Plant & Maintenance Engineering

Plant & Maintenance Engineering

Nirjhar Chakravorti

Nirjhar ChakravortiNirjhar Chakravorti has completed Graduation in Mechanical Engineering in 2000 from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, India.Nirjhar has received & Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) certificate from Institute of Management Technology (IMT), CDL, Ghaziabad.Nirjhar has experience in design, development and project engineering. During professional life, Nirjhar has worked on different engineering activities, like core design, management planning and project engineering, along with the analysis of life cycle costing for capital expenditure of a profit making company.Also, Nirjhar has worked on organizational re-structuring, implementation of ISO, six sigma and total productive maintenance (TPM).

When a plant starts production….After erection & commissioning of a new plant, a company named ABC private limited focuses on production…Operation engineers remain busy to produce more and more productMaintenance engineers stay busy to oil the machineProcurement engineers remain busy to keep inventoryAnd so on…..The result: Management is happy, as Return on Investment generates fast

After a year….Operators report small adjustment of various machines for ease of operationFitters report accessibility problem of various machines while lubricating oil, as part of preventive maintenanceMachines start breakdown, despite of preventive maintenance, due to bolt shearing, shaft breakdown, bearing failure, etc.Procurement engineer plans to maintain high inventory for costly spare parts as getting spare part is a time consuming affair.The result: Production hampers.Effect: Maintenance Engineers try various options, but can not analyze root cause. So problems remain at its own place.

After few years….A customer asked for big order execution. But the company can not bag the order as plant has not capacity to meet the stiff delivery schedule of the customer. The competitor grasp the order as they plan for enhancement of the plant capacity. But ABC Private limited has not any infrastructure to improve machine’s production capacity. The only way out is to install a new set of machines for same sizes of product with enhanced production rate, which is not an economical and feasible option, in such a short time.The result: Loss of order, loss in market share.Effect: Helplessness.

Is there any solution?To handle these situations in future, a probable solution is to….

Set up an In-house Design & Engineering centre. The result: Implementation of comprehensive Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Management which can analyze failures, adjust machines for considerable production improvement, eliminate minor inherent design errors of the machines, prepare drawings for major spare parts to reduce inventory cost, etc.Effect: Profit maximization, maintain market share.

O&M ManagementEffective O&M is one of the most cost-effective methods for ensuring reliability, safety, and efficiency. Pillars of O&M Management are….

Operation Maintenance Engineering Training Administration

The purpose of O&M Management is to prepare a link between these pillars, i.e. establishing an OMETA link.

Design & Engineering Centre….To ensure effective O&M Management, following need to be done:

Set up a design & engineering centre Link design and engineering centre activities with

operation and maintenance activities.Benefit: Maintenance engineers can concentrate in hardcore

maintenance activities, instead of searching for design related activities.

Operation engineers need not to worry when drastic production increment is required beyond machine’s design capacity. They can concentrate in production and operation management only.

Design & Engineering Centre….Engineering Support :

Engineering Support Administration – To guarantee effective execution and control of technical support. Equipment Modifications – To ensure proper design, review, control, realization, and documentation of equipment design modifications in a timely manner. Equipment Performance Monitoring – To perform monitoring actions that optimize machine reliability and efficiency. Engineering Support Procedures and Documentation – To ensure that engineering documents provide appropriate direction and that they support the efficiency and safe operations of the machine.

Design & Engineering Centre….

Failure Analysis for regular

breakdowns

Modify series equipments

when production needs to e

increased up to an extent

Reliable facility for

production& maintenance

Ensure safetyMinimize spare part inventory

Small design changes in

machines to ensure lesser breakdownDesign of new machines if

requiredTraining to operation &

Maintenance Team

Life Cycle Cost Analysis when new investment made

Measure actual operation compared

to full utilization operation

Tracking energy

consumption

Key for O&M Management

Design & Engineering Centre shall drive the O&M Management system within the organization.Design & Engineering centre shall be trained with machine design, project management, maintenance engineering, safety regulations and basic economic analysis.Design & Engineering Centre need to obtain full support from their management structure in order to carry out an effective O&M program.

Location of Design & Engineering Centre

Best location: Within Plant/ Fac-

tory Premises

Alternate loca-tion:Major metro city near plant/ fac-tory


Plant/ Factory Premises: Advantage:

Easy access to plantProvide in-hand solutionBetter control and implementation

Disadvantage:Most of the plants/ factories located away from cities. So retaining design & engineering centre professionals become an issue, which hamper proper implementation of O&M program. Company needs proper people for successful implementation of O&M program. Also, if people associated with O&M program leaves company regularly, then it is tough to re-orient the team.


Major metro city near plant/ factory: Disadvantage:

It is tough to control plant activities (especially operation & maintenance management) from remote location.

Advantage:Recruiting and retaining members of the Design & Engineering Centre. Any company and department is build by human recourse, so recruiting and retaining proper people is the key to success for any organization.

Location of Design & Engineering CentreMajor metro city near plant/ factory:To overcome major disadvantages, company need to establish proper planning and control for design & engineering centre.

Some simple rule:The members need to be properly trained (w.r.t. design, factory layout, project execution, economics, energy conservation and EHS point of view).The members should visit plant at least for 4 days every month (irrespective of their workload and assignment).After any new development, design & engineering centre must visit factory along with complete design plan and discuss with all respective person (including maintenance, operation, safety and procurement). Designer must discuss the issues with operators.Management should encourage maintenance and operation people (supervisor, officers including operators) to propose suggestion for improvement to design & engineering centre. Design & engineering centre must verify any proposal with proper logic and data and accept/ reject with proper data based reasoning.Design & engineering centre has to work on both developmental and execution mode, depending on demand of situation. The modus of operandi must be situational and flexible.Cost analysis (including life cycle cost analysis) should be practiced after any design activity.Design and engineering centre must encourage and train plant & operation personnel regarding various developmental concepts (like total productive maintenance, six sigma, lean production, etc).Design and engineering centre personnel should impart training to plant and operation personnel (officers, supervisors, operators).

Design & Engineering CentreModus of operandi for remote design & engineering centre can be designed and planned with more accurately, once the company decided to implement such function.Flexibility is the key for design and engineering centre . So, function and activities of design and engineering centre should be customized to implement effective and efficient operation and maintenance management .Design & Engineering Centre’s effects are mostly intangible and long run; so to get the short term benefit this concept can not be effective.But design & engineering centre’s objective must be SMART and long term to ensure proper O&M management.

Thank You.Regards,Nirjhar.Email: [email protected].