5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 1

Dave Alexander

INTRODUCTION
As businesses rely increasingly on technology and machinery to run their

operations, maintenance managers play a critical role in ensuring that

these assets remain reliable and productive.

In a world where even a small disruption can have a significant impact on

a company's bottom line, the responsibility of maintenance managers to

maintain asset reliability has never been more important.

As the saying goes, "prevention is better than cure" and nowhere is this

more applicable than in the field of reliability and asset management.

Despite your best efforts, even the most meticulous Preventative

Maintenance Plans can fall short due to factors you have overlooked,

leaving your assets vulnerable to unexpected breakdowns.

I’m Dave Alexander. I’m a former maintenance and

reliability manager turned managing director of

Holistic Asset Management.

For over 30 years I’ve helped businesses -

particularly in the mining and manufacturing

sectors - transform their asset performance.

This is achieved by embedding a robust Reliability

Management System and effective Preventative

Maintenance Plans that address asset failure

modes that are likely to occur. Each task is clearly

articulated to ensure it’s performed by all

maintenance staff as intended; to guarantee

improvement in asset reliability and availability. If

done correctly, this will reduce your reactive

maintenance cost 100% of the time.

Sadly, most active PMs contain critical flaws that can mean major asset failure is lurking just around
the corner. But there are simple ways to avoid this.

Let me show you the five most common issues with Preventative Maintenance Plans that you need to
address to achieve maximum availability and profitability.

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 2

 Dave Alexander

MISTAKE #1
Your plan is reactive, not proactive.

90% of organisations do have Preventative

Maintenance Plans - and that’s great. ACTION

But on closer inspection, a lot of tasks within them
UNDERSTAND YOUR CRITICAL
don’t address the potential failure modes that will
EQUIPMENT AND DEFINE
cause the asset to fail. Instead, they follow routines
POTENTIAL FAILURE MODES
generated over many years.

These routines are often developed from

the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
• Examine equipment and records to determine

recommendations, copied from similar types of

potential and past failures
equipment, or tasks are slowly added over time
• Create a record of what these failure modes look
to the Preventative Maintenance Plan in a reactive

like and the likely occurrence

mode after multiple failures have occurred.
Review each record to assess what tasks and
•
actions are needed
While these actions might address the symptom of

the failure, there’s often little consideration given to

Detail tasks and step-by-step instructions
which tasks might prevent the actual root cause. • necessary to address potential failure mode
Regularly review and update the equipment
Based on my experience, when an organisation failure modes records and update
•
is continually in a reactive mode and equipment
PMs accordingly.
breakdowns consume most of its trade resources, it

usually indicates how assets are maintained and the

quality of the task within the maintenance strategy.

Is your Preventative Maintenance Plan reactive, or

does it proactively look for and address what’s about

to fail or is known to fail?

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 3

 Dave Alexander

MISTAKE #2
Your maintenance tasks aren’t linked to any failure mode mapping.

Can you confidently say that all critical tasks in your

PM Plan add value? And that you know what failure ACTION
modes are being addressed by each task?
UPDATE THE PLAN TO REFLECT
Most PM tasks are not created from a Failure Mode A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF
& Effects ground-up build, and you likely have FAILURE MODES
numerous tasks that don’t address a likely failure
mode, or add value to the PM or asset reliability.

Mapping each PM task back to a failure mode • Investigate the failures that are occurring and get
enables quick analysis of your PM’s effectiveness and to the root cause
value. It also helps determine PM shortfalls when
• Crosscheck that only tasks necessary to address
conducting RCA investigations on equipment failures.
these failures are in place
We often see PM tasks balloon out of proportion
(PM creep) and loaded with non-value-adding tasks. Remove redundant tasks and those that are
•
PM creep usually occurs over time as new tasks are wasting valuable trades time
added following an incident or a failure. While the Be vigilant about the quality of updates or
new task is intended to prevent this failure from • changes to the plan
reoccurring (in theory), it does not actually address
the root problem that caused the failure mode in the
first place.

Does your organisation’s Preventative Maintenance

Plans include redundant tasks? Ones that fail to
address failure modes, waste tradespeople’s time,
and, worse still, increase the odds of a failure
occurring?

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 4

 Dave Alexander

MISTAKE #3
Task instructions are generic.

We all read and interpret things differently and have

our own experiences. That’s why tasks with vague or

ACTION
generic instructions, or that omit acceptable limits

and tolerances, can cause things to break. CREATE ‘IDIOT PROOF’

INSTRUCTIONS TO ELIMINATE
For example, a Preventative Maintenance Plan with
GUESSWORK AND PREVENT
instructions like, “Adjust a fan belt,” means I would

adjust it to a certain tension. Someone else, however,

MISTAKES
might adjust the fan belt to a slightly different
tension. Both adjustments could be wrong.
• Refine the tasks required for each asset.
Unfortunately, many organisations still rely • List detailed, step-by-step instructions for each
on tradespeople and their experience. All this

knowledge is kept in their head and not documented

• task. Identify allowances for human judgement.
with the PM plans, then tradespeople take • Identify scenarios when human judgement is NOT
critical knowledge with them when they leave allowed.
the organisation! This leaves less experienced

tradespeople without clear and detailed instructions,

Perform a ‘dry-run’ to test the effectiveness of the
•
or acceptable tolerances against each task. instructions.
Identify any holes in any of the tasks’ instructions.
Using detailed written instructions like, “Adjust the fan •
Update as required.
belt to a deflection of plus or minus three millimetres,” •
means that everyone following the Preventative

Maintenance Plan can understand what precisely the

task requires and achieve the correct outcome.

