Improving Operational Efficiency of a Small Manufacturing Maintenance Organization

Abstract

Many small manufacturers struggle with poor maintenance efficiency, resulting in high maintenance costs and/or frequent equipment breakdowns. Existing literature addresses which tasks to prioritize and how to measure results, but there is little prior work on how to accomplish more maintenance work overall with the same resources and reduce maintenance wastes. We develop a framework for conceptualizing maintenance operational efficiency as a complement to maintenance strategy, focusing on the primary maintenance process: backlog, diagnosis, planning, getting parts, executing, and observing effects. We apply this framework to a small Michigan manufacturing facility. We estimate the cost of equipment breakdowns at the facility using a novel cross-referencing between maintenance breakdowns and production bottlenecks. Finally, we propose several improvements to target wastes in each step of the primary maintenance process: shared ownership of equipment between maintenance and production, more accessible documentation, a work order system, proximal spare parts storage, and solving problems permanently.