Maintenance Management Unit 1

Unit 1 Introduction to Maintenance Management

Structure:
1.1 Introduction
Objectives
1.2 History of Maintenance
Definition of Maintenance
Objectives and Functions of Maintenance
1.3 Functions of Maintenance Management
Quality Aspects in Maintenance
Maintenance Organisation
Initial Level
Repeatable Level
Defined Level
Managed Level
Optimized Level
1.4 Improving Maturity in Maintenance Organizations
Training Strategy
Work Management
Resources Management
Supervisory Review
Quality Assurance
Subcontract Management
Commitment of the Maintenance Personnel.
Verification of Implementation
Metrics and Process Improvement
1.5 Dynamics of a Maintenance Organisation
Maintenance Management Perspectives
Types of Maintenance
Preventive Maintenance
Shut-down Maintenance
Opportunistic Maintenance
1.6 Summary
1.7 Terminal Questions
1.8 Answers

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1.1 Introduction
Rising inflation and increased competition have brought with them the need
for greater productivity, and recent years have seen more emphasis being
placed on productivity improvement. Moreover, sophisticated equipment and
capital intensive units and plants are being increasingly used to achieve the
pre-set targets of higher production and productivity. Reliability and
maintainability features are now being incorporated in the equipment
designs. Although modern equipment has higher levels of reliability, it is not
possible to keep this equipment in an operating condition at all times
because failures do occur even in the most reliable equipment.1 It is also
true that such sophisticated equipment, and units or plants, tend to have
high probabilities of failure since in many cases they incorporate newer, and
therefore not adequately proven, technologies and designs.
They also consist of a large number of assemblies, sub-assemblies and
components. Failure and malfunctioning of these items of equipment result
in a loss of production. Loss of production is undesirable because it results
in corresponding loss in revenue. Whenever an item of equipment is down
and fails to perform its intended function, or performs in an undesirable
fashion, it must be restored to a state where it performs satisfactorily. At the
same time all necessary action must be taken to keep, or retain, such
equipment in an operating condition and also to prevent failures. Resources,
such as spare parts, manpower skills, tools, instruments and facilities, such
as hangars in the case of aircraft maintenance, are utilized for
accomplishment of the restoration processes and preventive actions. Thus
the requirement for productivity improvement has brought about the
pressing need for a significant improvement in the management of
maintenance of equipment, units and plants.
Objectives:
After studying this unit you shall be able
 To Define Maintenance
 To assess objective and functions of Maintenance
 To describe Quality aspect of Maintenance
 To assess key process of Maintenance Management

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1.2 History of Maintenance

Historically, maintenance activities have been regarded as a necessary evil
by the various management functions in an organisation. Enormous costs of
maintenance, estimated to be between 15 and 40 per cent of the production
costs and the trend towards automation have, however, forced managers to
pay more attention to maintenance. The evolution of maintenance can be
traced from the days prior to World War II. The attitude of the managers
then was ‘to fix the equipment when it breaks’. With fewer items of
sophisticated equipment around, and hence, the cost of downtime not being
high, prevention of equipment failures was not given much attention.
Maintenance, in addition to fixing the broken equipment, involved simple
activities like cleaning and lubrication.

The period after World War II saw the introduction of the word
‘terotechnology’ which was initially defined by the committee on
terotechnology as ‘…a combination of management, financial, engineering
and other practices applied to physical assets in pursuit of economic life-
cycle costs’. Due to rising costs and inflation, focus was on reducing
downtime of equipment and hence preventive maintenance came into being
as an important activity. This period also saw a number of researchers
working on operations research models for preventive maintenance.
Importance of planning maintenance activities also grew during this period.
Overhauls of equipment were planned and scheduled. Systems for
managing maintenance were also introduced.

The period after 1980 has seen some of the worst accidents in industrial
history. Leakage of methyl isocyanite (MIC) from a battery/cell
manufacturing unit in Bhopal in India and the threat to the survival of
mankind caused by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the erstwhile Soviet
Union have only made the manufacturing industries and the like realize the
importance of maintenance. The attitude of ignorance towards maintenance
has increasingly been replaced by one which recognizes maintenance also
as a strategic issue in the organisation. Besides high cost, the other factors
which contributed to this change include: environmental concerns, safety
issues, and warranty and liability factors, regulatory matters, ageing plant
and equipment, drive for cost reduction and the like. To live up to the
new expectations demanded of maintenance activities, maintenance

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programmes have to be developed to ensure that physical assets will

continue to fulfill their intended functions at a minimum expenditure of
resources. Obviously, maintenance activities which do not contribute to
preserving or restoring the intended functions of assets should be
eliminated. The need for reliable equipment has also been realized.
Techniques such as condition monitoring, neural networks and Markov
chains have been used for controlling and managing maintenance activities.

