Predictive maintenance for intensive energy consuming plants, serviced by under-qualified staff. Case study

Abstract

Maintenance has traditionally been viewed as a separate entity outside the manufacturing process. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance philosophy designed to integrate equipment maintenance into the manufacturing process [1], [2], [3]. TPM is based on proactive and preventative maintenance and places a strong emphasis on empowering operators to help maintain their equipment, thus reducing to a minimum the small stops, product defects, equipment breakdowns and work related accidents. Total Production Maintenance (TPM) is a necessary part of any successful business, where down time for maintenance is an integral part of the manufacturing process [4], [5], [6]. The maintenance process evolved over the years passing through several phases before reaching the highly efficient TPM phase. The TPM program closely resembles the Total Quality Management (TQM) program [2], [4] where several of the tools used in TQM such as employee empowerment, benchmarking, documentation, etc. are used to implement and optimize TPM. However, there are some essential differences making the TPM process human friendly by shifting the means of attaining the final goal from management systematization and software orientation in TQM, to employees participation and hardware orientation in TPM. This process in highly adequate for plant maintenance in developing countries, where work force is generally under qualified.