Another standard source of costs in
maintenance is overtime. Though many
organizations track overtime hours, it’s
not always a point of emphasis. The
thing that can be hard to detect here are
not the overtime costs themselves, but
what is actually driving them.
With a good understanding of the
reasons behind overtime hours, the
operation can make better decisions
on how to reduce them. Is it more cost
effective to hire additional help, up-
grade equipment, be more proactive,
or have a better spare-parts inventory
forecast? Such questions are easy to
answer when you find the root cause of
your problems.
Creeping inventory costs.
Spare part inventory can be a sink for
the maintenance budget, especially if
you lack a thorough inventory tracking
system and a centralized storage area.
Since every part carries a cost, that ex-
pense could be wasted if parts sit on a
shelf for years.
But reducing inventory is not always
the answer. If critical spares are not on-
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site for equipment breakdowns, you
could be stuck waiting a long time to
make the repair, or be forced to im-
plement improvised solutions, both
of which will have a negative effect
on your bottom line in one way or an-
other — not to mention that emergency
spare-part orders are more expensive
than the regular ones.
Thus, an in-depth review of inven-
tory needs should occur. To deal with
this issue, a solid inventory-tracking
system should be implemented, be it
through a CMMS/EAM with inventory
module or a standalone inventory soft-
ware solution.
U n p l a n n e d d o w n t i m e s . It
should be noted that equipment down-
time contributes to many additional
expenses for the operation. This is
seen through replacement-part rush or-
ders, overtime, schedule adjustment,
and ultimately in revenue loss. Stud-
ies have estimated that a single hour of
downtime costs manufacturers at least
$100,000.
One simple way to reduce down-
time from the maintenance side is by
improving teamwork and information
flow, reducing silos, and increasing co-
operation. By working directly with
the operations team, maintenance can
prescribe operating conditions that will
extend the life of the equipment.
Other ways to reduce downtime
include tracking accurate downtime
information to adjust preventive main-
tenance schedule, implementing auton-
omous maintenance, and looking into
condition monitoring and predictive
analytics.
How CMMS helps. One common
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theme that is always discussed when
we talk about how to control mainte-
nance costs is the importance of finding
what exactly is driving up those costs.
Without an in-depth insight that some-
times is possible only through software
solutions, it may be very hard to take
that first step and determine the under-
lying reasons that generate these costs.
A CMMS system can be very helpful
in uncovering some of the budgetary
effect of the issues
previously men-
tioned here.
In the over-
time example, a
CMMS can help
you understand
exactly where the
hours are going.
Their drill-down
approach allows you to see not only
which assets are causing the most prob-
lems, but also why are they so prob-
lematic.
Additionally, a CMMS can help
you track and calculate different per-
formance metrics, such as MTTR and
MTBF, maintenance schedule attain-
ment, OEE, etc., and other metrics you
can address to deliver significant pro-
ductivity improvements.
Having a lot of hard-to-track costs is
a slippery slope for any organization.
The first step is to implement a system
that lets you accurately track your op-
erational costs. Once you have a better
understanding of the impact of your
operational activities, you can start to
formulate a plan to eliminate unneces-
sary costs.
As a bonus, with the thorough anal-
ysis of your actions and their conse-
quences, you can drive your mainte-
nance performance to the next level. AM

How to Improve Your OEE Score
with Condition Monitoring
Condition-Based Monitoring is a cost-effective way to reduce downtime, and the hurdles to im-
plementation are lower than ever before.
M
anufacturing today is
becoming steadily more
competitive, and man-
ufacturing businesses
are always looking to
improve the productivity — and the
profitability — of their operations. As
such, they must objectively understand
whether improvement is occurring, or
not. Often, this sort of self-assessment
is based on quantitative measures.
There are various methods used
across manufacturing industries to
track operational efficacy. One of the
most common ways to measure overall
manufacturing performance is through
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or
OEE. If used in the proper way, track-
ing OEE can give machine shops a
good understanding of its manufactur-
ing processes. Because it is an overall
measure of a process, OEE can quickly
shed light on an area of concern. It also
can be used to compare lines across the
shop floor, and ultimately optimize the
entire production.
What is OEE? — Overall Equip-
ment Effectiveness measures an asset’s
actual execution versus its theoretical
maximum potential. By comparing re-
sults to a potential maximum, you can
rapidly identify gaps in the process.
Most often, OEE is determined by a
combination of these three metrics:
• Availability – is the line available
to run, or is it down for maintenance?
• Performance – how quickly is
the line producing? (think widgets per
hour, etc.)
• Quality – how many defects are
there? (think defective percentage of
widgets.)
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There are two ways to calculate
OEE — simplified and advanced. The
method you use likely depends on your
operation and preferences.
