On-site improvement and equipment management

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On-site improvement and equipment management: Equipment management is an essential component of corporate management, playing a vital role in enhancing a company’s competitiveness. Western industrialized countries have developed various theories and models for equipment management, such as logistics engineering, comprehensive equipment engineering, total product maintenance, and reliability-centered maintenance, among others. Our country has also put forward the concept of comprehensive equipment management. However, for many enterprises, especially small and medium-sized businesses, how to improve equipment maintenance levels by enhancing management based on existing conditions is a common challenge. The author once served as the head of the equipment management department at a Japanese-owned company for an extended period of time. Taking into account the company’s emphasis on on-site improvement, the author integrated equipment management tasks into these improvement activities, achieving very good results. It has turned out that focusing on on-site improvements is a simple, easy, and effective way to enhance equipment management levels. Cleaning is essentially inspection; many companies are carrying out 5S activities with the aim of creating a clean and tidy workplace. The 5S initiative is also very important for equipment management. On the one hand, it is impossible to achieve a high level of equipment management in a dirty environment; well-maintained equipment is always spotless ； On the other hand, the cleaning process is also a process of inspection; this is what we commonly refer to as “cleaning equals inspection”. Thoroughly cleaning the equipment is a process of having \"close contact\" with it, and during this process it is easy to detect various problems with the equipment, such as oil leaks, loose screws, yellowed wires, and so on. It is very necessary to address these negative phenomena promptly. Based on this understanding, we changed the practice of having the 5S management of equipment and its maintenance handled separately by operators and maintenance staff, requiring operators to take on a portion of the equipment maintenance tasks. Autonomous improvement of defects: On-site improvement emphasizes activating the work site, motivating employees, and continuously improving work processes. In equipment management, it is also necessary to stimulate employees’ awareness of problems and their enthusiasm for improvement. We mainly carried out work in the following two areas: First, we encouraged employees to actively identify problems and shortcomings in equipment and facilities, and to take action to improve them on their own ； Secondly, emphasis should be placed on dealing with the source of occurrence. The source of generation refers to the place where pollutants are produced on a device, such as the origin of dust, liquids, cutting waste, etc. The pollutants generated by the equipment not only cause environmental pollution but also are the root cause of equipment degradation, and must be addressed. The solution is to eliminate the source of occurrence, or reduce the amount of occurrence, or confine the pollutants to a small area. To do well in these two aspects, it is crucial to stimulate employees’ enthusiasm for improvement and make full use of their intelligence and skills. By integrating it with the company’s “individual proposal” incentive system and the “excellent improvement case presentation” system, employees’ enthusiasm was effectively stimulated, resulting in many creative small improvements and inventions. Widespread implementation of visual management: Visual management involves making management visible so that everything is clear at a glance. The implementation of visual management in the field can help identify problems and improve management efficiency. It can be considered that the level of implementation of visual management is an important indicator for measuring the level of on-site management. In equipment management, we placed emphasis on the use of visual management techniques, focusing on improving the condition of equipment management from the following three aspects, which has led to an improvement in the level of equipment management. First, it fully reveals the normal and abnormal states as well as parameters of the equipment, such as the normal and abnormal ranges of instruments, the normal and abnormal positions of switches, the open/closed status of valves, and the upper and lower limits of liquid levels, etc. This not only allows staff to clearly see whether the equipment is operating properly, but also helps improve work efficiency. By implementing visual management in the generator room, marking the normal and abnormal ranges for various instruments, and establishing dedicated inspection pathways, we were able to reduce the time required to record the generator’s operating parameters from 10 minutes to 2 minutes. Second, it identifies matters that require attention, serving as a reminder and a means of oversight to prevent work errors caused by negligence. Good equipment management requires timely maintenance of the equipment. It often happens that equipment failures occur due to the failure to carry out necessary maintenance on it in a timely manner. Our approach is to reveal the tasks involved in equipment maintenance on-site as much as possible. For example, regarding the replacement of consumables such as lubricants, filters, and belts for machinery, a sign is placed next to the equipment, indicating the model and quantity of the consumables that need to be replaced, the replacement criteria, the time of the last replacement, and the estimated time for the next replacement. In this way, if the work of replacing consumables is not done on time, it will be obvious to everyone. Third, simplify the tasks. The processes of starting up, shutting down, and switching many devices are quite complex, and operational errors can cause damage to the devices. By applying visual management techniques to identify the complex operation steps of equipment, its operation can be simplified and the occurrence of errors reduced. Although a good equipment management system is relatively complex, companies can still improve the level of equipment management and enhance the overall efficiency of their equipment through some simple on-site improvements.