As we commence the 21st century the burden of providing maintenance services to any organization has grown successively more and more difficult. Yet the technologies to support us today are also greater and more advanced than they ever were. Today we have a greater knowledge base and range of technical and methodology based tools than we have ever possessed. The level of education has far surpassed the level that it was 30 years ago; this includes teaching on most of the new array of methodologies and technologies in the market place today.
The past twenty years has seen the explosion in awareness of RCM and other reliability based concepts, there has also been the further development of these in various other forms for specific industries and market sectors. The result of this awareness has been a great paradigm shift through the majority of industries where maintenance management is required. This is the new understanding about the function of maintenance, its obligations and its responsibilities in the modern industrial environment.
Also we have seen a vast increase in the knowledge of how equipment fails and how, equally importantly, we can detect it. This along with the need for higher reliability in our fixed and mobile assets has helped create an enormous advancement in condition monitoring tools and instruments. Thus we not only have the knowledge of how equipment behaves but we have also a vast array of tools to manage and apply this knowledge. Lastly we have seen phenomenal advancements in the world of computers and communications technology. So much so that today we are easily able to communicate with the other side of the world in a myriad of ways rapidly.
Among the greater advancements in these areas is the functionality afforded us today by CMMS systems. (Computerized Maintenance Management Systems) Today's CMMS can manage all of our possible requirements within the area of maintenance management. Not only that but we are able to create computerized networks to transmit that information immediately anyway in the world where it is needed. This level of technology has been accompanied by the creation, at times integral to the CMMS, of a vast array of specialist systems to manage reliability and condition based information.
Despite all of these great advances in our work environments the great majority of plants and industrial organizations continue to operate in a reactive state of maintenance. Why is this so? Firstly it can be said that although the concepts and new paradigms implicit in modern reliability engineering are widespread, they are still not common practice. So there is some reasoning there. Also the lack of fundamental knowledge regarding maintenance techniques has enabled the spread of some less than adequate methodologies parading as reliability solutions.
However the knowledge of the existence of this information is widespread and the level of application in industry is growing. There are also other factors contributing to the malaise we find generally today; however in my experience, the one overriding factor out of all of the reasons for this is the following:
"The maintenance business processes and the management of them, has not kept pace with the rapid advances in technology"
There have been almost quantum leaps in the advances in management theory in the areas of business management, accounting and so forth. However the area of management of the business processes associated with Maintenance Management has moved forward in a manner that is either slow or not at all in some areas. At times there have been pseudo advances in this area, all of which eventually are revealed for the substandard techniques they are. However the abilities and functionalities of the computerized systems made to manage this process has indeed continued to evolve.
Today the functionalities of CMMS, or the technology to manage maintenance, have outstripped our abilities to do so in practice. It is for this reason primarily that there are so many reactive state maintenance departments, even within those operating with advanced reliability programs.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/cmms-templates-for-effective-implementations-16917/
The past twenty years has seen the explosion in awareness of RCM and other reliability based concepts, there has also been the further development of these in various other forms for specific industries and market sectors. The result of this awareness has been a great paradigm shift through the majority of industries where maintenance management is required. This is the new understanding about the function of maintenance, its obligations and its responsibilities in the modern industrial environment.
Also we have seen a vast increase in the knowledge of how equipment fails and how, equally importantly, we can detect it. This along with the need for higher reliability in our fixed and mobile assets has helped create an enormous advancement in condition monitoring tools and instruments. Thus we not only have the knowledge of how equipment behaves but we have also a vast array of tools to manage and apply this knowledge. Lastly we have seen phenomenal advancements in the world of computers and communications technology. So much so that today we are easily able to communicate with the other side of the world in a myriad of ways rapidly.
Among the greater advancements in these areas is the functionality afforded us today by CMMS systems. (Computerized Maintenance Management Systems) Today's CMMS can manage all of our possible requirements within the area of maintenance management. Not only that but we are able to create computerized networks to transmit that information immediately anyway in the world where it is needed. This level of technology has been accompanied by the creation, at times integral to the CMMS, of a vast array of specialist systems to manage reliability and condition based information.
Despite all of these great advances in our work environments the great majority of plants and industrial organizations continue to operate in a reactive state of maintenance. Why is this so? Firstly it can be said that although the concepts and new paradigms implicit in modern reliability engineering are widespread, they are still not common practice. So there is some reasoning there. Also the lack of fundamental knowledge regarding maintenance techniques has enabled the spread of some less than adequate methodologies parading as reliability solutions.
However the knowledge of the existence of this information is widespread and the level of application in industry is growing. There are also other factors contributing to the malaise we find generally today; however in my experience, the one overriding factor out of all of the reasons for this is the following:
"The maintenance business processes and the management of them, has not kept pace with the rapid advances in technology"
There have been almost quantum leaps in the advances in management theory in the areas of business management, accounting and so forth. However the area of management of the business processes associated with Maintenance Management has moved forward in a manner that is either slow or not at all in some areas. At times there have been pseudo advances in this area, all of which eventually are revealed for the substandard techniques they are. However the abilities and functionalities of the computerized systems made to manage this process has indeed continued to evolve.
Today the functionalities of CMMS, or the technology to manage maintenance, have outstripped our abilities to do so in practice. It is for this reason primarily that there are so many reactive state maintenance departments, even within those operating with advanced reliability programs.
SOURCE:http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/cmms-templates-for-effective-implementations-16917/
No comments:
Post a Comment