A major revolution is quietly underway in the world of maintenance. The frenetic pace of the latter part of the 20th century to escape the perceived Y2K trap by replacing traditional CMMS's with expensive integrated business solutions and the constant need to improve equipment uptime at lowest cost is necessitating radical changes in the way in which we practice maintenance.
The realisation that maintenance needs to be viewed as a "Profit Centre" and not a "Cost centre" will serve as the main foundation. Companies which fail to grasp this simple fact will not reap the benefits of these new systems, in many cases production efficiency levels will stagnate or fall and blame will be levelled by a confused user at the system itself.
At the very outset it must be recognised that maintenance organisations must adopt a pro-active profit-focussed approach to narrow the gap between manufacturing actual costs and ideal costs.
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