Overview

Benjamin Franklin says: Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

The ultimate in fat maintenance is returning to a maintenance job to redo it. Quality is the beginning point for Leanness. Without quality, all other Lean initiatives are wasting mechanics' time, parts, and machine time. There are many approaches to quality. The one taken by the originators of Lean Maintenance was the one promulgated by W.E. Deming.

There are excellent books on quality by and about Deming. He went to Japan in 1950 as part of the Marshall Plan. He taught many lessons, and the leaders of Japanese industry were receptive to them. For our purposes there were a few that directly lead to quality maintenance work.

Deming made 14 points in the training sessions that he led. These 14 points became the bedrock of an entire quality movement. He also made one observation about the morale of all workers (#13) that applies especially to maintenance workers. He said "make sure nothing stands between the worker and the feeling of pride in a job well done." This pride can be a motivator for both quality and Lean initiatives. Deming's 14 points were (with my apologies to the late Dr. Deming I adapted his points to the realities of maintenance):

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and services. Large assets take some time to deteriorate. Only a department with a long view and a consistency of purpose will catch the problems. Maintenance is no place...