Lean Maintenance

Abstract

Lean implementation requires full organizational involvement, and success often depends on the details. One of those details is, without a doubt, the “wellbeing” of process equipment. In order to assure a levelled production flow, all key process elements, such as personnel, materials and machines, need to maintain high availability. Availability, performance and fabrication quality (which can all be traced back to the process equipment in direct or indirect ways) becomes essential for predictable and reliable adherence to scheduling and customer expectations. Without adequate maintenance practices, such as TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), the process will most likely fall short of the overwhelming demands placed on it by JIT (Just In Time) and “zero stock” philosophies. Methodologies such as SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies), Heijunka (levelled production scheduling) and Kanban (JIT pull-flow production) all depend on equipment uptime and performance. Deviations cause, as would be expected, wastes in the form of delays, defects and inventory. Maintenance is therefore a cornerstone for achieving the so desired “perfect process” level. We can, of course, ask: What is a perfect process? It is a process without “muda” (Japanese word for “waste”), in which each step adds value, is perfectly capable, is available and is exactly adequate for the needs. All the steps are linked by continuous synchronous flow, pulled by customer demand and levelled.