A plant that produced parts used in the manufacture of industrial motors had a complex machine with several repair-related problems. The maintenance team developed a solution for each problem. Let’s see if you might be able to implement any of these solutions in your plant.
• Diagnosing the problem often took hours. The responding technician was selected based on who was available, not on who was qualified.
Solution: Train two technicians for this critical equipment, pull one of them off other work if necessary. Ask the manufacturer to provide a trouble diagnosis flow chart (they did).
• Spare parts often had to be flown in overnight.
Solution: Identify the most likely parts failures, stock a minimum of two spares.
• It was difficult to communicate with the manufacturer’s technical support while working on the machine.
Solution: Install a dedicated phone with cordless headset, with the manufacturer’s number stored in memory.
• During repairs, tools and test equipment got spread out all over the floor. Test leads got inadvertently disconnected and tools got kicked under other equipment.
Solution: Modify a cart specifically for testing and repairing this machine.
• There was no clean floor space on which to set things.
Solution: Add a tarp to that cart.