The common maintenance priority structure is as follows:
- Priority 0 — Emergencies
- Priority 1 — Downtime repairs
- Priority 2 — Preventive and predictive maintenance
The trap here is limited maintenance resources go to noncritical equipment at the expense of maintenance for critical equipment. The critical equipment then has increased downtime.
How can you correct this unwanted situation?
To fix this, change Priority 1 and Priority 2 so they apply only to critical equipment, environmental, and safety. Copy the new Priority 1 and Priority 2 to Priority 3 and Priority 4, respectively, but make them for balance of plant. The first three Priority categories have no significant resource allocation conflicts. That is not true of the two new balance of plant ones.
For example:
- Line 18 can produce 60 widgets a day. Sales typically run 70/month. Therefore, the plant has 30 in inventory.
- Line 19 can produce 100 widgets a day. Sales typically run 50/month. Therefore, the plant has 50 in inventory.
If either line goes down today, there’s no reason to pull anybody off PM work to repair it. Operations can reassign the operators and wait for repair. If both lines go down at the same time, Line 18 would get repaired first.