A simplified method would be to
multiply the number of good parts
made by the ideal cycle time, and di-
vide the total by the planned production
time.
An advanced way to calculate OEE
is by determining availability, perfor-
mance, and quality; each separately as
a percentage. Then, multiply the per-
centages by each other to come up with
a single percentage number.
Let’s walk through a quick example
to help illustrate the concept. Assume
you are calculating OEE for one week
of time in a 24/7 operation.
Availability: During one week there
were 24 * 7 = 168 total potential hours,
and the line was down for 10 hours of
maintenance time. Thus, its availability
was 158/168 = 94.05%.
Performance: If the line is running
at capacity, it produces 10 widgets per
hour. Downtime is not counted twice,
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so the best the line could produce for
the last week was 158 * 10 = 1,580
widgets. The performance for the line
was actually 1,200 widgets however,
so the percentage was 1,200 / 1,580 =
75.95%.
Quality: Of the 1,200 widgets pro-
duced last week, 100 contained defects
on inspection. Thus, the quality per-
centage was 1,100 / 1,200 = 91.67%.
Multiplying all three metrics to-
gether results in one number: The OEE
for the week, in this case. 94.05% *
75.95% * 91.67% = an overall equip-
ment efficiency of 65.48%.
Improving OEE — As you can
see, there are three main tracks to im-
proving OEE: Increasing availability,
performance, or quality. And the calcu-
lation of the OEE will inherently high-
light the areas on which to focus.
How can condition monitoring be
used to improve OEE? Well, directly
and indirectly, it can positively impact
all of the calculations outlined above:
• Increased availability, by reducing
the number and length of unexpected
machine breakdowns which cause un-
planned downtime.
• Increased performance. Condition
monitoring allows you to keep ma-
chines in peak operating condition —
in other words, working at maximum
output — by tracking machine health
and deterioration levels.
• Increased product quality. Healthy
machines that work as intended will
produce fewer defects – and condition

monitoring helps keep them operating
that way.
Often, the greatest benefit to OEE
is that it leads to improving availabil-
ity. Downtime is typically one of the
biggest costs in manufacturing. Many
report the cost at $100,000 to $300,000
per hour, and some in excess of $1 mil-
lion per hour!
If the line is down, it cannot produce
any product. So, good quality products
made at capacity is not a possibility.
Therefore, we will focus on this area
for the remainder of the article.
Condition monitoring — There
are several strategies to reduce down-
time, including equipment upgrades or
regular preventive maintenance tasks.
Recently, condition monitoring has
become a leading option as cost and
technology barriers have been lowered.
Condition-based maintenance
(CBM) is the act of monitoring equip-
ment via sensors to determine overall
health, often with the use of models and
software. By using sensors and other
precise technology, you can find equip-
ment problems much earlier and have
a chance to respond. For example, a
report in the UK estimated 53% of ma-
chine downtime is caused by “hidden
internal faults.” CBM allows you to
find these “hidden faults.”
Besides downtime reduction, condi-
tion monitoring provides several addi-
tional benefits:
• It lowers maintenance costs by
fixing problems before they become
catastrophic.
• It increases the life of your equip-
ment by running it more efficiently.
• It helps to prioritize maintenance
work by detecting and quantifying ex-
isting issues.
There are a great number of CBM
techniques and tools at your disposal
that cover a wide variety of different
types of machines and components.
Starting a condition-monitoring pro-
gram — In starting a CBM program,
there are some general steps to follow.
Here is a quick rundown:
1. Select the assets to moni-
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LIBRARY
tor. Typically, these are assets critical ity, which typically means reducing
to production and/or equipment that unplanned downtime. Condition Based
is difficult and expensive to repair or Monitoring is a cost-effective way of
replace. reducing downtime, and the hurdles to
2. Identify failure modes. implementation are lower than ever be-
These are the ways that the equipment fore. With a successful CBM program,
may see most common failures. your OEE will improve, and so will
3. Select CBM monitoring. Set your profitability. AM
up the monitoring so that you will de-
tect the failure modes previously de-
termined.
4. Set alarm limits for sen-
sors. Determine the level at which
you want to take action. This may be a
theoretical or empirical limit and may
take some iteration.
5. Assess and adjust. As with
any successful program, take the time
to assess its effectiveness and adjust if
necessary.
Key takeaways— Overall Equip-
ment Effectiveness remains a key met-
ric on today’s manufacturing floor. It is Often, the greatest
a quickly understandable number that
can lead you to opportunities to im- benefit to OEE is that
prove your process.
One of the best ways to improve it leads to improving
your OEE is by focusing on availabil-
availability. Down-
time is typically one
of the biggest costs
in manufacturing.
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