Extending Equipment's Life Cycle - The Next Challenge for Maintenance: 7th Discipline of World Class Maintenance Management

The objective of any maintenance program in industries is to take care of the Equipment’s Total Life Cycle at the most reasonable cost with compliance to quality, safety, and the environment. To perform this we need the following;

First: Upgrade the skills and knowledge of our maintenance people

Second: Sustain equipment reliability by doing the correct maintenance

Third: Improve the design weaknesses in the equipment

Fourth: Reduced the cost of doing maintenance

The sequence cannot be reversed. Reduction in cost can only be achieved if maintenance can both sustain and improve their equipment, but this can only happen if maintenance is equipped with the knowledge to do their jobs correctly. This means that before we can even sustain and preserve our equipment and assets, we need to provide our maintenance people with the knowledge to develop their skills to do their job correctly, but it does not stop from here. Sustaining and preserving the equipment is merely the beginning. Maintenance must also understand their equipment, especially on those parts, spares, and items with inherent design weaknesses, and improve them. Doing this will definitely reduce the cost of doing maintenance.

This book is written based on the Author’s personal experience on how to make it possible to extend the Total Life Cycle of the equipment so that we can operate and maintain them at the least amount to own the asset. The study of the life cycle is simply the sum of both the Initial and the Running Cost of the equipment. While the initial cost is easy to see as it is always given, the running cost is not but it can still be projected.

Equipment has a finite or dictated life and usually, this is estimated by the Vendor or OEM, but what if there is a possibility to extend the lifespan by 20, 30, 50, percent, or even 2, 3 folds, or even more? Then this will be of great benefit to industries as they do not need to purchase additional new machines in the future. There are many reasons why equipment does not reach its useful life. There are those, which can be managed, and those that are simply beyond the control of the maintenance function such as the Market Demand. This means that if the product manufactured has limited demand from the public, then there is no need on using the equipment unless the equipment is non-dedicated which means that it can produce other products to market.

This book covers three parts. The first will include the Vertical Startup of the equipment. This will start during the acquisition of the asset and what can be done to optimize its start-up. The second part will be the running costs, which include the Life Cycle of the equipment. Finally, the feasibility of extending the Life Cycle of the equipment until the time the equipment or asset will be disposed of. The concept of Life-Cycle covers the Total or Overall Cost incurred on the equipment during its entire lifespan from the beginning up to the time the equipment will be retired and disposed of. What we all want is to operate and maintain the asset with the least amount to own over its entire life span, which is the main objective of this book.

Life Cycle Costing is the sum of the initial cost and the running cost of the equipment. This will start from the design until the equipment will finally be decommissioned in the plant. While the initial cost is easy to see but not for the running cost. However, the running cost can still be projected. This means that the decision to purchase equipment should not solely be based on the initial cost of the equipment.

One highlights of this book is that the approach on improving equipment's life cycle should be done two folds. First by improving the vertical start up time which can be made possible by implementing TPM's Initial Flow Control Activities (IFCA) or Early Equipment Management (EEM). Second, is to finally address equipment's design weaknesses by lengthening its lifetime through MP Design Improvements.

Finally, this book concludes that maintenance that training and education will serve as the very basic foundation of an effective maintenance strategy and structure. Every industry is plagued with different problems and risks that they need to address to remain in business. While many industries will opt to go for an all-out Management Cost Cutting Schemes, which can have harmful effects and repercussions as, indicated in the case study on Bhopal India and Boeing 737 Max. Finally, the readers need to understand that sustaining the equipment is not just the role of maintenance in industries but also for them to accept the challenge that equipment and assets can still be improved.