1.2.1 Definition of Maintenance

Maintenance is an element of a complete production system. Maintenance,
in general, means preserving, or keeping, an item of equipment in a
specified operating condition. In case an item of equipment fails it needs to
be restored to the same specified operating condition. Maintenance can
thus be defined as a set of activities, or tasks, that are related to preserving
equipment in a specified operating condition, or restoring failed equipment
to a normal operating condition. Performing maintenance activities requires
the use of resources such as spare parts, manpower, tools and facilities.
The availability and utilization of these resources are of prime importance.
The set of tasks or activities that constitute maintenance ranges from simple
cleaning operations and lubrication to performing condition monitoring, and
planning and scheduling maintenance resources.

1.2.2 Objectives and Functions of Maintenance

The objective of any business organisation is to make profits. The objective
of maintenance, which is linked to the overall organizational objectives,
should, therefore, be to maximize the profitability of the organisation by
performing activities which retain working equipment in an acceptable
condition, or return the equipment to an acceptable working condition.
Performing such activities would obviously extend the useful life of the
equipment. Alternatively the objective should be to minimize the costs – the
labour costs and the material costs as well as the loss in revenue due to
loss of production. In summary, the principal objectives of maintenance
would be:
 to control the availability of the equipment, at minimum resource cost;
 To extend the useful life of the equipment.

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Modern maintenance management can be considered to be composed of

the following functions:
 maintenance planning;
 organizing maintenance resources, including staffing/recruiting;
 directing execution of maintenance plan;
 controlling the performance of maintenance activities;
 defining processes for performing maintenance;
 Budgeting.
Maintenance planning includes formulating and identifying organisation-wide
policies that would help achieve higher maintenance productivity such as:
 Do we repair the equipment or buy a new one?
 Do we perform preventive maintenance or corrective maintenance
activities?
 Do we employ full-time repair personnel or should we subcontract work?

Self Assessment Questions

1. _____________ in addition to fixing the broken equipment, involved
simple activities like cleaning and lubrication.
2. The attitude of ______________ towards maintenance has increasingly
been replaced by one which recognizes maintenance.
3. Maintenance is an element of a complete ___________ system.
4. The principal objectives of maintenance would be to control the
availability of the equipment, at minimum ________________.
5. Maintenance planning includes formulating and identifying ___________
policies.

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1.3 Functions of Maintenance Management

Responsibility for formulating the maintenance policies lies with top
management. The top management is also responsible for negotiating and
authorizing the service level agreement. Another important task is creation
of a master maintenance schedule. This is a statement of maintenance
tasks to be carried out in a specified period. Any maintenance activity
requires resources. In order to carry out maintenance activities as planned,
the maintenance manager needs to organize the required resources and all
these resources need to be available in the right quantity and at the right
time. If the required resources are not available, then the planned
maintenance activity cannot be performed.
This will lead to degradation of equipment performance and can also result
in its failure. Once the required resources are available, the maintenance

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activity can be initiated. The maintenance manager should ensure that the
equipment is restored to its normal working condition as quickly as possible.
This way not only is the downtime cost kept to the minimum but also the
resources are utilized effectively. The maintenance manager should track
the work to completion. In case the task does not get completed within the
estimated time then corrective action would need to be taken to ensure
further loss in revenue due to loss in production is minimized. Once the
activity is complete, a review by the manager or the maintenance supervisor
would be essential to ensure and authorize that the maintenance work has
been carried out properly. Other common tasks related to maintenance
management include generating reports related to equipment, work and
costs. It also includes activities related to collection and analysis of data
related to maintenance and reporting to top management.
1.3.1 Quality Aspects in Maintenance
Quality is not absolute but relative. A maintenance activity can be
considered to be of high quality if:
 it restores an item of equipment to its normal working state, without
causing
 any damage to the equipment or to any of its parts;
 it is initiated on time and the equipment is returned to production at the
 required time;
 It incurs not more than the budgeted cost.
The above-mentioned conditions can be satisfied only when the
maintenance organisation has:
 skilled and committed repair men available to carry out the required
maintenance activity at the required time;
 the required spare parts in the required quantity;
 the required tools, instruments and facilities for performing the activity;
 an appropriate ‘on-the-job’ training programme for the repair men to
enhance their ability to work;
 A repository of maintenance processes.
 In general, the need is for a good maintenance organisation.
1.3.2 Maintenance Organisation
Maintenance organisation does not mean only the organisation of people in
the maintenance department or their reporting structure. It is more to do with

