Maintenance Execution: What and How – A PDCA Approach

Abstract

Maintenance execution determines the overall outcome of any maintenance policy and strategy adopted to keep a facility in a reliable state. Once this is flawed, every other aspect of the maintenance process will not yield the intended result, hence the need to focus attention on the shopfloor execution of maintenance tasks with adherence to plans and schedules. There are two major aspects of maintenance execution: what to do and how to do it. What to do are a combination of original equipment manufacturer recommendations and other source of information relevant to maintenance planning, such as historical data, experience from technicians, and prognostic methodologies for data gathering. While this is almost unique to equipment, it is a prerequisite for proper maintenance planning and execution. The how-to-do aspect of maintenance execution involves the capability and ability of the shopfloor technicians to carry out the maintenance plan with the right knowledge, attitude, and tool set. By adopting the PDCA approach, a systematic approach to maintenance execution is developed that covers both planning and implementation of maintenance execution for sustaining reliability. The result shows a steady decline in waste trend with over 5% reduction in the amount of waste in less than 3 months.