Maintenance and asset management
We bring order to maintenance management: what assets you have, what condition they are in, what they cost, what the regulations require and what should be done first. From there we build the master plan and stay until it works. This is the area where we have the most years in the field, and the one that underpins production results: a line cannot yield more than its maintenance allows.
The eight basics of maintenance
Before talking about predictive maintenance, artificial intelligence or anything else, there are eight foundations that have to be in place. When one is missing, everything built on top eventually falls down. This is the first piece of work we do on site.
1. Asset register
Detailed definition of the asset tree by area, production line and machine, broken down far enough to allow reports to be analysed and failures genuinely tracked, and with standardised naming.
2. A real preventive plan
With real rather than pre-set intervention times, with the necessary spare parts associated, with frequencies based on the plant's own experience, with analysis of corrective work feeding back into the plan itself, and with execution defined according to whether the machine is stopped or running.
3. Workflows
Preventive work, corrective work, work by external contractors, installations and requests from production. Each with its own route, its owners and its timescales.
4. Definition of the team
Internal structure with permissions, priorities, automations and standardisation of the way of working.
5. Definition of reports
Daily corrective job sheets for the leader, financial reports, monitoring of external contractors, equipment criticality analysis, audits and obsolescence analysis.
6. Definition of KPIs
MTBF, MTTR, availability, financial indicators, stock-outs, the ratio between preventive and corrective work, the plant's top 3 or top 10 failures, monitoring of external contractors, warranty control, and tracking of projects and improvements.
7. Spare parts store management
Coding, standardisation of equipment and naming, equipment criticality and control of stock-outs.
8. Systems integration
Connection with SAP, SCADA, MES, the warehouse system and the scheduler, according to the reality of each plant.
The Maintenance Operating Manual (MOM)
This is our roadmap from diagnosis to master plan, and it runs in two phases. The first defines; the second implements on site.
Phase 1 · Drawing up the master plan
Sizing of the department and analysis of profiles and needs, with benchmarking. Optimisation of the organisational structure by area: maintenance of the production process, installations, stores and spare parts purchasing, and management of technical service contracts and subcontracting. Definition of the MOM: analysis of the starting preventive plan, analysis of corrective work and TPM, number of task schedules, associated times and the technical profiles required, planning of preventive work and preparation for loading into the MES/CMMS system. Support for senior management and line managers with their communication plan. Definition of GMAO requirements: asset register, preventive plan, work order management, stocks, audits, KPI dashboards and workflows. Optimisation of the communication flow within the department and across the organisation.
Phase 2 · Implementation on site
Identification of gaps in profiles and in technical competence. Implementation of the master plan and the MOM in pilot plants. Support for the new role within the organisation and within the department. Training plan based on the gaps identified. Support in implementing the change to communication flows. Post-implementation maintenance assessment, to verify that the change has taken hold.
What the area covers, in detail
Each of these pieces of work can be engaged separately or form part of a complete master plan.
Maintenance plans
A maintenance plan is the set of preventive, predictive, routine operating and investment tasks that must be carried out on an installation to meet the availability, reliability and cost objectives, with the ultimate aim of extending its useful life as far as possible.
You have a good plan when you control the preventive, routine operating, predictive and corrective work, and that control allows stoppages and costs to be optimised. With control of the work carried out, you can build a sound financial plan and choose the right indicators to keep technical and financial control at all times, and simply.
Maintenance management audits
The purpose is to identify every point open to optimisation and to propose the organisational and management changes that will genuinely improve things. It is not an inspection to find someone to blame: it is a diagnosis to support decisions. It covers assessment of the organisation, the procedures and the resources; comparison between the plan on paper and the work actually carried out; analysis of the workload and of the split between in-house resources and contractors; review of maintenance contracts and of their service level; and a report with prioritised findings, associated risks and a costed action plan.
Cost analysis
Maintenance costs are not there to be avoided: they are there to be optimised. And to optimise them you have to understand them. We analyse the real cost structure and how it compares with sector benchmarks, the cost by asset, by line and by type of intervention, the optimisation of the spare parts store and of the critical stock policy, and the rationalisation of supplier contracts, and we build an annual budget that is justified and can be defended to the board.
