Four key points to keep in mind for effective equipment management

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Equipment management is both important and easily overlooked for many enterprises with a high volume of equipment assets. The importance of equipment management lies in the fact that it serves as the foundation and backbone for all outcomes related to production, quality, safety, and more ； It is easily overlooked, and because of the improvement in equipment management levels, its effects are often not as immediate as those seen with indicators such as production, quality, and cost. Drawing on over a decade of experience in equipment management consulting, the author has identified four key elements that are essential for effective equipment management. The aim is to help equipment managers clarify their thinking, focus on the most important aspects, and quickly find ways to make progress in their work. Part 01 Why is preventive maintenance particularly important? The development of equipment management has always progressed in line with the requirements of enterprise production management and quality control, while it also continuously seeks to define its own value and role. In this ongoing process of evolution, equipment management also continues to draw on the best practices from the fields of production management and quality management, gradually developing its own systems and operational mechanisms. We know that, from the most fundamental management perspective, businesses strive to maximize the output resulting from equipment investment, that is, to maximize the efficiency of equipment utilization and operation. From this perspective, it is not difficult to understand the driving force behind the evolution of equipment management from \"reactive maintenance\" to \"preventive maintenance\". Only by properly addressing the disruption caused by sudden equipment failures to production plans and their negative impact on product quality can we even consider the issue of maximizing efficiency. Therefore, how to effectively \"prevent\" the occurrence of critical failures becomes an issue that all equipment managers must first consider and address. The implementation mechanisms for the preventive maintenance concept include a relatively mandatory execution of preventive maintenance plans (planned preventive maintenance system), as well as a preventive maintenance system based on inspections. The combination of the two is what many companies are familiar with today as the \"inspection-and-maintenance system\". Although the \"inspection and maintenance system\" is well-known to many companies, numerous problems still exist in its actual implementation. Including the issue of preventive maintenance plans not being able to be implemented effectively due to production schedules ； The issue of how to make the time periods and maintenance tasks within preventive maintenance plans more reasonable ； The responsibility, awareness, and capabilities of the inspection personnel affect the effectiveness of detecting equipment degradation ； The completeness of the elements in inspection standards, as well as the identification and assessment of inspection items ； Simple scheduled maintenance is unable to effectively prevent failures in complex equipment, and so on. It is to address these issues that, starting from the 1970s, efforts have been made to introduce new fault detection techniques and inspection methods in order to effectively monitor the trends and patterns of equipment degradation. Of course, although in the early stages, due to technical limitations, it was not always possible to effectively monitor the trend of equipment degradation, efforts have been made to shift from time-based preventive maintenance to condition-based predictive maintenance (condition monitoring), and the technical methods for effective fault prevention and prediction are continuously being developed and improved. Part 02: Do all devices require preventive maintenance? People continually deepen their understanding of the essence of things through practice. While equipment managers pursue \"preventive maintenance\" by continuously increasing investment in repairs—such as the labor costs associated with regular planned preventive maintenance activities and the costs of spare parts that need to be kept on hand—they have also begun to consider whether preventive maintenance is necessary for all equipment. For many types of manufacturing companies, high maintenance costs and the capital required for spare parts often increase production costs, thereby reducing the competitiveness of their products. As a result, it is only natural that company management asks equipment managers to find ways to reduce these maintenance costs. This requirement is usually made with the condition that the efficiency of the equipment remains unchanged, and this also constitutes another important aspect in measuring and evaluating the core value of equipment management in a company. How can one have both fish and bear paws? How can horses run fast and stay in good health while eating less grass? It has become an unavoidable challenge for equipment managers, and we must find a solution to this dilemma. Since we need to focus on the balance between the \"losses caused by sudden equipment failures\" and the \"investments made to prevent such losses\", either extreme approach is not advisable. Since not all equipment requires preventive maintenance, and since businesses should seek a model that minimizes total costs, this brings up the issue of applying appropriate maintenance strategies. In other words, it is necessary to classify based on the characteristics of equipment failures, and to employ different maintenance strategies in order to achieve optimal overall costs. “The effective application of \"maintenance strategies\" becomes the second key point to be addressed in order to manage equipment well. Of course, a maintenance strategy is not simply a decision between reactive maintenance and preventive maintenance; in fact, maintenance strategies are very diverse and varied. If \"corrective maintenance\" is carried out to address design flaws in the equipment, it means not sticking to the original design but taking bold steps to address the root causes of recurring faults ； Another example is how to effectively convey the causes of a device’s problems to the designers, or for similar machines, to address issues through analogous troubleshooting methods (similar to a car manufacturer’s recall mechanism) and practices such as \"preventive maintenance\". The coexistence and integrated application of these multi-mode maintenance strategies provide equipment managers with a large number of effective means to achieve optimal overall costs. Part 03 Integrated Engineering and Lifecycle Concepts: After equipment management entered the “productive maintenance” phase in the 1960s, there have been no fundamental breakthroughs—either in scope or in management philosophy—regarding