Hello,

This may follow from the thread on Maintenance Procedures.

Is it common for companies to have a document for its maintenance strategy?

Can somebody provide a template to see how it is structured and what should be included? please.

Thank you.

Hi Rennie,
Good question.
I take it you are manage maintenance.
I look at it this way.
The reason maintenance people have employment is because assets fail. Your job is to manage the consequences of these failures. No failures - no maintenance department and no maintenance manager! (no reliability forum, no ReliabilityWeb and Terry O'Hanlon is working AccountancyWeb.com.)
So if your role exists because you are supposed to be managing the failures, then I would expect you would have a scope of work which contained what these failures are and how you are then managing the consequences of these failures.
To an accountant this approach seems entirely reasonable but when it comes to maintenance, things are done differently. As maintenance managers, we need to improve the way we operate by a long way. For example, the maintenance strategy development should be part of the purchasing contract and worked on by the vendor and the purchaser initially and then refined as the operating context of the machine becomes more apparent. Maintenance managers could push harder in this area.
The answer to your question then Rennie, is yes definitely.
The structure of the strategy should be equipment, component..... failure mode, maintenance task and if the maintenance task is condition based or failure finding, you should specify acceptable limits and corrective action.
Software programs are used to store this information since this is valuable corporate knowledge which requires security and change management.
You can download a free demo copy of PMO2000 from the web PMO2000 is a software product that is easy to use and can generate your maintenance strategy very quickly. Maintenance Strategy Development Software
This is a product we built so you may find this email biased. None the less, check out the software as it shows you the fields required to develop strategy. Also, please do not get confused but the term PM Optimisation. Some think they need an existing maintenance strategy to optimise it... well that is true but I'll bet that you can create this by sitting down with your operators and maintainers and going through what needs to be maintained and how, on each component.
Hope this helps - It is hard to provide information without some sales risk if one deals in the product the question is talking about.
Regards
Steve
OMCS International

Rennie and Steve,

Here is a slightly different perspective.
First, strategy is a widely used word that these days has almost lost its meaning. To me strategy relates to how you will achieve a desired outcome with consideration of the various constraints and competitive pressures.

Second, whatever strategy you decide on for maintenance it should be a direct flow on from the overall company strategy and the strategic positioning of the products that the maintenance assets produce. You cannot truly decide on maintenace strategy in the absence of these things.

From a maintenace perspective, therefore, you need to put the 'strategy' into perspective and accept that a different strategy may apply to different assets in a company or to the same assets at different times.

For example, if you are production constrained then maximizing your uptime is of vital importance. This doesn't just mean minimizing unplanned stoppages but also planned stoppages (and before everyone jumps up and down I don't mean eliminating maintenance!)

It might also mean accepting failure in non critical assets but not in critical assets. For example, in my history, failure of a truck loading conveyer was critical because the customer operated a JIT system in production but failure of some of our other conveyors was not so important as we could 'work around' them as they were repaired. Applying a single maintenace 'strategy' was not appropriate or (dare I say it) cost effective!

Steve, I assume that PMO2000 enables that kind of differentiation between assets. Is that right?

Maintenance Strategy... Document Template...
As Phillip said there are many definitions around on what strategy is. If I'm following yours, you expect:
* a document longer than a Maintenance Department's Vision / Mision,
* but less detailed than a procedure,
* that explain the reason of existance, phylosophy, goals, and programs of the Maintenance Department.
---
Am I right? If true, then a Document Outline:
* Cover Page: company logo, document number/revision number; document title, Author, approvals
* Objectives
* Scope
* Phylosophy Background
* Roles and Responsibilities
* Methodology: (how the phylosophy will be implemented? PM, PdM?, RCM?, TPM?, CMMS?, Spares Inventory Management?, Training?, Contractors?)
* Time Frame?
* Critical Sucess Factors?
* KPIs: (how do we know we are moving in the right direction)?
* References
-----
Maybe the document become a parent of other strategy documents to address the topics in more detail (separate strategy documents for facilities maintenance?, equipment maintenance?, instrument calibration, Spares Inventory?, Planning?, others).

