Maintenance Memo originated in 1988. The concept was to provide an opportunity to disseminate information about maintenance strategies, best practices and most importantly the human side of maintenance management.
At first articles were published in PaperAge magazine, a paper industry trade journal, under the byline Maintenance Memo. Following this a newsletter entitled Maintenance Memo was published monthly and snail mailed free to operations and maintenance people in the North American paper industry, at one time exceeding 5000 individual mailings. Included in this newsletter were articles, promotions, transfers, open position announcements, conference information and other tidbits of information about and for people focused upon maintenance and reliability in the paper industry, also acting as a communication resource for people seeking job opportunties and career changes.
With the freedom of the internet, the Maintenance Memo website is now routinely updated and upgraded for viewing on line. While content is still predominately related to reliability and maintenance management issues in the paper industry via articles from the past and present, those same issues apply across other asset intensive environments including mining and metals, oil and gas, chemicals and utilities.
While many of the articles are based upon real situations, our hope is that you will derive some benefit from reading about the people, cultures and practices. Certainly over the past quarter century the technology and processes employed by manufacturers to improve their equipment reliability has changed but there still remains the issue of acceptance and assimilation by the people. The stories told here are more about the human side of the task of improvement. We welcome any and all comments and suggestions as well as editorial content.
My name is Sam. By John Yolton
I’m a maintenance man.
I’m also between jobs, but so what, I’ve been there before, and I’ll be there again.The day of birth-to-death employment with the same company is over, has been since my father was forced into early retirement in 1967 by a company he’d spent 43 years with.He was also a maintenance man.Early retirement ‘bout killed him.Early retirement won’t kill me, because I don’t intend to give up until I’m ready.
St. Regis Paper Co. had a pulpwood ship unloading dock in my hometown, the town I grew up in. Use to ship peeled pulpwood by rail from my town to a paper mill not far away on a railroad created, maintained and owned by the company. As a kid I had many a ride to the next town aboard that unscheduled train.I always had to hitchhike back.‘Course back in those days, in that part of the world, hitchhiking was a safe means of traveling.Kids miss a lot today.
My paper industry career started in a small mill in the northeastern USA, might as well have been anywhere, ‘cause it was nowhere, like most every other paper mill town in this country.I grew up in a small town, one of those towns that has no right to exist, but does, by the good graces of its residents, who hold on to something that is as slippery as teflon impregnated packing.
"And not only that, there's hardly no maintenance on it"
This has to be the classic all time parody of maintenance. I've carried this clipping with me for nearly 30 years, and the irony still applies.
The time has come (First Published 1/10/2001)
Collaborative asset management (CAM), not to be confused with computer aided manufacturing, is a term that was coined by AMR (American Manufacturing Research) in a recent report.1
“Automating the outhouse” In their report, AMR makes a bold statement: Of existing enterprise asset management (EAM) system users, “Less than 10% (of EAM users) have done more than automate their existing work processes.” This focus on implementing a system closely duplicating existing business practices is commonly referred to in the asset management software industry as “automating the outhouse.” Conversely, 90% of current EAM system users have shown little or no improvements in the goal of optimizing asset utilization on which many of these systems were justified. Upper management expectations that the base performance of the company assets would improve following system implementation never materialize. In the end, the ROI is simply not there.
The former paper mill maintenance manager was asked to help out, as a multi-skilled maintenance worker, at a company mill as a 'scab' in the company's effort to 'strike bust' the local union's strike.
It was a bitter situation.
Crowds of mill workers gathered outside the gates, as the ‘scab’ shift change ritual occurred each morning and evening, yelling salutations and greetings to the incoming and outgoing management personnel being bussed between the mill and their 'secret' quarters off site.The strike would last too many weeks and tear apart the mill community in the process.
Casey, a lesson in courage. (first published in August 1995) Every once in a while, we maintenance folks, while dealing in our own daily doses of reality are reminded that our world is buffered from other people’s ‘real’ worlds. In the upper Midwestern USA, in a papermaker’s family reality takes the shape of cancer.Cancer is not a new fact to papermakers.We all have friends, relatives and lovers who have had to deal with this most cruel destroyer of dreams and aspirations.
Casey is no different, nor unique from other papermakers’ family.Casey is fifteen.Casey is tall. Casey wants to play basketball, competitive basketball.
All I Wanna Do is Have Some Fun (2) (First published in 1996) By John Yolton Hortonville Inn Just outside Appleton, Wisconsin in Hortonville, naturally.Specialty...German food.Best Reuben sandwich...anywhere. Just one of those friendly neighborhood small town downtown taverns that you find all over the state of Wisconsin.It’s located right in the center of town, on a corner, across from another local spot.Nothing fancy, but the people are friendly and helpful.Forget your fat free diet.
Digester Inspection Program Concerns (first published 1994) By John Yolton Your digester inspection program must be tailored to specific needs and capabilities, generally determined by insurance company mandates and state regulatory agencies.However, with the recent activity surrounding the incident in Panama City, digester inspection programs are receiving minute scrutiny by OSHA. The concern with digester vessel integrity is centered upon the vessel's current ability to withstand the pressures for which it was originally designed and built.During the years following installation most digesters have seen a pattern of wear and corrosion that has removed metal from the shell.
Whose maintenance system is this anyway? (first published 1999) By John Yolton
The dilemma
Many paper companies have come to the recent realization that there are savings to be achieved in the cost of maintaining their equipment and facilities.Many of these companies recognize that their existing systems, typically written to produce outdated reports, explaining the magnitude of the cost for maintenance, do little for the day-to-day management of the maintenance activities, so-called ‘transactions’ management.Some have likened this situation to one of the football game crowd, including the bench and coaches, sitting with their backs to the field, staring at the scoreboard, believing that knowing the score will help them understand, and control what is taking place on the field behind them. Many maintenance managers experience this predicament and take action.One manager, in the southeastern US, spent an entire year off-site reengineering the mill’s maintenance effort only to find that the company’s information system could not provide the transaction data, on a timely basis. The data required for efficient and diligent actions to take place at his mill.The existing system could not support the improved business processes he and his team had developed during their sabbatical. This dilemma, not at all uncommon for savvy maintenance managers, initiates a process that ends in the implementation of new software designed for managing the maintenance processes.In the past the leadership of this initiative was typically assigned to the MIS or IT group within the company or the facility.The reasons for this were twofold: §Maintenance managers felt out of their league when discussing information technology. §Maintenance managers felt they did not have time to spend on this intensive effort.
Strategies for maintenance (first published 12/9/93) by John Yolton Several strategies are available to the management of the maintenance effort in our mills. Two of these strategies are: Saving costs, and Contributing to profits. The same you say? Saving Costs It can be verifiably argued that saving costs will contribute to profits, but in this context saving costs means reducing the overall maintenance effort. Long‑term, this can mean serious degradation of production capability, i.e., inhibiting profitability.Saving costs has to be achieved by a reduction in personnel (or in their paid time) or by reducing material usage, or a combination of both. The point is elimination of some resource currently being used.
Reducing Labor Cost For example, some expenditure is justified by saying that this capital project will reduce maintenance labor costs. This means that the maintenance effort on this particular piece of equipment or process will be reduced. In reality no personnel will be released from the active payroll. No costs then are saved only redistribution of work effort.Are savings achieved?Maybe yes...and maybe no.Redistributing work hours to another 'cost center' does not save money. This action merely reallocates ongoing costs. A justification sort of like a 'shell' game.Now you see it now you don't, it really depends upon where you are expected, or directed, to look.
