I'm (we are) not saying that:
* Maintenance and Production departments do not need to be linked,
* both management groups (manager, supervisors, engineers) need communication;
* both department work to achieve the company business goals.

The whole thread is about to which department the PdM contractor/consultant should be linked.
The chain of communication that we see correct is:
* PdM Consultant/Contractor to Maintenance Department, then Maintenance Department to Production (and to all the rest of company affected groups/depts.)
And not:
* PdM Consultant/Contractor to Production, then to Maintenance and/or other affected depts.

In spanish we have an old word of wisdom that says "zapatero a tus zapatos" (literally: shoemaker to your shoes) meaning that you should dedicate to what you do best. If I have a ilumination problem I call the electrician, not the shoemaker; if I have a problem with my boots I will give a rest to the electrician and call the shoemaker.
After the ilumination is fixed, I will call the shoemaker and ask for his feedback on how the ilumination conditions are now at his shoe shop.

Eugene after 3 pages of discussion, it is good to have someone to remind us what the initial objective/question was.

Just like the saying:

"When you are up to your @s. among aligators, it is diffiult to remember that the first objective was to drain the swamp."

After reading the various and interesting comments my vote (2 cents) for the department that predictive would work from is engineering. This area has ties to both operations and maintenance. The reports should always go to both, as scheduling will almost always be a necessity. The various technologies Vibration, Infrared, Ultrasonics and Oil Analysis etc. and the need to bridge the communication gap of the other areas (operations and maintenance) seems to fit right in the Engineering area. The engineering area typically has an understanding of the process and how the equipment is a part of that process.

A new name? Here is a thought! How about Asset Protection Coordinator, Supervisor or Manager. As a person that works in this predictive field we do or could deal with just about all the company equipment that produces or transports product?

My vote would be engineering for starting, after that take over by maintenance + operations. Nowadays the equipment used for data collection is that sophisticated that troubleshooting can be done near the equipment. To make this work you need people who know how the equipment works,smells and sounds like. What are its normal conditions, relate events in the surrounding to symptoms manifested at the equipment. Thus these people must come from the field. The best candidates are maintenance and operations with a strong interest of keeping the equipment running. Engineers want to sit sit behind a computer in a nice office.
Maybe I am stepping on a lot of sore toes right now, but we all know the experts from this forum, and I would say that the majority of them do not have an academic background, and if they have, the aquired it when they were already working with predictive technology.

IMO, it depends whether the engineering dept has people dedicated to predictive maintenance in its organizational chart. I was in a technical services dept which focuses on process, project & inspection only.

However, in the upstream oil & gas, their technical services dept has a section dedicated to provide & support maintenance technologies while maintenance personnel concentrates on work execution including data collection for condition monitoring and complex data interpretation done onshore by specialist engineers who may go to the battlefield for complex problems and during major works like overhauls, modifications, shutdowns, complex troubleshooting etc. Otherwise the technicians should be able to handle routine maintenance and minor troubleshooting.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

In the Alcan organization I'm the Maintenance Systems Manager and am outside of all area Maint Mgrs and keeper of the PdM, IR,etc. technologies. Formal reports go to Area Managers and Production Managers and condensed reports to to everyone including the CEO.

Is this best? The jury may still be out but it is a working situation. But something that may be better is: have this position under each area manager (requires 4X personnel) reporting to Maint and Prod Mgrs. Am I sure? Not 100% and it would be far more expensive but maybe more effective. It would make the Maint Mgr more comfortable.

I prefer your organization chart than the other option with 4 extra resources and each one reporting to two bosses.
One boss is more than enogh