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

Folks,
There are two questions here. The first is "what strategies should be developed and at what level?".
I certainly agree that the maintenance strategy should be aligned with the business objectives, but the question I ask is whether or not a maintenance department needs to go through the "often long winded" high level strategy development for what is normally an intuitively understood mission. This is my first comment.
If companies were to do this they would no doubt come up with a well worded vision and mission. However, in my opinion this strategy would be similar across the board for maintenance departments.
I interpreted the initial question as being focussed on the lower level strategy about how to maintain the equipment.
That aside, I don't think the first step is to spend time producing mission and vision statements. Who reads them? Who takes notice? And more importantly is management going to "walk the talk" as they say. I have seen companies with wonderful maintenance vision and mission statements that are purely "words". They are not followed by the managers who often will take a quick fix approach to failure, neglect training, do not invest in quality systems and the list goes on.
How many times have we seen the statement "we care for our employees - they are our greatest resource" when the company is in the process of downsizing. Employees have become disenchanted with these types messages.
So in developing a maintenance strategy at this high level and publishing a great vision, I think many managers are making a "rod for their own backs". (sorry for all the clichés!)
A maintenance department often struggles to get a vision and mission out there because they often do not control the budgets... Great vision with no cash is not a realistic proposition. So is the real vision to keep things battling along with tight resourcing, higher production needs etc.. if it is such, this is not great vision and publishing it will not seem like good leadership. And that is why I think most organisations don't have these maintenance strategies (visions and missions).
Now if the maintenance department is going to be serious about change and that means having the resources and cash to deliver then a gap analysis can be useful and the gap can be assessed against various benchmarks. Any decent consultant has these audit programs. And yes, these are valuable to assess gaps and what needs to change. In these circumstances it would be worth setting some kind of high level strategy. I know that few organisations do this though. I have been involved in some very successful assignments along these lines... but the commitment was certainly there from the top.
So my answer for almost all organisations is not to spend time developing elegant posters of vision, but get the sleeves rolled up and make some improvements. Developing a PM and reliability assurance program for all the assets is one very good way to start. Show some results and then try and get the commitment to go deeper into improving things.
Just my thoughts
Steve

There is a common perception that the maintenance strategy depends on the production strategy that depends on the marketing strategy.
I agree in theory but not in practice. The reason is that the production capability is set by the machine design and the environment in which it operates. No elegant marketing or production strategy can change the fundamentals of the machine and the environment. This is my first opinion.
Secondly, in most cases, running equipment to failure when the failures can be predicted or prevented is the most costly way to run the asset. This is because there are many hidden costs associated with breakdowns. Letting things fail means a reactive approach regardless of the organisation so I don't think, even if the economics or machine criticality assessment says "low " a run to failure approach is good. This needs to take account of the frequency of failure of course.
In manufacturing for instance, the cost of breakdown is often the cost of some overtime and if you did this first level of economics true to the figures, the breakdown would appear cheaper... but it is not – just ask the maintenance department that is resource constrained. Repairing the non critical failure and taking a long time to do it, takes the labour from other tasks. Eventually this bites hard.
Just another of the things I get on my soap box about.
Regards
Steve

Steve,

I actually agree with you!
What I was (unsuccessfully) trying to say was that 'strategy' is not just about picking a favored technology or methodolgy it is about understanding the context in which the asset operates and from there logically determining the appropriate approach for ensuring that it achieves its purpose.
I guess I too often have seen maintenance people act like 'boys with their toys' and pick a 'strategy' because it is interesting to them, involves the latest gadget or because someone else is using it.

I think the Maint Strategy should outline the basis for maintenance tasks for each equipment class/type or individually.

Rennie, after all you started the thread, which maintenance strategy definition is applicable to your situation.
* Equipment level - basis of maintenance tasks?
* More extensive than a Vision/Mision but less detailed than a written procedure?
* Other?

I have seen the document that contains the Vision & Mission statements is called Maintenance Management Guide (MMG).

Eg Vision: to be the leading provider of maintenance services in the region.

Mission: to safeguard technical integrity etc.

I see that Maint Strategy document is a subset of MMG.

MMG will contain guidelines on general aspects of maintenance on how to achieve the Vision & Misssion satements such as application of maintenance planning, execution, monitoring, improvement (PDCA cycle), ISO900O, RCM, IPF, RBI, CMMS, condition monitoring, organization, staffing, contracting, turnaround/shutdown, RAM, competency/training etc.

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

Eugene,

Well I asked the question 'cos I still need to develop a strategy, particularly for a new plant.

I would say a bit of both (how about that for an answer...do I sound a politician?). I try to explain...

Maintenance is there to satisfy the requirements of the company in terms of avialability of equipment for production, safety, environment, (GMP for pharmaceutical......now you can make out why I asked a related question in another thread), etc.

So these requirements (objective) are to be understood and known or even agreed (that's why I was thinking about an 'official' document). This is the mission/vision part.

Then I go for the equipment level. ....Ultimately I believe the right choice of maintenance tasks, frequency and decisions will provide the means of meeting the objectives.

Hope I'm not confusing everyone

I would include in the strategy document how the maintenance department will arrive to the right choice of maintenance tasks.
Through RCM?, FMEA?, PMO?, etc; document lenght less than say twelve (12) pages. Then at the procedures and the CMMS we will find the actual tasks lists by equipment.