Lean Maintenance and Defect Elimination

We promise that the LEAN team will identify and reduce waste

Intensive workshop based on these books

Lean means producing your product or service with as little waste as possible.

Defect elimination is the key to reliable maintenance.

This course is designed for all types of maintenance environments, including large and small organizations caring for machinery, buildings and fleets.

Suitable people will come from all levels of maintenance personnel, particularly maintenance workers. Supervisors, planners, managers, and maintenance engineers can also take it.

The course works best when people from different levels, jobs or when people from different plants take it together. A diversity of opinions and experiences is desired.

We promise that the LEAN team will identify and reduce waste. Defect elimination will reduce the amount of future maintenance work.

Direct Benefits from this course:

  • Save money immediately
  • Saves resources such as electricity, water, compressed air, etc.
  • Increase uptime

This course teaches specific techniques for locating and attacking waste and reducing costs of operation. The outcome of the session is a series of Lean/DE projects ready for execution. The projects will be designed, prioritized and justified

Lean projects are inexpensive and pay for themselves many times over:

  • High rates of success
  • Tools and materials are easily available
  • Results within a few weeks
  • Short cycle for payback
  • Minimal investment

Some of what you will learn:

Reduce waste and get other improvements in the maintenance shop:

  • A lean organization is a low-cost producer. They can lower prices and stay profitable while their competitors drown in red ink.
  • A lean shop is flexible and fast reacting to the marketplace.
  • In a lean organization people are sharp and insightful
  • A lean organization is a healthier one

In a lean shop people are more motivated

Unique application of Hybrid Training

Both Lean and Defect Elimination are Small Improvement Project (SIP) based programs. All advantages come from action. The information you learn will only make a difference if it is applied in your plant.

To support a successful implementation, we have designed virtual follow up meetings to review projects, acknowledge wins and discuss what we learned from the SIPs that did not succeed. 

All the Lean and Defect Elimination courses benefit from this scheduled follow-up. We recommend 4- 1 ½ hour virtual sessions. The team is left with an agenda and a structure to manage the program ongoingly.

Every defect is a treasure if the company can uncover its cause and work to prevent it across the corporation.

Examples of  complete projects in a school district with top 2 ratings

Gold  Effect on A/C electric consumption of increasing the set point of a school from 75.5 to 77 F. The school wide set point in the Jupiter school was raised from 75.5 to 77. No complaints were registered. The electricity usage dropped by 10% resulting in a $7000 year savings per school with an immediate total approaching $315,000 (45 schools on DDC controls) for the district.  Additional recommendations for savings from new thermostats in modular units. Gold star because there is little investment, large potential savings, and immediate returns.

 

Silver   Impact of the use of stabilizer on the consumption of chlorine in the pools. The team added $225 of stabilizer to a pool.  They charted chlorine usage for 1 week before and 1 week after stabilizer was added. Chlorine usage in the test pool dropped by $80 per week. Potential savings is $4000 per year per pool.  Silver star is awarded because investment is small while the payback is large and immediate. This technique can easily be applied to all district pools where stabilizers are not being used.

 

Compare circulating pumps. Project compares an existing cast Iron circulating pump to a smaller and lighter stainless-steel pump. The smaller pump has been in use in the district for 7 years. Analysis of replacement cost, reliability, energy usage, and complexity of installation shows that the smaller stainless pump is clearly superior. It costs $150 less to purchase, is more reliable, and uses about $7/yr less electricity. Recommendation: replace all circulating pumps with stainless ones as they fail.

 

Testing premium edger blades verses currently used inexpensive 10″ blades. Premium blades cost $8 each and the current blades cost $2 each. The blades were tested under real conditions during alternate weeks. The conclusion was to stay with the current blades used by the district.

 

Comparison of individual pothole repair to parking lot resurfacing. Calculations show that resurfacing is economic if there are more then one pothole per 1000 sq’. Pothole repairs are more costly and also only last a short time and are usually done on overtime (to minimize interference to the schools). Resurfacing lasts an average of 6 years and enhances the look of the school. 

 

Comparison of direct drive exhaust fans to belt driven fans. Study shows that belt driven fans are more susceptible to maintenance calls and noisier. Recommendation: In new installations direct drive fans would be less expensive to purchase, quieter to use and require lower maintenance input over the life of the unit. Replacing existing units is not indicated unless extensive other work is needed.

 

Comparison of the costs of the three dominate door systems used on the beach side of the district. It proved that the best door was the aluminum door with the heavy-duty aluminum jamb.  This combination would save over $2000 against wood and over $800 against steel per opening over the 15-year life of the door.  They also found that the installation is a major factor in maintenance. Doors that can open all of the way up to 180 degrees or to a wall with a stop have the fewest problems Recommendation: where ever major work on doors is undertaken replace the door with aluminum. Specify aluminum on all new construction.

 

Virtual Online configuration

Live on-site

Add Hybrid to either online or live

2-Day 3-Hours

3-Day 3-Hours

4-Day 2-Hours

9 A.M to 4 P.M with Lunch and breaks

1 ½ hours per session

Should be scheduled with sessions about 1-week apart

Contiguous

Should be scheduled with sessions about 1-3 weeks apart

Course Agenda for 3-day course

RED – are interactive exercises of various types

One-day Course Agenda:

Day 1

Course Agenda for 2-day course:

Day 1 Lean maintenance and where it fits in, problem solving

Specific Lean Strategies

Day 2 Finding waste and the development of the Lean Project

Course Agenda for 3 day course:

Day 1 Lean maintenance and where it fits in, problem solving

    • Looking at the inputs to maintenance for areas to make more efficient
    • Looking at the outputs to optimize the use of the resource
    • Small Improvement Projects (SIP)
      • Lean maintenance provides a Lean service to operations
      • Many of the tools can be brought over (types of observation, 8 losses, etc.)
    • Be Lean to survive global competition
    • Be Lean to be a preferred employer
    • Have faster reaction times to shifts in the marketplace
  • Measures
  • Causes
  • Fix forever
  • RCA Exercise and discussion

Day 2 Looking at every activity of maintenance for Lean ideas

      • Groups set priority for each idea based on proprietary measures.
      • Groups develop list of projects in priority order
      • Forms are offered to help groups refine and write-up one idea
      • Rigorous formats are employed to insure projects are thought through, and different aspects are reviewed.
      • How to conduct a cost analysis on a money saving project.
      • How to get these projects done in the real world.
    •  
        • Money that was budgeted,
        • Run interference,
        • Get supplies, help, faith, access to asset and resources, whatever else is needed

Sample comments from clients:

Training options :

We are flexible about your specific needs for outcomes from the course.

Option 1
Option 1

The most basic way is to present a standard course after a brief email conversation about goals and objectives. The courses are tried and tested and have been used to good effect worldwide in many maintenance situations.

Option 2
Option 2

The second and most common option involves a one-day site visit before the class. This visit allows me to add examples from your facility, adjust the verbal presentation to suit your needs, meet some key players, and see some of the unique problems you face.

Option 3
Option 3

involves a more extensive site visit (to be defined) a few weeks before the class. This extra time allows me to customize and add examples from your facility and adjust the verbal presentation to suit your needs. It is always good to meet some of the key players and see for myself some of the unique problems you face.

Option 4
Option 4

The third option is to conduct a maintenance audit survey that looks at all the aspects of maintenance, evaluates areas where improvements are possible, and slanting the training to the competencies needed to implement the upgrades uncovered in the survey.

more details about this course