Of Packaging Lines and Racing Cars

Reliability and maintenance professionals agree that their ability to deliver machine availability to production depends on having accurate and timely information concerning asset condition. With such information in hand they are able to effectively schedule maintenance in such a way as to avoid catastrophic failures and minimize machine downtime. Having the right spare parts, personnel and maintenance plans in place allows outages to be shortened. And since catastrophic failures often cause collateral damage, being able to plan shutdowns in advance of these events dramatically reduces the scope of work (and cost) involved in repairing equipment. Everybody agrees that having accurate and timely information is a good thing, but agreeing on this point is not enough. The issue that many struggle with is how to justify the capital expense of the tools or systems needed to generate this information. The approach to justifying any expenditure depends largely on the asset in question; its impact on overall production, the commercial climate into which the product is being sold, and the failure mechanisms know to affect it.