To get corporate backing and funding for maintenance planning, you need a strategy for developing a good maintenance plan. This plan is essential for showing upper management why they should allocate, from a limited pool of resources, the funding that any maintenance department needs to be effective.
Any good plan identifies the systems, processes, equipment, qualified people, and other resources that will ultimately allow the company to keep costs down and production up. The plan also shows how these resources work together.
Unfortunately, what often passes for planning is typically a collection of various maintenance activities. How is anyone outside of maintenance supposed to differentiate between the necessary, optional, and optimal? How can they tell what's been thought out and what’s merely a continuation of practices not worth doing anymore?
You start solving these and other conundrums by developing a strategy for maintenance planning. Begin with what your focus must be. If you’re thinking, “To ensure maximum uptime,” that’s not the right answer.
