Maintenance Management got different meaning, perceptions, understanding, application, methodology, etc, for different industries as well as maintenance experts. Some dedicated/ multi-purpose software tools too available for facilities or plant & equipment maintenance.
Maintenance Management System or Maintenance Information System can be different of each industry and each facility or asset.
During my vast maintenance management experience, for successfully maintaining “Plant Equipments” of exactly identical manufacturing facilities, required entirely different Maintenance methodology, techniques and MMS or MIS itself.
I worked for Usha Rectifier that was having two Metal Film Resistor manufacturing units at one location. I had to apply two different techniques for smooth functioning of the plant with 60% common maintenance work force.
Other example is at HBL Power Systems Ltd. This company has two same product manufacturing units with similar plant & equipment; at different locations (about 100KM away from each other). I had to apply entirely different technique.
One more example: Naina Semiconductor Ltd, Usha Rectifier Corporation Ltd and Teamasia Lakhi Semiconductor Ltd have semiconductor diode manufacturing facilities at entirely different locations. Maintenance man power had different language, education and differed in many respects. I had to use different techniques to successfully run the each plant and equipment for achieving 99.90% up time or efficiency.
One life time experience: Kirlosker Cummins 125KVA DG set of NTA series was a failure throughout India, particularly on AMF panel. The same DG set under me skipped three D-checks & one E-check due to best maintenance practices applied. I have applied condition based maintenance technique during 1985-1990 at Indian Shaving Products Ltd (Gillette).
ESEC die bonder required different maintenance or service calls in India. ICP Spectrometer with HBL Power Systems Ltd is another living example and one can verify this mother company about spares sale or down time history data.
Hence different plant & equipments or assets require different maintenance strategy, MIS or MMS, etc. Non-flexible maintenance software can only help you in only collecting the data and cost analysis, not a solution.
