Chapter 1.

Introduction:
Objective and characteristics of maintenance function, Organization of the
maintenance system, Operating practices in maintenance, Maintenance record
keeping.

Objectives of Maintenance
Importance of Maintenance
Characteristics of Maintenance Function

Functions of Maintenance Management:

The important functions of maintenance can be summarized as follows:

(1) To develop maintenance policies, procedures and standards for the plant
maintenance system.

(2) To schedule the maintenance work after due consultation with the concerned
production departments.

(3) To carry out repairs and rectify or overhaul planned equipment/facilities for
achieving the required level of availability and optimum operational efficiency.

(4) To ensure scheduled inspection, lubrication oil checking, and adjustment of plant
machinery and equipment.

(5) To document and maintain record of each maintenance activity (i.e., repairs,
replacement, overhauls, modifications and lubrication etc.).

(6) To maintain and carry out repairs of buildings, utilities, material handling
equipment’s and other service facilities such as electrical installations, sewers, central
stores and roadways etc.

(7) To carry out and facilitate periodic inspections of equipment and facilities to know
their conditions related to their failure and stoppage of production.
(8) To prepare inventory list of spare parts and materials required for maintenance.

(9) To ensure cost effective maintenance.

(10) To forecast the maintenance expenditure and prepare a budget and to ensure that
maintenance expenditure is as per planned budget.

(11) To recruit and train personnel to prepare the maintenance workforce for effective
and efficient plant maintenance.

(12) To implement safety standards as required for the use of specific equipment or
certain categories of equipment such as boilers, overhead cranes and chemical plants
etc.

(13) To develop management information systems, to provide information to top

management regarding the maintenance activities.

(14) To monitor the equipment condition at regular intervals.

(15) To ensure proper inventory control of spare parts and other materials required.

In terms of plants operations the functions of maintenance are:

(a) The plant must be available as and when required.

(b) The plant must not breakdown during actual operation state.

(c) The plant must operate in an efficient manner at required level of plant operation.

(d) The down time must not interfere with production runs.

(e) The down time due to breakdown should be a minimum.

To accomplish these conditions there must be complete cooperation and mutual

understanding between maintenance and production departments. There must be an
effective maintenance policy for planning, controlling and directing all maintenance
activities.

The plant maintenance department must be well organized, adequately staffed

sufficiently experienced and adequate in number to carry out corrective and timely
maintenance with the efforts in minimizing breakdowns.

Organization of the maintenance system

What is maintenance organization?
It is the process of arranging resources (people, materials, technology,
etc.) together to achieve the organization's strategies and goals. Maintenance
organization structure is the way various part of the maintenance organization is
formed including defining responsibilities and roles of units and individuals.
The organisation structures for maintenance vary from company to company
depending upon nature of the enterprise/plant i.e. whether electrical, mechanical or
chemical; size of the plant and the scope of activities to be performed. A typical
organization chart for maintenance for a medium size enterprise is shown in Fig.

As shown in Fig. the maintenance department is headed by plant engineer. Other

titles include maintenance superintendent and different foremen responsible for
various types of maintenance jobs.

An important feature of the organization structure for maintenance is the presence of

skilled people i.e., crafts men, mechanics, plumbers, painters, welders, pipe fitters,
electricians, motor mechanics, machinists and helpers etc. The presence of craftsmen
is justified by the nature of the job involved.

The job and cost control is part of maintenance deptt is justified by the fact that the
section is responsible for scheduling work of maintenance and for keeping record of
maintaining cost figures of all jobs. It makes possible the efficient utilization of the
craftsmen.

The maintenance department is primarily a service department and as such is a part of

the enterprise’s staff. Normally, the maintenance department is attached to the
production function. The head of department operates under works manager.

Fig. Maintenance Organization Chart

 Operating Practices in Maintenance

Operations & Maintenance (O&M means the functions, duties and labor
associated with the daily operations and normal repairs, replacement of parts
and structural components, and other activities needed to preserve an asset
so that it continues to provide acceptable services and achieves its expected
life.

Operational maintenance is the care and minor maintenance of equipment

using procedures that do not require detailed technical knowledge of
the equipment's or system's function and design.

Good maintenance practices

 Gather information on assets and equipment.
 Develop a baseline on labor and costs.
 Establish preventative maintenance inspection checklists.
 Develop preventative maintenance tasks.
 Bring the right supplies into inventory.
 Develop an efficient preventative maintenance schedule.
 Planning. ...
 Time effective & Visual Preventative Maintenance Scheduling. ...
 Maintenance History. ...
 Repeatability. ...
 Change Management. ...
 Challenges. ...
 The implementation of software automation allows for competitive
execution. ...
 Equipment information to ensure the right parts are ready.

Maintenance Record Keeping

Maintenance record, as name suggests, is a document that includes

information regarding each repair and maintenance work that is done on asset
or equipment. In simple words, it keeps tracks of assets failures and repairs. It
is one of best way to maintain health and safety management. It also
improves asset management as such record includes information such as :
 Time and date when maintenance is required to be done.
 Type of maintenance required to be done.
 Asset details such as number, parts required, working condition, etc.
 Risk associated with it.
 Environment condition and its affect.

Advantages of keeping Maintenance Record :

There are several benefits of keeping maintenance record. Some of them are
given below :
1. Prevent Expensive Repairs :
Asset Maintenance is something that leads to increase in overall cost of
organizations. Some assets maintenance is less costly and some of them are very
high. Repair cost is simply amount required to bring back asset back to its
normal working condition. Maintenance record keeps information regarding
reach maintenance and repair done on equipment. With help of maintenance
record, one can easily determine when and which maintenance strategy is
required to be performed on particular asset. These helps to prevent assets from
failure and reduces cost required to repair.
2. Increases Safety :
Maintenance record also includes information regarding affect of each assets
failure on system, employees, environment. It also includes information
regarding how workers or operators are performing their tasks. With help of
maintenance record, one can easily determine how severe asset is, when its
going to fail, how it can be prevented from failure so that one can take measure
steps to prevent it from occurrence. This is turn reduces risk regarding safety
and environmental health. It also helps one to ensure that which equipment’s are
safe to work with. Even operators or workers also perform their task in well
manner.
3. Replacing Equipment :
Maintenance record includes information regarding asset failure about number
of times particular asset is getting failed, asset condition. One can easily
determine about working condition of asset, when asset is required to repair,
cost associated with each repair of particular asset. One of main advantage is
that, one can easily determine when asset is required to be replaced. If repair
cost of asset is more than cost required to replace with new one, then its much
better to replace asset with new one as it can reduce cost, reduces failure
occurrences, includes warranty, minimizes effort required to repair, etc.
4. Reduce Labor Workload :
As we know that with help of maintenance record, one can prevent failure from
occurrence. It helps to reduces unnecessary maintenance work required,
schedule maintenance work that is required, help management to ensure
employees, workers or labors that are performing well, labors that are required
 to perform tasks. This simply reduces efforts required to repair assets. In turn, it
reduces number of labors required to perform task and as well as reduce labor
workload.
5. Manage Each Machine :
Maintenance record keeps each information about assets. It includes working
details, maintenance details, repair details, working environment, its processing,
risk associated with it, etc. With help of all this information, one can perform
maintenance task whenever required so that assets condition is maintained well,
prevent it from failures, and increases its life span.