Maintenance Engineering

Maintenance Engineering

Introduction

·        Maintenance Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying engineering concepts to the optimization of equipment, procedures, and departmental budgets to achieve better maintainability, reliability, and availability of equipment.

·        Maintenance engineering is the occupation that uses engineering theories and practices to plan and implement routine maintenance of equipment and machinery.

·        This must be done in conjunction with optimizing operating procedures and budgets to attain and sustain the highest levels of reliability and profit.

·        Maintenance engineers are often required to have knowledge of many types of equipment and machinery.

·        A person working in the field of maintenance engineering must have in-depth knowledge of or experience in basic equipment operation, logistics, probability, and statistics.

·        Experience in the operation and maintenance of machinery specific to a company's particular business is also frequently required.

·        Since the position normally requires oral and written communications with various levels of personnel, excellent interpersonal communication and participatory management skills are also desirable.

·        Maintenance engineering positions require planning and implementing routine and preventive maintenance programs.

·        In addition, regular monitoring of equipment is required to visually detect faults and impending equipment or production failures before they occur.

·        These positions may also require observing and overseeing repairs and maintenance performed by outside vendors and contractors.

·        In a production or manufacturing environment, good maintenance engineering is necessary for smooth and safe daily plant operations.

·        Maintenance engineers not only monitor the existing systems and equipment, they also recommend improved systems and help decide when systems are outdated and in need of replacement.

·        Such a position often involves exchanging ideas and information with other maintenance engineers, production managers, and manufacturing systems engineers.

·        Maintenance engineering not only requires engineers to monitor large production machine operations and heavy duty equipment, but also often requires involvement with computer operations.

·        Maintenance engineers may have to deal with everything from PCs, routers, servers, and software to more complex issues like local and off-site networks, configuration systems, end user support, and scheduled upgrades. Supervision of technical personnel may also be required.

·        Good maintenance engineering is vital to the success of any manufacturing or processing operation, regardless of size.

·        The maintenance engineer is responsible for the efficiency of daily operations and for discovering and solving any operational problems in the plant.

A company's success may depend on a quality maintenance engineering department that can be depended upon to discover systematic flaws and recommend solid, practical solutions.

Maintenance Manager

·        If you choose to take an entry-level position in order to become a facilities maintenancemanager, you can expect to spend several years working maintenance positions as you learn the skills necessary to become a manager.

·        Larger employers with greater maintenance needs generally look for a facilities maintenancemanager who can perform these tasks when needed, but is more focused on managing an in-house staff responsible for the majority of the actual work.

Maintenance Engineering Jobs

·        Typically, maintenance engineers need to possess knowledge of the principles of building or mechanical engineering. Maintenance engineer jobs generally require the person to maintain the plant or manage a crew who maintains it.

·        They also set schedules, hand out paychecks, assign job duties, and monitor daily progress. Most construction engineeringjobs require at least a bachelor's degree in civil engineering or project management.

Definition of Maintenance

Maintenance is the routine and recurring process of keeping a particular machine or asset in its normal operating conditions.So that it can deliver the expected performance or service without any loss or damage. Or

Maintenance is defined as

·        All actions necessary for retaining an item, or restoring to it, a serviceable condition, include servicing, repair, modification, overhaul, inspection and condition verification

·        Increase availability of a system

·        Keep system’s equipment in working order

Purpose of Maintenance

·        Attempt to maximize performance of production equipment efficiently and regularly

·        Prevent breakdown or failures

·        Minimize production loss from failures

·        Increase reliability of the operating systems

Principle Objectives in Maintenance

·        To achieve product quality and customer satisfaction through adjusted and serviced equipment

·        Maximize useful life of equipment

·        Keep equipment safe and prevent safety hazards

·        Minimize frequency and severity of interruptions

·        Maximize production capacity – through high utilization of facility

Problems in Maintenance

·        Lack of management attention to maintenance

·        Little participation by accounting in analyzing and reporting costs

·        Difficulties in applying quantitative analysis

·        Difficulties in obtaining time and cost estimates for maintenance works

·        Difficulties in measuring performance

Problems Exist Due To:

            Failure to develop written objectives and policy

            Inadequate budgetary control

            Inadequate control procedures for work order, service requests etc.

            Infrequent use of standards

            To control maintenance work

            Absence of cost reports to aid maintenance planning and control system

Maintenance Costs

            Cost to replace or repair

            Losses of output

            Delayed shipment

            Scrap and rework