investment, thus defining lean manufacturing. This definition will be shifted here to suit maintenance.
What are some of the barriers to Lean?
There is resistance to Lean Maintenance. This resistance can be seen in any of the four dimensions (Practices, Attitudes, Technology, and Duration).
1.Reluctance to adopt new technology to solve old problems with known solutions (such as replacing incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps).
2.Concentrating on initial costs and not realizing the cost or time impacts of the waste (such as extended drain intervals of newer oils).
3.Being ignorant in areas where an expert would know of a better product or process (using stabilizer in swimming pools to reduce the use of chlorine).
4.Being complacent.
5.Not being concerned with the efficiency of the process or with the waste produced (particularly when profit margins are high).
6.Resistance when producing waste is cheaper than re-use, re-purpose, or re-cycle.
7.Having all the attention on other targets such as production level, quality, or safety.
8.Having an aesthetic that requires waste (such as an architect wanting a vaulting atrium with glass roof in Arizona).
9.Having an aesthetic that requires obscure products (like lamps that emit certain colors not available in florescent) and not accepting something close.
10.Fun (like having a 300-HP car rather than a 200-HP car).
11.Waste requires less attention and it may be easier to manage than Lean.
12.Unusual quality requirements where useable, almost-good, components are scrapped.
13.Where consumption makes a statement (such as the lagoon in the middle of the desert at the company headquarters).
14.Marketing might drive waste by super-sizing products, which people then throw away in larger amounts.
15.Lack of production planning (like the bakery that over-produces and then has excessive leftovers).
Problem
There is a problem with the notion of Lean Maintenance. The problem is that, if you follow Lean Maintenance through to its logical conclusion, Lean Maintenance really means no maintenance. Or rather, it means no need for maintenance. It means a factory with equipment that doesn’t need to be maintained. Wouldn’t that be the Leanest Maintenance of all? If we could build a manufacturing process that would reliably make a product that didn’t require any maintenance, wouldn’t that be interesting to top management?
After all, maintenance itself (unless you do some interesting manipulations with semantics and logic) does not directly add value to a product. This value adding proposition is part of the definition of lean maintenance. So, we have a little bit of a dilemma.
The solution to this dilemma is that as yet there are no truly maintenance-free factories. Until there are, we have to make maintenance lean. When there are maintenance-free designs, we will have to reconsider this position. So, on the way to having maintenance-free systems, you can take on the fat in maintenance.
Some of you may watch Star Trek (one of my favorite series that I think has captured many issues of maintenance management over time). I tell people that if you ever want to know something about maintenance, just watch Star Trek and see how maintenance issues are treated. Everything you need to know about maintenance has been in a Star Trek episode.
In the first Star Trek series, back in the late 60s, Scotty was the chief engineer and Scotty would fix things. Scotty would get down underneath this thing and he would wriggle around some complicated-looking tool and he would fix things. He’d actually get dirty.
And in the second series Star Trek, the Next Generation, Geordi La Forge was the chief engineer. In a hundred episodes or so, Geordi rarely fixed anything. He would have a problem (there was almost one in every episode); he’d walk over to a computer console and would reconfigure the warp couplings or something like that, by punching a bunch of weird-looking symbols.
And then in Voyager, it’s even better. Participants in the Voyager series didn’t even discuss breakdowns because the ship was biological and fixed itself. B’Elanna Troy was the chief engineer and her whole mission was getting more power. She spent her time getting more power out of the warp engine (the reason why is beyond the scope of this discussion).
And these items illustrate exactly what are the three recent generations of maintenance. The first generation, in the mid 1960s, was the super fix-it guy who could fix anything. He was an older person (compared to the rest of the crew) but up-to-date with all the technology. The second generation in the 1990s was the young, smart, computer guy. And in the third generation in the 2000s, the ship was biological, and could just grow new circuits.
Machines that can fix themselves are what your bosses dream about, by the way.
These are battles that have been fought for years
Many of us have been fighting these lean battles for years. In a recent training session on Planning in an ore processing facility, I was amazed that, without prompting about waste and the value stream of maintenance, or any preparation to set up the discussion, the maintenance workers and plant operators came up with a great collection of ideas about where the waste was located.
You can see that waste is foremost in the workers’ minds because unlike managers, the waste is in the workers’ faces. Logically, the list of ideas can be divided into a few areas. These few areas could be used to start the lean discussions within the plant. If you embark on a Lean journey, always ask yourself the question: where is the lowest-hanging fruit in each of the areas? Nothing beats having success on your first few projects.
Waste discussion from Alcoa, Point Comfort, Texas July 2007,
•The biggest waste is searching for and ordering parts. It seems wrong parts are constantly ordered or received. The whole process around parts is a huge waste of time.
•Getting refurbished components from outside vendors with incorrect specifications. And inadequate follow-up on outsourced rebuilding.
•Parts that are pulled for a job and not used are thrown away because it is too much trouble to return them.
•Long-lead-time parts are not set up on the system or stocked (the plant is 50 years old).
•Time wasted going to jobs unprepared. The maintenance people frequently don’t have the materials or tools, and then have to leave the jobs to collect the stuff.
•Planners do not have job knowledge or know the job requirements.
•Starting jobs before you have all the parts and equipment (this is a daily problem).
•Showing up on jobs and not being able to get access to equipment because it’s not locked out, cleaned, or ready for maintenance.
•Not having the right tools in the tool room and having to improvise.
•When you get tools from the
