The Mission of a Maintenance Group

The mission of the Maintenance Team is to support and enhance the profitability of the treatment and infrastructure Facilities by the preservation of the physical assets and thus assuring their operability. This is accomplished through planned, scheduled, efficiently executed and quality controlled preventive and predictive maintenance of the equipment and facilities.

Maintenance Management Systems & Procedures
Maintenance Management Responsibilities
Maintenance Management KPI’s

Maintenance Philosophy

• Maintenance is a service function that supports production strategies. Maintenance resources will focus on meeting production goals in a safe and cost effective manner.
• Primary elements in the Maintenance function are to be responsive, manageable, measurable and accountable.
• Maintenance will be “Proactive” and “Predictive” in nature.
• Maintenance will be managed using sound business principles. Maintenance actions will enhance the company’s competitiveness and profitability.
• Maintenance will plan all significant tasks ensuring maximized use of resources and reduce production downtime.
• Operations and Maintenance will work cooperatively and functionally as equal partners in advancing the plant’s production strategy.
• Maintenance will utilize effective Preventive Maintenance and Predictive Maintenance practices to provide acceptable equipment availability and cost effective use of resources.
• Both Operations and Maintenance will actively participate in the development and compliance of the scheduled maintenance work plan.

Maintenance Goals

• All plant management (Managers, Superintendents, Senior staff, and Supervisors) will apply and ensure the active utilization of the maintenance function as an integral part of the production strategy.
• All plant management will utilize and support the sites Maintenance Management Policies and Procedures.
• Maintenance will be responsive to the plant’s needs.
• An effective work order system will be utilized as part of the maintenance function at the plant.
• Maintenance will measure performance based on agreed measuring standards (KPI’s), regularly and continuously.
• Maintenance will provide quality and efficient equipment PM’s and predictive maintenance tasks.
• All maintenance tasks will be planned and scheduled, to ensure effective use of resources and reduce downtime.
• Maintenance Planners will apply established standards when planning tasks.
• Supervisors will follow work schedule plans, while remaining responsive to emergency events.
• Within the maintenance system all Supervisors, tradesmen, and staff are to be trained to established standards bringing them to full effectiveness.
• Maintenance will conduct cost effective and accountable operations.
• Maintenance will actively advance “Production Team” concepts and actions.

Maintenance Success Factors

The following factors are the key elements necessary to ensure an effective and functional maintenance management program.

• The Maintenance Management Program has firm support and active participation from senior management and process operations leadership.
• Teamwork Atmosphere

 Operations and Maintenance work as a team to advance production goals.
 The goals are the same for management and workers and adversarial roles are not allowed
 Promote good attitudes; there is no place for negativity
 Keep people informed of plans, goals and achievements

• Personal Concern

 Instill pride on a job well done, complement when this happens
 Challenge when standards are not met, but with a full understanding of personal development
 A job well done improves availability and reduces maintenance cost

• Housekeeping

 A clean and organized workplace is conducive to better equipment maintenance
 A sign of positive work habits that typically will carry into all activities

• Reliable Record Keeping

 Accurate data is essential to make decisions and to measure results

• Defined Preventive Maintenance Program

 Define what is to be done, execute tasks and measure results
 Good intentions without clear instructions are not conducive to good preventive maintenance

• Real Predictive Maintenance Program

 Detect and predict problems before they become catastrophic
 Most industrial machinery have predictable characteristics that can be monitored and forecasted

• Detailed Planning/Scheduling and Work Control

 All levels of Operations and Maintenance are committed to quality planned and preventive maintenance.
 This is the only way to challenge reactive maintenance and to optimize maintenance cost
 Resources cannot be properly identified and coordinated without a plan
 Establish when and how long its going to take to get there

• Maintenance management, tradesmen and staff have been adequately trained to perform their assigned duties.

Production Strategy & Maintenance Concepts

• Through the safe, environmentally acceptable and effective utilization of processes and equipment, consistently meet and exceed budgeted production rates. This will be accomplished while maximizing the efficiency and recovery of metal in the processing plant. The production costs will be in line with the planned budget and competitive when compared against our business competitors.
• The Production process integrates both Operations and Maintenance functions. These will be organized to take full advantage of equipment and personnel potential. A functional and effective production schedule that supports a positive equipment availability program, while continuing to improve unit capacity will be the working basis for both functions.
• A primary objective of Maintenance is providing equipment support and preventive maintenance services. Equipment and facilities are to be maintained in a safe and functional operating status to meet production strategies. These efforts will be cost effective and timely.
• Operations and Maintenance will collectively and cooperatively work as a production team towards the maximization of production potentials.
• Maintenance provides special project and facilities support as required. Maintenance supervision will monitor the performance of maintenance contracts.