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the maturity of the maintenance process such that high-quality maintenance

activities are performed. An important step in addressing the maintenance
management problems is to treat the maintenance task as a process that
can be controlled, measured and improved. A ‘process’ can be defined as a
set of tasks that, when performed properly, produces the desired result. An
effective maintenance process must consider the relationships of all the
tasks, the tools and procedures used, and the skill, training and motivation
of the people involved. To improve the capabilities of the maintenance
organisation the following steps8 must be performed consistently:
1. Understand the status of the current maintenance process or processes;
2. Determine if the current process is the desired process;
3. List down required process improvement actions;
4. Plan to perform the required actions;
5. Commit resources to execute the plan.
The performance of these steps calls for a process-oriented organisation
and such an organisation develops over a period of time as enunciated by
the capability maturity model (CMM).*9 The CMM was defined by the
software engineering institute (SEI) for software development organizations
and it classifies software development organizations into five levels initial,
repeatable, defined, managed and optimized.
1.3.3 Initial Level
The organisation operates on an ad hoc basis, that is, without formalized
procedures, cost estimates and plans. Tools are neither integrated with the
process nor uniformly applied. In order to improve performance,
organizations at this level need to institutionalize basic management
processes, the most important ones being project management, quality
assurance and project tracking and oversight.
1.3.4 Repeatable Level
Organizations which carry out similar projects with reasonable accuracy with
regard to cost and time are at this level. The strength to carry out similar
activities stems from the prior experience. However, organizations at this
level face risks when presented with new challenges. To reach the defined
level, organizations must have dedicated personnel who take care of the
development processes.

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1.3.5 Defined Level

The organisation has a repository or a set of defined procedures for carrying
out development work. With this, the organisation achieves the foundation
for continuous improvement in processes. The organisation now has
capabilities to face new challenges and achieve success. To climb up the
maturity level, the organisation has to implement a measurement
programme to obtain process feedback.
1.3.6 Managed Level
The organisation has a way by which performance indicators are measured
objectively. Targets are set for performance and a plan is made out to
achieve the pre-set targets. To reach the highest level on the CMM, the
organisation needs to put in place automatic data collection support tools.
1.3.7 Optimized Level
The organisation has capabilities to identify the weakest links in the
development processes and eliminate/improve them. Since the data
collection process is full-fledged, the effectiveness of the process can also
be determined. Problems are identified proactively and eliminated.
Self Assessment Questions
State whether following statement True or False
6. Responsibility for formulating the maintenance policies lies with shop
Supervisors.
7. Any maintenance activity requires resources.
8. Quality is not absolute but relative.
9. A ‘process’ can be defined as a set of tasks that, when performed
properly, produces the undesired result.
10. The organisation operates on an ad hoc basis, that is, without
formalized procedures, cost estimates and plans.

1.4 Improving Maturity in Maintenance Organizations

The key process areas (KPAs) involved in enhancing the capability and
maturity of a software organisation. The CMM can be adapted to enhance
the capabilities of the maintenance organizations as well. The objective is
not to classify the maintenance organizations also into one of these levels.
The objective is only to identify the key process areas that would enable

