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I worked in an old complex many years ago that had three paper machines and a large folding carton plant on the same site. When I arrived, we had close to three hundred pieces of motive equipment, from fork trucks to lifts to "walk behinds." On any given day, half of this equipment was dead and we were renting replacements. The costs were enormous.
There was a person in the maintenance department, an hourly maintenance worker, who spent his weekends as a mechanic working on a race car. He and some friends had a sprint car they took around the regional circuit. He was the one who kept it running. We tapped him to take over the maintenance for our motive equipment.
We found a nice space in the basement and built him a specialized maintenance shop. Nothing fancy, we painted it, added lights. Bought a lift for the shop that could be used for fork trucks and so forth. Built him a simple office.
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Maintenance Month Platinum Sponsor:
RMR Mechanical: We perform as planned! Visit us at www.rmrmechanical.com!
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This person, with a couple of maintenance folks, soon had the motive equipment disaster under control. Not only did we stop renting equipment, we reduced the size of our fleet by about 50%.
There is no better cure for maintenance problems than having maintenance people who love their equipment.
In another mill I was in about ten years ago, I was amazed at the data they had on their equipment. This was a small, old mill that had been recently acquired by a larger company. Sitting in the electrical maintenance shop, I could have an instant reading on the rpm's, amperage pull, and temperature of every motor in the mill. There were also screens for each motor that showed when it was installed, who aligned it, and the current status of its spare (including whether the spare was off site at a repair shop--with shop name and phone number right there).
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Maintenance Month Silver Sponsors:
Fulton Systems: Our designs are built on proven methods and technology. www.fultonsystems.com.
CR Meyer & Sons: CR Meyer takes pride in building complete new facilities and maintaining them long after they are completed. www.crmeyer.com.
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These people obviously loved their mill and had been given the means to keep it in shape.
No matter the department, people who love their jobs and care for the assets are the best inside-the-fence chance your mill has at succeeding.
This goes double for maintenance. Foster a feeling of care for your equipment.
Maintenance is a key, a cornerstone to a facility setting production records. Go back and re-read the first part of this column. Imagine how much trouble operations had to go through to have the equipment they needed to do their jobs every day. Imagine how demoralizing it was for them. Then think about the formation of the bad habit of just automatically renting equipment when the mill's own was out of service.
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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.
CBG, LLC: We can remove your nuts, bolts, studs or other fasteners quickly and get you back on schedule. cbgmaintenance.com.
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It is a pleasure to go into a facility where maintenance people are passionate about keeping everything up and running. You can feel it when you go in the door, walk around the machine floor, and talk to the people.
Instill a love for the assets in the heart of your maintenance team and life will be good.
What do you think? Can we bring passion to maintenance and set new production records? Please take our quiz here this week.
For safety this week, we know that a well maintained mill is well on the way to a great safety record.
Be safe and we will talk next week.
You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."
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