all activities and technological applications based on its key management aspects. What truly drives continuous progress in equipment management is the systems engineering approach from the UK, which advocates life-cycle management. This approach shifts the focus of equipment management from merely focusing on its use and maintenance to covering the entire process, from planning to disposal of the equipment. This has greatly enhanced companies’ understanding of the scope of equipment management, particularly with regard to how to improve early-stage management in order to achieve minimal overall costs over the life cycle of the equipment. Integrated Equipment Engineering was proposed by the Britishman Dennis Bux. The scope of work in equipment systems engineering includes the planning and design of equipment and structures, as well as their reliability and maintainability. It also covers various aspects such as the installation, commissioning, maintenance, modification, and upgrading of equipment. One of the key aspects of integrative engineering is striving to minimize the life-cycle costs of equipment. Many research studies indicate that the total cost of a device throughout its entire life cycle is determined at the time it leaves the factory. In other words, the price of the equipment determines the setup cost, while its reliability determines the maintenance cost. A device with good mechanical performance, reliability, and maintainability not only maintains high work efficiency but also reduces the costs associated with maintenance, upkeep, and energy consumption during use. Therefore, the decisions made at the beginning of equipment use have a significant impact on the economic efficiency over the entire life cycle, and should be given due attention. Integrated equipment engineering is a systematic approach to equipment management that incorporates the theories and research findings of systems engineering. It is also a management philosophy that considers equipment maintenance and management issues from the perspective of overall system optimization. In other words, the equipment system should be viewed from the perspective of systems engineering; by considering the entire lifecycle of the equipment, technical, economic, and organizational aspects can be planned and optimized as a whole to achieve the best results in terms of low costs and high efficiency. By thoroughly understanding the essence of comprehensive equipment engineering and establishing a systematic approach to equipment life-cycle management in practice, it becomes possible to consider the advantages and disadvantages of equipment management and maintenance from an overall perspective rather than focusing on just a particular stage or area. Therefore, “lifecycle management of equipment” is the third key to effective equipment management. Part 04 The Importance of Full Participation in Equipment Management
For a long time, Japan has followed the American approach to equipment management. In the early 1970s, after adopting practices from China’s Anshan Iron and Steel Constitution—such as ensuring that “every piece of equipment has someone responsible for it, and everyone has specific duties”—which emphasized worker participation, adherence to a mass-line approach, and the encouragement of rational suggestions and labor competitions, Japan keenly recognized the issue of full participation in the practical implementation of PM. In other words, not only should equipment specialists consider equipment management and maintenance models, but it is also essential to acknowledge the crucial role played by operators on the job in the realm of equipment management. The impact of operators on equipment management includes both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, they can take advantage of their daily exposure to the equipment to gain an understanding of its conditions, which enables them to identify early signs of equipment failures and address them before they escalate ； To eliminate negative impacts, it is necessary to regulate their behavior in order to effectively reduce repetitive human errors, prevent the deterioration caused by such errors, and slow down the occurrence of equipment failures. This concept of full participation in equipment management has significantly transformed the composition of the equipment management team, aiming for the active contribution of both operators and maintenance staff in order to maximize the overall efficiency of the equipment. From a practical perspective, involving all staff in equipment maintenance is an effective, low-cost, and straightforward approach to equipment management and maintenance. It not only helps to identify and resolve equipment failures at an early stage but also frees maintenance personnel from the vicious cycle of dealing with numerous, frequent, low-quality, and reactive on-site failures. This gives them time and energy to focus on more fundamental aspects of equipment management and maintenance, to better understand the patterns behind equipment failures and the means to control them, as well as to carry out more effective preventive maintenance. For some time now, there has been a strange phenomenon in the field of equipment management in China: people believe that TnPM/TPM and equipment management are not the same thing, and consider TnPM/TPM to be activities separate from conventional equipment management. This is very strange: “equipment management” without taking into account the involvement of all employees is still considered “equipment management,” whereas “equipment management” that does take such involvement into account (TnPM/TPM) is no longer considered “equipment management”! This is a wrong notion and misconception; “full participation” is the fourth and most important key to effective equipment management. Grasping the four key aspects of effective equipment management actually also helps us understand what the concepts and models of \"modern equipment management\" or \"advanced equipment management\" entail. Some technologically-focused individuals believe that having advanced equipment inspection and condition monitoring tools, along with robust information-based software for equipment management, is what constitutes \"modernity\" and \"advancedness,\" thereby overlooking the important role of management concepts. Improvements in hardware can solve certain problems and serve as an important foundation for implementing effective \"soft management concepts.\" However, without advancements and guidance in management philosophy, investments in hardware will not only fail to achieve the desired results but will also lead to significant waste. The two complement each other; only when equipment managers in enterprises first embrace modern concepts of equipment management and then continuously consider how to apply technical methods to put these concepts into practice can the enterprise’s equipment management efforts be placed on a long-term, effective track.