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We are concentrating on maintenance as our theme for March here at Paperitalo Publications. If it turns out to be popular enough, we will likely do this again in the fall, perhaps in October. Your feedback will help us to decide if this is a good idea.

I have spoken of maintenance in this column many times over the years. This particular column is being sandwiched by a column last week on top level managers and one next week on production managers. As we pause to talk about maintenance, I'll offer that I have seldom ever seen managers, at the top or at the production level, who give enough credit to maintenance. A well-maintained facility is a dream to operate; a poorly maintained facility loses money, has poor morale, and is a safety nightmare.

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Maintenance Month Platinum Sponsor:

RMR Mechanical: We perform as planned. Visit us at www.rmrmechanical.com!

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Speaking of safety, we will be offering our first safety special on Pulp & Paper Radio International on 17 March 15. We are calling it simply "The Safety Show '15". Maintenance and safety go hand-in-hand in so many ways, so we thought it appropriate to debut the safety show this month. We will have a roundup of the safety record of our industry in North America over the last several years and have some very interesting interviews in the show. Again, you'll be able to listen to it on the 17th of March and at your convenience thereafter. If you are interested in being a sponsor of the show, we still have a few slots open, and you can contact Helen Roush at helen.roush@taii.com for more information.

Maintenance requires money and it requires people. On the money side, the sad situation is that there can appear to be a disconnect between maintenance and operations. Consider a well maintained mill. You can starve maintenance for about twenty-four months before you'll notice the lack of spending. Then, almost all at once, things will come crashing down. Those things are usually bearings. My experience says about 70% of maintenance problems involve rotating assemblies, and that means bearings, in most cases. The reason that failures, when they come, come in swarms is because bearings are precisely designed to a failure limit called MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). Ignore bearings and you can set your calendar and watch by the predictability of their failures. Another 10% of maintenance problems reflect neglect of fluid and vapor (steam and air systems), particularly valves and traps. The last 20% of causes is in control systems, computers and intranet neglect.

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Maintenance Month Silver Sponsors:

Conmark Systems Inc.: Conmark introduces the maintenance-free Satron VCT . A Consistency Transmitter with superior performance for difficult mill applications- modestly priced. http://www.conmark.com/products/satronvc.htm

Fulton Systems: Our designs are built on proven methods and technology. www.fultonsystems.com.

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Immoral, hot shot managers love to be placed in charge of well-maintained mills. They slash maintenance, dropping those costs to the profit line, and plan to bail out before the maintenance bomb hits. I am always suspicious of high flyers whose careers consist of two-year stints at a number of facilities. Allow me to examine the records of those facilities for the two years after the hot shots left each one before I heap on my praise, thank you. And yes, the word "immoral" leading off this paragraph was not a mistake.

People are the other half of a good maintenance equation. Long term readers will know what I am about to say next. The best source of maintenance people when you are hiring from the outside is hospitals. Within hospitals, the best source is maintenance people responsible for maintaining surgeries. Why? Nothing can be allowed to go wrong in a surgery. It is the highest standard of maintenance attitude of which I am aware. I even place it above airplane maintenance and I have had maintenance people from both fields work for me. I think the difference is that airplane maintenance people are just a little more distant from the people their work affects.

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Maintenance Month Bronze Sponsors:

Miami Machine: Miami Machine specializes in repairs and provides annual inspections for your reel spools, suction roll or felt rolls. Visit our website at www.miamimachine.com.

Seneca Steel Erectors: A mechanical contractor that specializes in boiler repair, conveyor repair, and custom metal fabrication. www.senecasteelerectors.com.

Philadelphia Mixing Solutions: We are the mixing experts. Visit www.philamixers.com.

Essco is Trusted for Performance. Visit www.esscoincorporated.com.

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For maintenance managers, I also like those with military experience. Again, their assets must be maintained at a high state of readiness and, if they do break, require repair under onerous conditions. They truly know how to fix things while under fire. There is a shortage of maintenance people in our industry today and there are many discharged soldiers, both enlisted personnel and commissioned officers, looking for jobs. I don't understand why this supply and this demand have not found each other and remedied this problem.

Do you value maintenance? We solicit your thoughts in our quiz this week. You may take it here.

For safety this week, I am not joking when I say safety and maintenance go hand-in-hand. If you have a safety problem, it is likely you have a maintenance problem, too.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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