Equipment and Maintenance Management - a Way to Increase Productivity and Quality

Equipment and maintenance management is a fundamental part of the just-in-time production system and a way to increase productivity and quality. The major equipment and maintenance management improvement activities include maximizing equipment effectiveness, eliminating the six big equipment-related losses, autonomous maintenance by operators and small group activities, training to improve operation and maintenance skills and the promotion of maintainability from the design throughout the entire life span of the equipment. Some companies are achieving remarkable success with equipment and maintenance management: equipment downtime is drastically reduced, equipment productivity is strongly increased, maintenance costs are reduced, process yields and product quality dramatically improved. This contribution shows the fundamentals of equipment and maintenance management, its successful industrial applications and some selected results of an empirical study in the manufacturing and process industry, which shows the present state and future development of equipment and maintenance management.