One of the key points is thorough control of spare parts: obtaining the best terms from suppliers and securing the supply of critical parts allows the capital tied up in the store to be reduced without affecting production.
RCM and TPM implementation
RCM, reliability-centred maintenance, aims to preserve the function of the systems that govern the assets, and requires a systematic process to define their boundaries and functions and to analyse failures and wear.
TPM, total productive maintenance, adds staff training in order to secure the operator's involvement as the person responsible for product quality and operational reliability. More than a maintenance model, it is a business strategy. We implement both methods adapted to the size and maturity of each organisation, without importing models the plant cannot sustain.
Preventive and predictive maintenance
Anticipating a failure is cheaper than repairing it, and far cheaper than suffering the stoppage. We work with the usual techniques — vibration analysis to detect misalignment, imbalance, looseness and bearing degradation; infrared thermography to locate hot spots before they cause a failure or a fire; borescope inspection to examine the inside of equipment without dismantling it — and also oil analysis, ultrasound and electrical motor testing, according to the criticality of the asset.
An honest word of warning: not every asset deserves predictive maintenance. Instrumenting a whole plant «because it is the modern thing to do» is one of the quickest ways to spend a great deal of money without removing a single stoppage. The valuable work is not installing sensors, it is deciding where not to install them.
Forensic engineering and root cause analysis
When a failure keeps coming back, or when an incident has caused injury or material damage, repairing it is not enough. We apply structured root cause analysis processes to determine the real causes and define the mitigation measures required: collection and preservation of evidence, reconstruction of the failure sequence, analysis of the failure mode and of its physical causes, identification of the latent causes in design, operation, maintenance or management, and a plan of corrective measures with owners and deadlines. The deliverable is a technical report with documentary support, suitable for use with third parties.
It also covers technical assessment of the condition of installations. According to the surveys of the Asociación Española de Mantenimiento (the Spanish Maintenance Association), the average age of Spanish industrial installations is now around 24 years: that is why it is so critical to put figures to obsolescence and plan renewal before the incident happens.
Regulations, ISO and asset management
Industrial installations are subject to complex regulation that sets the type and frequency of maintenance operations, the periodic checks and the mandatory inspections. Non-compliance can bring penalties and even closure of the installation, and there is one risk that is often overlooked: an insurer may decline cover for a loss caused by an installation whose obligations were not in order.
We draw up the inventory of applicable obligations, the calendar of inspections and checks, the audit of the state of compliance and the integration of the legal obligations into the maintenance plan and into the MES/CMMS system, with a continuous regulatory monitoring service.
We also provide support with ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment), ISO 45001 (health and safety), ISO 13485 (medical devices) and the ISO 55000 / 55001 / 55002 asset management family, as well as with BREEAM and LEED certification and carbon footprint calculation. On ISO 55001 we work on the maturity assessment, the asset management policy and objectives, the strategic plan (SAMP), risk management and criticality analysis, the life-cycle cost model and preparation for the certification audit.
- ISO 9001 — Quality
- ISO 14001 — Environment
- ISO 45001 — Health and safety
- ISO 13485 — Medical devices
- ISO 55000 / 55001 / 55002 — Asset management
Frequently asked questions
How long does a maintenance management audit take?
It depends on the size and complexity of the plant, but a typical scope is completed within a few weeks, from the site visit to delivery of the report. We give you a fixed timescale in the proposal.
Does production have to stop?
No. The diagnostic work is carried out with the plant running, with visits coordinated so as not to interfere with operations.
Do you work with the in-house team or replace it?
Always with the in-house team. Our aim is to leave the plant able to manage itself, not to create dependency.
What if we already have a maintenance plan?
So much the better: we start from it. Typically there is a plan on paper and what is actually carried out is something different. That is usually where the first opportunity for improvement lies.
Can we engage just one part?
Yes. The eight basics, the MOM and each piece of work in the area can be engaged separately. The usual route is to start with the audit and decide afterwards.
The other services
Let's start with the diagnosis
Tell us what worries you and we will propose the right scope, with fixed timescales and fees.