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maintenance organizations to enhance their capabilities and maturity. A few

key process areas can be readily identified in this regard. They are:
 training strategy;
 work management;
 resources management;
 supervisory review;
 quality assurance;
 Subcontract management.
1.4.1 Training Strategy
Every maintenance organisation should have a suitable training programme
for its personnel. The maintenance manager should identify the training
needs of his subordinates and get them trained. Individual as well as
organisation-wide training programmes should be planned, scheduled and
conducted. Training, for example, can be provided on safety and
productivity-related issues, usage of modern tools etc. An organisation may
not always find suitable people for performing a job. In such a case it is
better if some of the available personnel are re-trained on some trades other
than those in which they have specialized. For example, a welder may be
re-trained to perform a pipe-fitter’s job. Most maintenance activities are
performed in groups. Coordination within a group is critical to completion of
the maintenance task on time. It therefore becomes necessary to train all
the maintenance personnel on the aspects of team work.
1.4.2 Work Management
Any activity, irrespective of the time it consumes, is not managed if it is not
planned and tracked. Every maintenance activity should be planned,
scheduled and tracked to completion. This is the responsibility of the
maintenance manager. A maintenance activity should be broken down into
smaller manageable tasks. This is referred to as the work-breakdown
structure. Each of the tasks in the work-breakdown structure should have
appropriate resources assigned to it. Resource here means manpower,
tools, facilities etc. Also the probable time to complete the tasks should be
specified. It would not be appropriate to track every small activity in the
work-breakdown structure to completion. The term ‘small activity’ should be
defined by the quality assurance personnel because it varies from one
organisation to another. For example, in one organisation an activity that

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takes only 15 minutes for completion is considered to be small. In some

others, such as an oil refinery, a small maintenance activity may take not
less than 5 hours. For small activities, a bull’s eye chart may be appropriate
for tracking work.
1.4.3 Resources Management
As mentioned earlier, maintenance activities require resources in the form of
spare parts, manpower, tools, instruments and facilities. The required
resources should be available at the right time and in the right quantity.
Holding resources in excess of requirements is wasteful while non-
availability of required resources at the required time is undesirable since
this result in loss of revenue due to loss in production. Management of
resources is therefore critical to managing the maintenance function.

1.4.4 Supervisory Review

Every maintenance activity should be performed under the charge of a
supervisor. The supervisor’s responsibility is to ensure that the required
resources allotted for performing the maintenance activity are available to
the repair gang on time and in the required numbers. The supervisor should
also guide the repair gang in performing the activity. Once the activity is
complete, the supervisor should inspect the equipment in order to ensure
that the equipment is performing as desired. The supervisor should also
report completion of the activity to the maintenance manager so that the
actual costs incurred are logged.

1.4.5 Quality Assurance

The quality assurance personnel should be responsible for identifying the
optimum route for performing a maintenance activity. They are responsible
for collecting data while the maintenance activity is carried out, and for
analyzing them in order to come up with improved routes and work
processes.

1.4.6 Subcontract Management

A few maintenance activities require specialists at the job. Hiring these
specialists on a full-time basis, in most cases, is expensive. A better option
is to subcontract the work. Like any other internal maintenance activity,
subcontracted work should also be managed. The goals of the subcontract
management should be to evaluate and select appropriate subcontractors

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for performing the maintenance activities. Yet another goal would be to

verify the correctness of the work performed. The selection of the
subcontractor should be planned. The subcontractor manager should select
a suitable subcontractor based on a balanced assessment of the capabilities
of prospective subcontractors. The assessment of the subcontractor can be
done by inviting each to present their capabilities and verification of claims
through independent references. The maintenance manager can also visit
premises to inspect the capabilities and to get first-hand information.
A few more basic areas like maintenance planning and configuration
management would also need to be considered. Five important factors need
to be taken care of if each of the key process areas mentioned above need
to be implemented in the maintenance organisation. These factors have
also been borrowed from the CMM.
1.4.7 Commitment of the Maintenance Personnel
The repair men need to be committed to perform the maintenance activities.
This involves establishment of policies and top management sponsorship.
Increasing the ability to perform. Ability of the maintenance personnel can
be enhanced by providing them with proper and relevant training, tools etc.
List of activities. The repair men should be provided with a list of activities
that need to be performed as a part of the maintenance. This is the work
order management process.
1.4.8 Verification of Implementation
The supervisor of the repair men should verify the completion/
implementation of the maintenance activity. Feedback on the maintenance
activity performed should be given to the concerned repair men.
The supervisor should also make use of this opportunity to identify the
strengths and weaknesses of the individual repair men and arrange suitable
training for them.
1.4.9 Metrics and Process Improvement
This is a continuous process. Measurement of maintenance activity can be
in terms of percentage of work complete to date, estimated time to complete
the work, the maintenance productivity and quality of the maintenance work.
Gathering metrics on every maintenance activity helps in estimating the time
requirements and also the cost.