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 5

 Dave Alexander

MISTAKE #4
Preventative Maintenance Plan hasn’t been updated (in years!).

A Preventative Maintenance Plan is not something

It’s also best practice to incorporate your
that is fixed in stone. It’s a living, dynamic thing that
Preventative Maintenance Plan with your Defect

should grow and change with the organisation to

Elimination Program. So, when failures occur, and an

remain effective. investigation happens, you can check if the current

Preventative Maintenance Plan tasks address that

Changes to production, throughput rates, operating

particular failure mode.
techniques, interactions with new equipment… These

and other changes can add or accelerate additional

And if not? Update it!
potential failure modes for your assets.

Therefore, ongoing asset performance reviews and

updates to your Preventative Maintenance Plans are

essential. ACTION
CREATE A CONTINUOUS
(It’s also rare that all tasks necessary to correct
IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
failure modes are identified in the first pass.)

So when should you review an asset’s Preventative

Maintenance Plan? • Review your Preventative Maintenance Plan

• Create a trigger to Initiate a PM review

• When new equipment that interacts with an
existing asset is installed.
• When equipment that interacts with an existing
asset is upgraded.
• When operating conditions or throughput
change
• If it was created 5 or 10 years ago! Chances are it’s
not entirely relevant or adequate for maintaining
or preventing asset failure modes today.
• Understand if any failures occurring that your
current plan fails to address
• Update your plan’s tasks and instructions to
address all current and likely failure modes
Conduct reviews in conjunction with changes to
• processes and equipment
Schedule annual reviews of your plan
•

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 6

 Dave Alexander

MISTAKE #5
The plan hasn’t changed (but the assets have).

Sooner or later, everything breaks. Inherited Preventative Maintenance Plans do more

harm than good to any asset. It won’t just increase

How much stress, load, and usage is applied to an the chances of failure rate - it will almost certainly

asset determines when it will break. guarantee it!

It is important to understand these parameters and

update your PMs accordingly. But it’s often the case
that an asset’s PM Plan remains unchanged although ACTION
a change in design, asset upgrades, or even a new ASSESS THE RELEVANCE OF
asset has been installed.
EACH ASSET’S PREVENTATIVE
Let’s look at a couple of scenarios in more detail… MAINTENANCE PLAN

SCENARIO 1: ASSET UPGRADE

• List past dates of significant asset updates or

The organisation upgrades its conveyor system. The new replacement

conveyor may have a different drive motor, different belt
sizes, etc. But strategies in the Preventative Maintenance
Plan remain unchanged and no longer reflect the needs
of the new asset.
the above
SCENARIO 2: NEW ASSET BUILD
An organisation designs, builds, and instals a new
asset. It’s left to the maintenance staff to define the
appropriate strategies and actions to maintain the new
asset, but time restraints see them refer to a plan that’s
been effective previously with similar assets.
• List past dates of significant updates to processes
and operating requirements
Note the assets that may have been impacted by
•
Assess the relevance of each asset’s Preventative
• Maintenance Plan
Update the plan to reflect operational
requirements and/ or changes to the asset.
•
Make plan updates an integral part of changes and
updates to your organisation’s processes and assets.
•

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 7

 Dave Alexander

BONUS MISTAKE #6
Rubbish in, rubbish out.

Shifting to a new EAM (Enterprise Asset

Management) platform to improve productivity and

profitability usually means extracting strategies from

ACTION
the existing system, adding some naming convention
CIRCUMVENT THE PROBLEM OF
changes, and uploading them into the new system. RUBBISH IN, RUBBISH OUT
But problems arise when strategies taken from the

old asset are flawed. Hence, rubbish in, rubbish out. • Extract strategies from an old asset

Upgrade your EAM to ensure the best possible

• Analyse and ensure each PM task adds value

outcome for managing your assets with an effective

• Identify any scrape flawed or worthless strategies
PM Plan. This might mean doing a complete overhaul

before you pollute the new EAM with the same dated
• Update them to address likely failure modes

data that caused you many of these issues in the • Rewrite them so they’re descriptive and include
first place.
acceptable limits and corrective actions
Finally, load the updated data into the new
•
system

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 8

 Dave Alexander

WHY CHOOSE Holistic Asset Management?

Our Asset Management and Reliability Specialists offer a powerful combination of industry expertise,

subject matter mastery and dedication to delivering excellence for our clients, stakeholders and each

other.

Our team has combined expertise in almost all areas of reliability engineering, asset management,

and maintenance management with hands on experience that spans a broad spectrum of mining

mobile equipment.

We are structured to accommodate all requests of any size or complexity, from short telephone

consultations to long term engagement of SME resources, to ensure our clients obtain the required

value from their assets.

We are proud of the reputation we have earned as a reliable and advanced engineering services

provider to the mining industry. Our commitment to our customers is to provide the most reliable

and advanced engineering solutions that will help them improve their reliability management

systems and ultimately reduce their operational costs.

Unlock the full potential of your assets with our services. Contact us today to schedule a

consultation and discover the difference we can make.

“RECOGNISE, BELIEVE,

AND SEE THE REAL

VALUE OF MANAGING

ASSETS
“

www.holisticam.com.au info@holisticam.com.au

5 REASONS WHY MANY PM PLANS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO POOR ASSET RELIABILITY 9