TABLE OF CONTENTS The first step of designing a PM program is to determine the critical units and systems in the plant that will be included in the PM program. Maintenance managers know that having the PM program cover every item in the plant or facility is not cost effective. There are certain components, not part of critical processes, which are cheaper to let run to failure than to spend money maintaining. Critical items should be identified and cataloged for inclusion in the PM program.
Determining the critical equipment items can be accomplished several ways. It can be by:
The highest amount of downtime
The highest lost production costs
The biggest quality problems
Regardless of the method used to determine the equipment on which the PM program is started, the primary concern is that the equipment is considered to be a bottleneck or a constraint to producing a product.
If a line or process is capacity constrained, then any downtime by equipment in the line or process has a direct impact on the product throughput. Even if the product cannot be sold (a capped market), the overhead cost to produce the product will be higher than necessary.
If a line or process is involved in producing a product that is in a demand marketplace and can be sold immediately upon being produced then any downtime become lost revenue. This type of condition is ideal for cost justifying a preventive maintenance program.
If a line or process has...