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Self Assessment Questions

11. The key process areas (KPAs) involved in enhancing the capability
and maturity of a ____________________.
12. Every maintenance organisation should have a suitable ___________
for its personnel.
13. Ability of the __________________ can be enhanced by providing
them with proper and relevant training, tools etc.
14. The selection of the ______________should be planned.
15. Metrics and process improvement is a ___________________.

1.5 Dynamics of a Maintenance Organisation

Coordination within the groups is one of the most important factors that
determine the effectiveness of any maintenance organisation. Four entities
are important as far as the maintenance activities are concerned. They are
as follows:
1. The maintenance manager;
2. The quality assurance group;
3. The resources, including manpower, materials and tools;
4. The supervisor group.
The maintenance manager is responsible for scheduling maintenance
activities. An activity is scheduled (as far as possible during the production
windows in the case of preventive maintenance) and initiated depending on
the availability of the required resources. The quality assurance group
determines the process of performing the maintenance activity in an
optimized manner. The maintenance manager tracks the activity to
completion while the supervisor inspects and ensures the activity is carried
out properly. As the maintenance activity is carried out, the quality
assurance group collects data on the process and analyses them with a
view to improving the process.
1.5.1 Maintenance Management Perspectives
Kelly has described the dynamics of a production maintenance system
considering a large process plant. At any time, an item of equipment or
some part of it can be in one of the five following states:
1. The equipment is running and is producing the desired output.
Maintenance is carried out while the equipment is running. Since the

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equipment is in use there is no loss in production while performing this

maintenance activity.
2. The equipment is not wanted for production and is available for
maintenance. This is called the ‘production window’. This maintenance
activity also does not incur any loss in production.
3. The equipment is taken out of production for a scheduled maintenance
activity. This activity involves simple inspection of replaceable parts.
Since the equipment is being taken out of production this maintenance
activity results in loss of production.
4. The equipment is in a failed condition. Maintenance is being carried out
to restore the equipment to an operable condition. Relatively more time
is spent on performing this type of maintenance activity. Since the
equipment is not in an operating condition this maintenance activity
results in considerable loss of production.
5. The equipment is in a failed condition. Due to shortage of resources the
maintenance activity is pending.
It can be seen from the above that there are two perspectives of
maintenance management:
1. Prevent it from breaking down as in cases (1), (2) and (3); this is called
preventive maintenance.
2. Fix it when it breaks as in cases (4) and (5); this is called corrective
maintenance. Ettkin and Jahnig have described the work life cycle for
the reactive and proactive perspectives. They have divided corrective
maintenance into two perspectives – ‘reactive’ and ‘reactive/proactive’ –
and have defined preventive maintenance as a ‘proactive’ perspective.
The key distinction among the three perspectives relates to the time interval
between the recognition of the need to perform a maintenance activity and
the time at which the activity is actually performed. All the maintenance
activities, regardless of the maintenance perspectives, involve the following
steps:
 planning the maintenance task;
 scheduling the maintenance task;
 performing the maintenance task;
 Evaluation of the performance.

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The only difference is that of the time interval. In the case of the ‘reactive’
perspective, the time interval between the recognition and performance is
very small as compared to the ‘proactive’ perspective. The following section
describes the preventive, corrective and other maintenance practices
followed in organizations.
1.5.2 Types of Maintenance
The return of investment on an item of equipment can be maximized by
maximizing its availability. Availability of an item of equipment can be
defined as the ratio of uptime to the sum of uptime and downtime. When an
item of equipment is down it results in loss of production which, in turn,
results in loss of revenue. The cost of unavailability, which is an indirect
cost, is proportional to the loss in revenue. Performing a maintenance
activity requires usage of resources such as manpower, materials and tools.
The cost of utilization of these resources is a direct maintenance cost. The
total maintenance cost is the sum of direct maintenance costs, consisting of
labour costs, material costs and direct overheads, and indirect maintenance
costs, which are primarily due to loss of production. As the level of
performing maintenance activity increases, the direct costs increase. Also
the indirect costs resulting due to failure decrease. Just as there is a trade-
off between inventory holding costs and the reordering costs, there is a
trade-off between the maintenance costs and their benefits. The level of
maintenance activity to be performed is obviously the one where the total
cost is minimal. There is rarely any organisation where only one type of
maintenance is used. Most situations warrant a considerable mixture of
maintenance types.
1.5.3 Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is a proactive activity. This is an approach
developed to reduce the likelihood of the failure of critical equipment to the
minimum possible. The intention is to detect potential failures early, make
changes and prevent failures. This approach to maintenance becomes
essential for any equipment where there are serious dangers to life should a
failure occur, for example, in the case of nuclear submarines. If personnel
who operate and maintain the nuclear power plant of the submarine make
serious mistakes, the ship and its entire crew are in mortal danger. The
preventive actions under such a situation would be to:
 Train all the personnel in their own jobs;
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 Audit the personnel so that they demonstrate satisfactory performance