Maintenance General Policies

• The Superintendent will ensure compliance with the policies and procedures for maintenance conduct.
• Operations and Maintenance will be responsible for the effective utilization of maintenance services.
• Maintenance will be responsible for the quality of its work and the effective utilization of its resources in conjunction with the active cooperation of Operations.
• Maintenance will conduct both “Predictive and Preventive” quality maintenance tasks to ensure effective repairs, to minimize downtime and extend equipment life.
• Maintenance will use a computerized maintenance management system(The CMMS) to collect and develop information concerning the utilization of labor, the status of work backlog, cost, and equipment history to ensure effective control of activities and information.
• The work order system will be used to request and control work schedules. It is a critical tool that interfaces with all of the concentrator’s information and data management systems.
• Maintenance will publish a job priority procedure to guide in communicating the urgency of each work order requested. The procedure will facilitate the assignment of the maintenance resources to the requested jobs and the scheduled time to complete the job. Both Operations and Maintenance will jointly develop the priority of planned weekly activities.
• Daily and weekly planning meetings will be used to ensure effective communications between maintenance and operations.
• Both Operations and Maintenance will work together, to ensure that quality work planning and scheduling are applied to work assignments.
• The maintenance backlog will be monitored on a weekly basis to help determine the proper use and application of maintenance resources.
• Maintenance performance measurements (KPI’s) will be used to evaluate short term accomplishments and long term trends.
• Maintenance will only conduct non-essential tasks such as construction, modifications, installation and relocation when the maintenance workload permits.
• These policies and procedures for obtaining stock and purchased materials or services will be complied with.
• The Change Management Procedure is to be followed when equipment modifications are to be performed. Proper work order and drawing change documentation will accompany all modification work performed.
• All maintenance staff levels will be trained on the application and use of the maintenance management systems.
• Maintenance labor productivity will be measured on a regular and continuing basis using agreed standards, to monitor progress and focus the control and priority application of labour.

Maintenance Terminology/Glossary

Daily Maintenance: Maintenance for which the front line Supervisor is responsible, either solely or jointly. This applies to both mechanical and electrical maintenance within the processing maintenance area.

Backlog: The total number of estimated man-hours, by craft and priority, of work required to complete all identified, but incomplete work orders, both planned and unplanned. It is used as an index to determine how well maintenance is keeping up with the rate of work generated.

Coordination: The routine adjustment of maintenance actions to achieve the best short term use of resources or to accommodate changes in operations needs.

Emergency Work: Unplanned, unscheduled work that cannot be deferred.

Equipment Repair History: The chronological listing of repair actions performed on units of equipment so that persistent problems can be identified and corrected. Historic repair actions also help guide current repairs. They are used as the basis for developing a forecast and preventative maintenance practices.

Established Standard: A policy or procedure that has been reviewed, approved by senior management, formally defined, follows set rules, and is to be uniformly applied.

Failure Coding: An indexing of the causes of equipment failure on which corrective actions can be based.

Forecasting: The projection of the best time to carry out maintenance actions.

Functional Maintenance: A technical or skill competence requirement for conducting a specific kind of maintenance.

Maintenance Labor Utilization: The percentage of time that a maintenance crew is at the work site with tools and materials performing productive work during a scheduled working period.

Maintenance Labor Availability: The percentage of time that a maintenance crew is available to perform productive work during a scheduled working period.

Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS): The Maintenance portion of the Site’s Management Information System (MIS) or EPR

Maintenance Schedule: The generation of a time-table program, to conduct maintenance actions and manage resources.

Maintenance Work Order: A means of communicating maintenance requirements, planning, scheduling, providing historical data and the archiving of maintenance management information.

Maintenance Work Schedule: A worksheet that a maintenance planner has identified manpower, materials, tools,
support equipment and has coordinated all equipment needed. A worksheet will typically cover a week being your’s scheduled period, but in certain circumstances a day, a week, or more can be used.

Major Repairs: Extensive, non-routine, repairs requiring the shutdown of equipment.

Minor Repairs: Repairs usually completed in less than four hours.

Key Performance Indicators: Information which convey short term accomplishments and/or long term performance.

Planned Work: Maintenance tasks that have been planned and are ready to schedule. Required materials, equipment, manpower and time has been established.

Planning
Determination of resources needed and the development of anticipated actions necessary to perform a scheduled job.

Predictive Maintenance: Condition monitoring techniques, intended to predict wear rate, state of deterioration, and/or imminent equipment failure.

Preventative Maintenance: Routine, repetitive actions including: equipment inspections, testing, lubrication, cleaning, adjusting, and or component replacements which have the purpose of replacing worn out parts, extending equipment life and avoiding premature failure.

Preventative Maintenance Task: A specifically defined maintenance activity, designed to reduce/eliminate unscheduled downtime.

Priority: The relative importance of a single job in relationship to other jobs.

Standard Work Procedure(SWP): Maintenance jobs which have a known labor, time and material content and occur regularly. A file of the Maintenance Planners worksheets for a specific repetitive job or task.

Standard: A clearly defined procedure with a specific goal. The execution of this procedure can be measured against established parameters.

Standing Operating Procedures: A written procedure used to ensure reasonable uniformity.

Workload: The number of man hours identified in a maintenance program.

Work Sampling: The statistical measure of the utilization of labor to determine productivity.