Maintenance Management System: A Profit Centre

Too much “Maintenance” is a necessary evil. It is considered as a cost centre. It is therefore, the general tendency to avoid maintenance to reduce the cost. This was considered to be fine few years back when the cost of equipment was not so high and the competition in the market was not stiff, people could afford to maintain any production cost. In the present scenario, market competition is such that companies can only afford production at lowest cost. The cost of production equipment is going up with more sophistication. The increasing cost of production goes hand in hand with the increase in downtime cost. Therefore all attention is focused on the equipment availability and reliability and reaping profits out of maintenance is becoming a common trend. It is a positive paradigm shift in thinking that maintenance is should no longer be considered as a group of people undertaking repairs rather than it is a group of people who avoid the breakdown of equipment. Maintenance is now being converted to a “Profit Centre”. Maintenance can generate profit by its own activities. Maintenance is nothing but service and it cannot be free of cost. Maintenance has to search for its customers & satisfaction of the customers should be the objective. In achieving that goal, support from management is a primary requirement. Management has to give due respect and position to maintenance in their main company strategy, assigning specific authority and responsibility at different levels so that all may be able to contribute to the ‘line of sight’. Similarly, maintenance must be ready to accept the challenge of the day by defining their various activities which collectively will act to make the equipment/system more reliable, available and cost effective. Similarly, the people engaged in today’s maintenance are required to be more knowledgeable, trained, and sensitive to failure and success. Success and failure of maintenance depends upon the measure of the availability and reliability of equipment and cost of maintenance. The main objective of this review paper is to describe a scientific approach to maintenance and clearly define maintenance.