to their job standards;
 Inspect each ship and each operation to ensure that every procedure
and method is properly understood and executed;
 Report deviations to the admiral-in-charge, and the commanding officer
must promptly report on the corrective actions;
Analyze even the most trivial errors to determine what went wrong. These
activities can prevent serious errors from occurring. This approach to
maintenance is also important in highly automated plants, such as car
assembly, power plants etc., where the cost due to loss in production is very
high. Planned
 activities are carried out and the main functions are:
 inspection of critical parts of the equipment;
 servicing, which includes lubrication, adjustment and similar activities;
 Replacement of worn-out parts.
Primary objectives of this approach to maintenance are to:
 Increase the life of critical equipment by preventing failures;
 Detect the onset of a failure.
These objectives give rise to the following methods of performing preventive
 maintenance activities:
 fixed-time maintenance;
 Condition-based maintenance.
Fixed-time maintenance is that activity which involves inspection of critical
parts of the equipment after a fixed time interval, and replacement of those
which are worn out. The fixed time should not be based on the calendar
units but should be based on a fixed number of running units such as
kilometers, hours etc. or after generation of a fixed cumulative output. For
example, the level of distilled water in the battery of an automobile is
checked after every 1000 kilometers and the brush ploughs of a grinding mill
should be replaced after every 500 hours of running. This type of
maintenance activity is applicable only for those items which exhibit a time-
dependent failure mechanism. Condition-based maintenance is also known
as predictive maintenance. This approach is designed to detect the onset of

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a failure. It is an appropriate option for preventive maintenance when the

following conditions apply:
Prevention of failure is not technically feasible, or how the failure can be
prevented is not yet known, which the case is when the event leading to
failure occurs in a predominantly random manner.
A parameter, which can be measured either visually or by other means,
correlating to the onset of failure has been identified. For example, the
solidification of the lubricant is an indicator of the machine’s wearing
condition. It is possible to identify a value of that parameter when action may
be taken before full failure occurs, such as the setting of warning limits for
the Solidification of the lubricant. The costs involved in condition monitoring
may vary widely. A simple case of condition-based maintenance is the
visual examination of the brake pads of an automobile, checking for leaks in
fuel-carrying pipes, cracks in the structure of a building etc. This method of
condition-based maintenance is inexpensive. Along with inspection, the
maintenance personnel can also collect data which can be used as inputs
by other methods of condition-based maintenance procedures. Complex
situations require sensors and other high-tech tools to monitor the
vibrations, shock pulses etc. Techniques such as oil analysis, analysis of
acoustic emissions, eddy currents, ultrasonic waves and thermographs also
help monitor the condition of the equipment. Detailed analysis helps in
detecting an impending failure. These methods, on the other hand, are
expensive. In some situations it is possible to carry out some preventive
maintenance activities while the equipment or plant is running. This type of
maintenance is called running maintenance.
The obvious advantage of carrying out running maintenance is that there is
no loss in production. Running maintenance is normally carried out in
situations where there is no threat to the life of the maintenance personnel.
Corrective Maintenance Corrective maintenance, generally occurring in the
form of breakdown maintenance, is a reactive activity and is performed
when an item of equipment is not in an operating condition or is operating at
a level below its rated capacity. Corrective maintenance activities are also
performed when condition monitoring indicates onset of a failure. Since
condition monitoring gives sufficient warning of an impending failure it

