Overview

World Class Maintenance is an extremely useful fiction, invented to spur companies toward excellence in their respective fields. It is important to realize that there is no one World Class standard. What is World Class in a nuclear power plant would bankrupt a chicken-processing plant. World Class is always referential toward one or a series of related industries. For example, oil refineries and large chemical plants might be within one World Class division. Chicken processors and other meat processors might be in another. The rules and benchmarks could be compared within the division.

Having said that, if there was a world class standard it would relate to its attitude toward customers. Womack and Jones outline a World Class approach to supplying customers in Lean Solutions that is also Lean. Customers want:

• My problem completely solved

• Don't waste my time

• Provide exactly what I want

• Deliver value where I want it

• Supply value when I want

• Reduce the number of decisions I have to make to solve my problem

There are World Class attitudes that are common across industries. In Managing Factory Maintenance Second Edition I reviewed some of these areas. I want to revisit those areas while adding in discussion about their relationship to Lean Maintenance. Also, since that work was published, the global urgency for efficiency and sustainable production has heightened.

Six Areas of Focus for Lean Maintenance in Companies that Strive for World Class

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