Maintenance Management Introduction Meaning, Objectives

Maintenance activities are related with repair, replacement and service of components or some identifiable group of components in a manufacturing plant so that it may continue to operate at a specified ‘availability’ for a specified period.

Thus, maintenance management is associated with the direction and organisation of various resources so as to control the availability and performance of the industrial unit to some specified level.

Thus, maintenance management may be treated as a restorative function of production management which is entrusted with the task of keeping equipment/machines and plant services ever available in proper operating condition.

The minimization of machine breakdowns and down time has been the main objective of maintenance but the strategies adopted by maintenance management to achieve this aim have undergone great changes in the past.

Maintenance has been considered just to repair the faulty equipment and put them back in order in minimum possible time.

Objectives

• To improve reliability, availability and maintainability.
• To minimize the total maintenance cost which may consist of cost of repairs, cost of preventive maintenance and inventory costs associated with spare parts/materials required for maintenance.
• Minimizing the loss of productive time because of equipment failure to maximize the availability of plant, equipment and machinery for productive utilization through planned maintenance.
• To improve the quality of products and to improve the productivity of the plant.
• To extend the useful life of the plant, machinery and other facilities by minimizing their wear and tear.
• To maximize efficiency and economy in production through optimum utilization of available facilities.
• To ensure safety of personnel through regular inspection and maintenance of facilities such as boilers, compressors and material handling equipment etc.
• Minimizing the loss due to production stoppages.
• Efficient use of maintenance equipment’s and personnel.
• To ensure operational readiness of all equipment’s needed for emergency purposes at all times such as fire-fighting equipment.

Compliance with Regulations

Maintenance tasks should be conducted in a manner that complies with regulations at all levels, including at the local, state and federal levels. It might seem like a cheaper solution to assign one employee to a piece of equipment, even though the law states that two employees should be assigned to that equipment for safety reasons. In this instance, the law will take precedence. The maintenance manager should stay up-to-date with all relevant regulations to avoid having a brush with the law.

Scheduling Work and Allocating Resources

Scheduling is all about allocating the resources of time and labor to the most productive uses. A manager needs to have an intimate understanding of how the company works for her to schedule correctly, as this will help her decide the priority levels of different activities. Consider a situation in a warehouse dedicated to paper supply where the delivery truck and the forklift each need maintenance.

Cost Control and Budgeting

This is probably the most important objective of maintenance management. It isn’t entirely under the control of the maintenance manager, however. Typically, the maintenance manager works with a fixed budget that’s set by the company. They need to find the most judicious way to allocate this budget to the various parts of the maintenance department’s costs and find a way to make everything work.