As we continue our transition away from paper based records to computerised management systems, we are becoming more heavily reliant on data to safely and reliably, operate and maintain our plant and equipment. Yet, many businesses still find that all of this additional data doesn’t necessarily result in improvements in these activities.
Within a maintenance context, we are talking about the Master Data that is critical to the function of our maintenance management system. This is the centrally stored data that enables the system to be used to plan and manage operational and maintenance tasks. It will most likely include items such as the maintenance strategy, asset register, functional locations (FLOC), spares, bills of material (BOM), and operational and maintenance documents.
Common Data Problems
Amongst the problems encountered with Master Data, we have found the following to be the most common (not necessarily in order):
- Equipment register data no longer reflects the actual state of the plant (asset registers, functional locations, plant index)
- Job/task information is not been updated on completion of the activity i.e. actual job times, tools and equipment used, spares used, etc.
- Equipment/spares data is no longer relevant, including BOM and cataloguing data
- Documents/procedures (WIN/SWI etc.) are not used, not available or not updated.
- Break-down/failure data is not entered i.e. correct failure codes are being used
Costs
As a result of these issues, clients are often left using a system that their personnel know is inefficient, or sometimes ineffective. The costs of which can be measured as:
- Additional time for maintenance teams to plan and execute work.
- Priority tasks being missed due to the amount of time allocated or the wrong tasks being planned.
- Loss of plant availability due to waiting on parts that were not identified when the task was planned.
- Inability to conduct effective analysis on equipment reliability, resulting in further failures.
- Disengagement of the workforce due to distrust in the data/system.
Of these costs, the one that is least likely to be captured is the disengagement of the workforce, yet it is the one that will often have the greatest detriment to the ongoing reliability of your assets!
Solutions
Firstly, the bad news, fixing poor quality data is not always simple and is often expensive. The more data you have, the more work there is in reviewing, cleansing, updating and implementing. Which is why getting it “right” the first time is so important!
From our experience, there are a number of well-defined actions you need to take to ensure Master Data is correct, whether you are establishing data for a new assets or creating/transferring data into a new system. These are as follows:
- Set-up the rules for data management before you start entering it into your system. This includes naming conventions, asset register / functional location structures and management processes. Remember, the more “free text” boxes you have, the more free text you’ll get (and the less accurate the data will be)
- Engage your team throughout the process to get their feedback on how the data will be used. Make sure they are trained in the use of the system BEFORE it’s implemented to avoid work-arounds being created (and extra poor quality data)
- If you are going to use BOM’s to plan maintenance activities, they need to be accurate, which is why you need to ensure the personnel responsible for creating them must understand the technical functioning of your assets/equipment, how your supply chain will function and how your procurement system will work to provide these items.
- Establish the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle with your team. Regular reviews of the effectiveness of the system are critical to the ongoing improvement of the data. Waiting for an annual review will only ensure you have a year’s worth of poor quality data to review.
As we continue to develop and improve the way we manage maintenance, the importance of the various forms of data will only increase. Whether it is equipment operational information (run/production data), maintenance information (breakdowns/maintenance tasks), OEM inputs (maintenance strategy, parts, capacities, etc.) or business information (plant performance, shift activities, etc.), the ability of any maintenance system will be significantly impacted by the accuracy this data. By ensuring you have established master data correctly and have a process in place to manage the data/system, you will significantly improve the way you manage your assets and workforce.