Maintenance vs. Operations 5

[PennStateIE]

Anyone here ever have to deal with a feuding maintenance group vs. operations group? Each side blames each other for downtime and I'm stuck in the middle trying to reduce the downtime.

Also on a side note, what do people typically consider "allowable" downtime for product changeover, daily PM, etc? I think we allow too much downtime (1 hr) per shift.

 

[zcp]

You guys are brutal on the consultant....funny, but brutal. When working in a situation as PennStateIE has proposed, I often feel like I am hired just so they can have someone to blame. Upper level management believes they can bring someone in to tell them their problems that they already see but can't get anyone to admit to and then they can do some teambuilding by having everyone gang up on the consultant in a big meeting that lets everyone leave with a little boost in moral. Often I end up being more of a therapist and sounding board, but that may be exactly what is needed. I try to be extremely upfront with clients and let them know very clearly that you have to want to change to be able to change. You can lead a horse to water, drag him in and hold his head under, but.........

In these situations, I lobby strongly for management to pick one product/process/etc. and work on that. Often it is a new product being launched and I get them to put everyone fully behind "we are going to do this one differently". That way you narrow the scope and focus on getting that one product/process right. Then you compare it to the other products around it, and hopefully everyone begins to see that the "new way" is better. Just make sure to involve EVERYONE in the new way so they fell like they had some input.

ZCP

http://www.phoenix-engineer.com

 

[RRBD]

The pissing contest between, maintence and manufacturing dept's is really common and will cause you many headaches.I have went through the "ropes" in the previous posts to remedy the same issue and what I finally came to is very easy. This solution worked well for a major machine tool manufacturer. Put the person in charge of the mfg. department in charge of the maintenence dept. as well, this will eliminate the pissing contest altogether. Otherwise, ask the maintenence dept if they would like you to hire a couple of people to work weekends and nights to handle the task at hand, and tell them that when things slow down that you will keep the people you "like", its up to them. I have used this a last resort to bring a group back into "focus". I'm sure not all will agree with my solution to the problem, but it works well after the other attempts failed.

 

[Joewski]

Regarding PennStateIE question in relation to
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Anyone here ever have to deal with a feuding maintenance group vs. operations group? Each side blames each other for downtime and I'm stuck in the middle trying to reduce the downtime.
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Yes, and at the heart of the issue IMHO I found divergent objects, constraints and sometimes mixed philosopies as to how to deal with downtime.

Regarding PennStateIE question in relation to
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Also on a side note, what do people typically consider "allowable" downtime for product changeover, daily PM, etc? I think we allow too much downtime (1 hr) per shift.
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The word "allowable" is used in production planning to design buffer stock levels and costing in unplanned breakdowns.

Before the days of lean production when machine reliablity varied greatly it was common practise to design processes based on how longs things took to fix.
This I remember being called "Breakdown maintenance philosophy". Now many orginisations still practise this method for there maintenance, and you might say is the defacto philosophy.

I can't emphise more, that before trying to tackle downtime issues, that an organisation understands clearly, which level of maintenance it subscribes to, and more importantly understands the benefits and cons of each philosophy. If the philosophy is of a higher order, the simple questions need to be asked. 1. Is there sufficent resources to do the PM related work and is there enough time production time released to do the PM etc.

I've done and seen grad's stand around machines for hours identifying problem with machines, doing perato analysis etc. All good stuff but if the philosophy isn't clearly spelled out, results in poor cost control.

As yourself what is the breakdown opportunity cost? Once you know this figure, ie $15,000per minute for a automotive body shop, $100 per minute for a 600 ton press stamp parts out etc. You have power to change things. When you say that breakdown cost us 20minutes nobody really listens, but tell them it cost $300,000 off the bottom line in sales costing the company $150,000 managers start to take notice. If you've ever been at the centre of a car plant running dry of bodies you'll know how quickly your pay packet looks positively small.

Anyway my point is "every thing should be costed". If your going to buffer a process up, know the cost of running the buffer. Don't just leave it as an unknown. Remember your Process flow diagrams, put a cost on each box. Then assess its probability of failure.

Another thing to watch out for, "The Maintenance manager trying to save money in the maintenance department" I've seen this trick performed by Maintenance managers, one after the other. What they do, to earn their promotion, they cut PM, cost any way they can. They look good on paper, they have saved money. Well after between 1 year and 3 years they move on, leaving a run down facility to the next incumbent.

Maintence dynamics is very tricky, I had the pleasure of working for a wide variety of companies, and the thing that I found was nearly all didn't use risk analysis with costings in there decision making. Take the good old PFMEA, how many of you have put a dollar values against each of the factors? I bet very few. But there is a cost of failure, there is a cost of insurance against that failure etc.

As an IE the trick IMHO is not always to go head to head, but rather to direct the energy. In every case the easiest way has been to put a dollar value against that time study.


Regarding PennStateIE comments in relation to
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I'm too far down the corporate totem pole to make this type of corporate change...especially considering I sit in corporate and the facility is a few hours away, no one seems to listen.
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I say, "Money talks", times cheap, as an IE thats your greatest weapon. If you don't know what it cost, your only giving half the picture.

But a word of caution, you can fall fowl of manager above you feeling treatened by their incompedence or by your insight. (This happened to me, cost me a nice position)
So before your head down this road read "Conduct Expected, The Unwritten Rules for a successful Business Career" by William Lareau 1985.
It not common sense, it survival. Its a great read. The bit I want to paraphrase, is present the report to your manager, with comments in it commending how brillent your manager was to put you onto this. Let them get the credit for giving you the opportunity to find the potential cost savings. Let him them decide the time and place to push it up the line.

Finally be real careful not to blame anybody, in everybodies eyes they all think there doing the right thing. Say rather it a unidentified opportunity with really great payback times. Make people feel good about their work. Work IMHO is as much about politics as it is about good engineering. I don't think anybody wants to go to work fealing bad.

I've enjoyed thinking about this issue and hope I have helped you other reader,

best regards,

Joewski
Melbourne, Australia

 

[Drazen]

Operations and maintanance allways blame each other. It's typical ... when they don't have clear reponsibilities and established team culture.

Clear responsibilities means that it must be formally known which part of downtime "belongs" to operations, which part to maintenance.

In practice that will cover say 70-80% of downtime for which responsibility can be distinguished(in the beginning of your organisational efforts; later, when you properly develop your planned maintenance program and operation procedures this percentage can come up to 90-95%).

For the rest of such downtime (it means 20-30% in the beginning) - the rest will be a little more complex situations/problems for which you cannot decide. For that part of downtime, both groups are responsible. Team culture must be established which also means that both groups will have lower salary next month because some problem is not resolved AND because they didn't cooperate with each other enough.

I talked about responsibility because you mentioned blame (for which I know it is often present), but this is worst-case scenario. Normaly, emphasis must be put on improvement opportunities and encouriging positive behaviour, not on blame.

Acceptable downtime for changeover? That is clear - the lowest time you need to do it properly without quality or output suffering.

Your figure 1 hour per shift realy looks arbitrary to me. You must develop procedures for continual optimisation of maintenance program and changeover procedures. This can start simply with regular weekly meetings which gather people with the best knowledge of particular machinery (operations AND maintenance together) and asking them to analyze procedures and give suggestions. Every week. Particular experience and good overall technical knowledge about subject is necessary, general talk doesn't help here.

 

[plasgears]

This is why some organizations have maintenance reporting to mfg operations. Manufacturing must have the top authority when problem solving on the shop floor. Maintenance must be subservient.