I have run into this problem in at least four facilities. I am looking for some information to present to my upper management. "Maintenance" means to me the upkeep of the production and facility assets. However, quite often, and to a degree that is dismaying at my current employer, maintenance is too often directed to have the workers do project work that has little or nothing to do with maintenance. True maintenance is then deferred in order to save money to get a perceived necessary project done without going through a project process. It is stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Are there any papers or good articles that synopsizes this better than my previous statement and possibly provides some facts as to how costly this practice actually is?

Please give examples of projects that they have done. Big projects are likely capitalised while small ones may be not so to be carried out by maintenance using operating expenses.

Some maintenance departments may have to do some project works because they think their organization is more focus on engineering and thus they call themselves engineering dept. This is quite logical if we think that maintenance does cover plant changes or modifications when necessary where repetetive upkeep is too often or simply does not work.

Other maintenance depts may carry out electrical and instrument projects and mechanical projects are done by technical service dept. This is because the maintenance dept has the E&I engineers on hands.

Having said the above, maintenance works should be prioritized on their own and projects prioritized separately to avoid conflict. Meaning to say, to have 2 separate budgets for maintenance works and projects.

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