The Foundation of Success in Maintenance: Harmony Between Equipment, People, and Processes

According to data, over 70,000 factories operate in Turkey. 90% of these are SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). A factory needs land, machinery, and manpower to become operational. Of course, to make this investment and ensure its sustainability, we need a system.

A business owner may have enough money to achieve their production goals, but for sustainability, they must not neglect a systems approach.

I believe one of the biggest problems faced by factory owners in Turkey is their failure to prioritize a systems approach.

"Money buys everything." Yes, this is often true, but can it buy people?

Many of us might think, "How can I pay them whatever salary they want and work with the most professional people?" But how do we retain these people in our businesses? Unfortunately, paying them the salary they want is often not the solution. Because according to research, the reason many employees leave their jobs is the lack of a system.

As I briefly introduced above, our main topic is "The System." However, we will begin by addressing the question, "What should a systems approach to maintenance management be like?" This approach will allow us to maximize the health and reliability of equipment, which is essential in any business.

A little research will reveal many books on this subject. These books describe methods and methodologies developed for maintenance management. As a maintenance professional, I recommend reading a few of them.

TPM, RCM, TQM, IL6S, WCM

Maintenance management is a direct topic in some of the methodologies whose abbreviations I have given above, and a section in others. However, the desired outcome is to increase operational and equipment efficiency, and therefore operational efficiency, through a systems approach.

The four elements that need to be balanced for operational health and long-term equipment health are capital, culture, people, and processes.

Plant and Equipment Health is based on three fundamental assumptions.

The first assumption is that equipment will continue to function flawlessly only if its individual parts do not fail. If parts fail, nothing else matters. First the parts fail, and then the equipment stops. The health of equipment components significantly impacts equipment reliability. With component-based maintenance management, exceptional equipment reliability is inevitable. This assumption is a cornerstone of production and maintenance success, and achieving it will provide a significant advantage to your business.

The second assumption is that plants and equipment are operated by people. People introduce "human factors" and human error issues that can undermine equipment reliability. For example, competency levels, desires to do better, levels of curiosity, levels of dedication, willingness to learn more, and many other normal human characteristics. The better these "human factors" are managed and developed, the more successfully and error-free the equipment will operate.

Our third priority is that we are working to build a world-class business. A business comprised of reliable processes that produce desired results and are welcomed by stakeholders and customers. Poor plant and equipment reliability is a business process failure that hinders business success. The more correctly plants and equipment are used and maintained, the lower the risk of failure, the higher the quality, the lower the production cost, and the shorter the delivery time. Customers like it and buy your product, thus your business succeeds.

Parts, people, and processes; machines, people, and methods; these are the elements that make up our products and services. Each is important for business success and should be encouraged to perform at their best.

The following graphical representation clearly shows where current methodologies for increasing equipment reliability stand and where they are taking the business in terms of maintenance system/equipment reliability.

The most important question here is, "Where do we start?" The answer to this question is both very simple and very difficult.

The easy part is knowing the methods to be applied. The difficult part is determining where to start, considering the current state of the business.

It must be said that the priority is to understand the business, to be clear and transparent, and to be willing to improve.

Understanding the business is encapsulated in the question, "What are our risks?" What are the equipment maintenance, occupational health and safety, quality, and operational risks in the business? It is necessary to detail this first. After that, we should be looking for answers to questions such as how much of these risks we can reduce, what we need to do to reduce them, or which risks we accept and to what extent we can take responsibility. The journey begins and continues in this way. Without establishing a risk perception, it is very difficult to achieve the desired result in our work.