Moving to 24-hours production schemes – 9 considerations for the transition (Part II)

In the first post I talked about how the transition from one or two shifts to a 24 hour production scheme affects the way we usually manage our maintenance department. This kind of transition demands a change to a more methodological approach focused on preventive and proactive measures.

In the first points I talked in detail about the lack of time to perform definitive repairs, the increase in maintenance costs (and negotiate them during the planning stage of the new shift implementation), the use of predictive maintenance and taking advantage of every available time to perform maintenance tasks.

Following on from this topic, let’s see the next points: Continue reading

Energy Efficiency: Why should we care?

Energy Efficiency

During the last decade, taking care of the Energy Efficiency of facilities has become a normal practice for an increasing number of companies. Undoubtedly, minimizing our impact on the environment is paramount to preserve our planet. Notwithstanding, there is another aspect of energy efficiency that makes it even more attractive for companies. Continue reading

An alternative way to meet your staff’s training needs

Training method to face machine failuresHaving a training plan for your personnel is always a good practice. However, sometimes it’s not possible to find the adequate course because the topic is too specific, the course is not available at that moment or is too expensive.

Many years ago, while working at a maintenance department, I was looking for a training course for our personnel and couldn’t find one that fulfilled our requirements in terms of cost and availability. Still, I really needed to train our technicians so I found an alternative way to do it. Continue reading

How to Validate your Decisions Using Statistics (Analysis of Variance) – Part II

crossroadsIn the previous post I showed how to solve a simple problem by performing an Analysis of Variance (if you haven’t read it, please click here). The example was about three different methods to perform a task and we wanted to know if we are getting different results or the variations on the data are only due to the population dispersion.

Generally speaking, we compared the variances between the three samples and the variances within each sample and used the Variance Ratio Test to know, with a specific confidence interval, if the samples are coming from the same population, which in practical terms (referred to our example) means that the different methods are not changing the outcomes. In our example we rejected this hypothesis, so we can say that there is a significant difference between the methods. Continue reading

Maintainability and its relation with reliability and maintenance

Relations between Maintainability - Reliability - MaintenanceAll people involved in maintenance activities know that some equipment are really easy to maintain while others can make maintenance work a real nightmare. This attribute is referred as maintainability and I’m going to discuss it and relate it to maintenance, reliability and availability concepts.
I will start by simply defining the different terms, you can skip this section if you are already familiar with them. Continue reading

Applying 5S series – (Part V) The last two S: Seiketsu and Shitsuke

Information BoardIn previous posts, I introduced the 5S methodology and explained the first three 5S (Seiri, Seiton and Seiso). At this point in the process, we have sorted everything, set them in order and cleaned the whole place to eliminate sources or dirt. Now it is time to talk about standardization and self-discipline.

Continue reading

Applying 5S series – (Part IV) Third S: Seiso – Shine

Clean places facilitate failure identificationSince the introductory post of the 5S series I have talked about the first two different steps of the methodology: the first S -get rid of all the things that are not necessary- and the second S -organize the place in the most efficient manner-. In this post I’m going to talk about the third step: Seiso – Shine.

This step is the one that people usually associate with 5S: a deep clean. However, it is not just about cleaning, it also involves taking measures to reduce the time spent in cleaning activities. The main idea is to systematically prevent the area from getting dirty by eliminating the sources of the dirt. Continue reading

Moving to 24-hours production schemes – 9 considerations for the transition (Part I)

24 hours productionGoing from one or two shifts to a three shift production schedule is good for the company, it means that we are increasing our production so we are selling more products. However, this is not an easy transition for our maintenance department and must be carefully planned to avoid negative effects on our equipment reliability.

Continue reading

Applying 5S series – (Part III) Second S: Seiton – Set in order

setinorder

Every item in its place and a place for each item

As I mentioned in the first introductory post, 5S is one of the best methodologies to organize our workspace. It has five steps. In the first one, we need to get rid of all the things that are not used at the location. Here, in the second one, I will tell you how to organize those things in an efficient manner.
In my case, I carried out steps 1 and 2 in parallel, which is a very common way to do it. Specifically, in this second step we apply the concept: “every item in its place and a (specific) place for each item”. Continue reading

Applying 5S series – (Part II) First S: Seiri -Sort

Interpl untidyIn my previous post I explained 5S methodology and began to discuss planning the implementation. As I mentioned previously, I will use an example to illustrate each of the five steps of the method. In this opportunity I am going to talk about the first S: Seiri or Sort as the English equivalent.

Continue reading