By
Ricky Smith, CMRP,Reliability Strategy Leader
Ivara Corporation
Bruce Hawkins, Life Cycle Engineering, North Charleston, SC, USA
Description
What is "Lean?" Whether referring to manufacturing operations or maintenance, lean is about doing more with less: less effort, less space,
fewer defects, less throughput time, lower volume requirements, less capital for a given level of output, etc. The need to provide the
customer more value with less waste is a necessity for any firm wanting to stay in business, especially in today's increasingly global
market place. And this is what lean thinking is all about.
Lean Operations are difficult to sustain. More Lean Manufacturing Plant
Transformations have been abandoned than have achieved true Lean Enterprise status.
There are solid and recurring reasons for both
of these conditions. The most significant of these reasons is that production support processes have not been pre-positioned or refined
adequately to assist the manufacturing plant in making the lean transformation. And the most significant of the support functions is
the maintenance operation, which determines production line equipment reliability. Moving the maintenance operation well into its own
lean transformation is a must-do prerequisite for successful manufacturing plant - or any process plant - Lean Transformations. This
Handbook provides detailed, step-by-step, fully explained processes for each phase of Lean Maintenance implementation providing examples,
checklists and methodologies of a quantity, detail and practicality that no previous publication has even approached. It is required
reading, and a required reference, for every plant and facility that is planning, or even thinking of adopting "Lean" as their mode of
operation.
Audience:
Reliability Engineers, Maintenance Engineers, Technicians, Mechanical Engineers