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becomes easy for the maintenance manager to plan a corrective activity at a

later time.
This is a proactive-reactive approach to maintenance and results in the
following tasks: repair of failed parts of the equipment; replacement of failed
parts with new ones, if repair is not economical. With this kind of
maintenance policy, the maintenance-related costs are usually high for the
following reasons: The time required is usually much higher than other
maintenance types because the cause of failure has to be identified, and
then the parts have to be repaired or replaced. Damage is caused to other
equipment as a consequence of failure. There is a cost due to loss in
production.
In organizations where there are very few production windows, corrective
maintenance is predominant. Although, as mentioned earlier, the time
required to perform this activity is much higher than the preventive actions
require, this can be reduced considerably if the organisation has all the
maintenance procedures and systems in place. Trained maintenance
personnel also have a role to play in reducing the maintenance time. Once
an item of equipment fails, the maintenance department personnel attempt
to detect the cause of the failure. The cause is usually recorded for future
analysis and corrective actions are prescribed. Depending on the availability
of resources, criticality of the equipment and the priority, corrective
maintenance work is scheduled and carried out. If the priority is high or
alternatively if the equipment is critical, an emergency maintenance is
carried out. The work is deferred to a later date if the priority is low or the
equipment is not so critical.
1.5.4 Shut-down Maintenance
Shut-down maintenance can either be a preventive activity or a corrective
activity. Minor repairs which cannot be performed while the equipment is
running, as well as major repairs and overhauls, are carried out after the
equipment or plant is shut down.
1.5.5 Opportunistic Maintenance
The maintenance work that is carried out is not directed at the primary
cause of failure of the equipment or shut-down. When a maintenance
activity is carried out on an item of equipment there exists some opportunity
to inspect, repair and replace certain other parts of the equipment. This

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approach to maintenance is called opportunistic maintenance. The types of

maintenance discussed in this section will help top management decide on
questions like: should we carry out preventive actions? Or should we fix the
equipment when it breaks? As mentioned earlier, most situations in
organizations warrant a mixture of maintenance types. While we know that
prevention is better than cure, we also realize that failures are unavoidable.
Whatever be the choice of the maintenance policy, it should be closely
associated or integrated with the resources management function. The next
chapter describes a few resources management techniques.
Self Assessment Questions
State whether the following statement True or False
16. Five entities are important as far as the maintenance activities are
concerned.
17. The maintenance manager is responsible for scheduling maintenance
activities.
18. The cost of utilization of the resources is a indirect maintenance cost.
19. Shut-down maintenance can either be a preventive activity or a
corrective activity.
20. The maintenance work that is carried out is not directed at the primary
cause of failure of the equipment or shut-down.

1.6 Summary
Until recently, maintenance of plant and machinery was a thankless job and
the maintenance function was considered a necessary evil. From this state,
it has now come to be accepted as an important function – one of strategic
importance – particularly in the capital-intensive continuous-process
industries such as power plants, nuclear power generating stations,
chemical and fertilizer plants, and integrated iron and steel works. This
transformation has taken place in about 40 years and has brought about
automation and increasing sophistication of plant and equipment, and has
been hastened by the fact that the loss of one hour of production is much
more expensive today than it ever was before. Plant and equipment
availability is of paramount importance and effective management of the
maintenance function goes a long way in ensuring the attainment of the
objective of maximization of availability

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Maintenance Management Unit 1

1.7 Terminal Questions

1. Write a note on History of Maintenance.
2. Explain Objectives and Functions of Maintenance.
3. What are the steps involved in Maintenance Organisation.
4. Discuss Dynamics of a Maintenance Organisation.
5. What are the features of Preventive Maintenance?

1.8 Answers
Self Assessment Questions
1. Maintenance
2. Ignorance
3. Production
4. Resource Cost
5. Organisation-wide
6. False
7. True
8. True
9. False
10. True
11. Software organisation
12. Training programme
13. Maintenance Personnel
14. Subcontractor
15. Continuous Process
16. False
17. True
18. False
19. True
20. False

Terminal Questions
1. Page 2 – Part 1.1
2. Page 3 – Part 1.1.2
3. Page 6 – Part 1.2.2
4. Page 10 – Part 1.4
5. Page 11 – Part 1.4.3

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