Challenges in the implementation of the maintenance process in productive contexts

Author: Ing. Alice Marquez. 01 June 2022.

In an increasingly competitive market, only a few can survive the changes generated by the global environment, the opening of new markets and the increasingly demanding judgment of consumers or customers of products and services; therefore, it is necessary to maximize the generation of value of processes and achieve organizational alignment with business objectives and goals.

Since maintenance is a core business process, any corporation or company wishing to achieve high standards of maintainability, reliability and availability must deploy strategies aimed at the conceptualization, modeling, design and implementation of a robust maintenance process to identify and diagnose, plan and schedule, execute and control preventive maintenance, as well as corrective requirements of equipment and facilities, in order to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of management.

Although this task seems basic and simple, a high percentage of companies in the industrial sector lack a maintenance process that operates systematically and continuously throughout the organization and that involves the main actors in the key stages of the process, both in its execution and in its continuous improvement.

Barriers and challenges to the implementation of the maintenance value chain

1. THE PROCESS: to have a structured design and modeling based on levels from macro phases, through processes, sub-processes, activities and tasks that incorporate the essence of world-class practices in the development of industrial maintenance.
2. TECHNOLOGICAL PLATFORM: the second element is the technological platform that must support and facilitate the execution of the process and its activities. It is not only a matter of automating maintenance management, but also of recording valuable data on the assets and their performance, massifying the use of the ODT’s as the maximum information entity on asset maintenance and, finally, it is essential to create organizational memory; that is, documenting the process and laying the foundations for managing the knowledge generated in the process and, therefore, in the organization.
3. PEOPLE: the third and no less important element will be the human resources that operate the processes throughout the value chain; they must be motivated, involved and committed to the mission and vision of the organization. Only with your input and continuous contribution, it will be possible to keep the data updated and the maintenance process on track, in order to achieve the expected management levels in terms of maintainability, reliability and availability of the assets.

It is difficult to assemble and mesh these three elements described above, often requiring a visible and committed leadership that models and empowers the organization at all levels, that inspires by example and that serves as a north to meet the challenges facing corporations and companies in this 21st century.