TABLE OF CONTENTS Profound knowledge comes from the outside, and by invitation. A system cannot know itself.
W. Edwards Deming
Most executives wouldn't dream of running their company without an effective computerized accounting and financial management system, and yet many routinely run their production equipment without an effective computerized asset management system for the maintenance and reliability (and cost) of their equipment, often valued in the hundreds of millions. This chapter describes how one of Beta's Divisions accomplished that task.
Beta, like most medium-to-large manufacturing organizations, has put in place a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) at most of its plants, with informal surveys indicating that over 90% of its plants have some form of a CMMS in place. However, a closer review of those plants and questions about the specific use of their systems revealed that most
Are not using the CMMS for all appropriate equipment in their plant. For most plants some 25 75% of equipment is not in the database, and therefore not maintained using the CMMS.
Are using the CMMSs primarily for issuing work orders and scheduling work, but often not using it for comprehensive planning, or for development of equipment repair and cost histories, or for performing Pareto analyses to help prioritize resources, etc.
May be poorly trained in the systematic use by all the appropriate staff of all the capabilities of a good CMMS.
Don't fully apply many of the other tools available, e.g., stores and purchasing interface, resource allocation, document retrieval, etc.
Many times, someone...
