At a large surface mining operation more than 70% of the maintenance department work was reactive - breakdown repairs. A "preventive maintenance" approach had been initiated and a major "planned component replacement" program was in use. They recognized that OEM and supplier recommendations tend to be conservative so they did not follow them to the letter. They modified the task frequencies. For example, instead of changing oil in haul truck every 1500 hours they extended it to 2000 hours. Their planned component replacement program covered some 5,000 different components across their large vehicle fleet. They expected to see a marked reduction in breakdown maintenance but it did not happen - breakdowns were reduced, but only to 50%. RCM looked like a possible approach but it can take a long time and their lack of success with the component replacement program had them second guessing their ability. They were wondering why, after all this effort, there was so little improvement.
We found that they had used failure statistics to set their task intervals. The mine had extensive maintenance records and they were in good shape. Those records showed them on average, for the failures they had experienced, when those failures were likely to occur. They had determined the Mean Time Between Failures and then used that as their replacement interval for those 5,000 components. The decisions were made, item by item, after extensive study of each of their failure histories. They had however miss-understood one crucial fact - the MTBF is the age at which roughly 50% of the item population will have failed. It should have been no surprise then that 50% of their work would be breakdown repairs. We introduced them to advanced reliability techniques and tools that combined reliability with financial analysis. We showed them how root cause analysis of those failures they were experiencing could be used to eliminate many of them and particularly those failures that were most damaging to the operation. We also showed them examples where RCM would change not only task frequencies but also what work they did and whether or not they even did it - after all, we could see that some of their well-intentioned efforts were actually causing failures. They expanded their program to include Root Cause Failure Analysis and RCM.
They had latched onto one solution and missed other opportunities. By broadening their perspective they were able to implement a more balanced improvement initiative and begin to see the results they were after. They dramatically reduced failures and improved reliability. Fleet vehicle avaialability increased sufficiently to park several vehicles saving both operating and maintenance costs. Older and less reliable vehicles could now be retired.
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