No process can be improved without measuring its performance. So if you are not measuring your processes and procedures, you will never know how well your business is (or isn’t) achieving its goals. When it comes to measuring manufacturing success there are several confounding factors to be considered — equipment runtimes, manufacturing cycle time, product quality, capacity utilization and much more. So now what exactly should you be measuring?
Facility managers looking to reduce downtime and elevate the performance of their workforce can establish their baseline for success by focusing on the following 6 key metrics:
No. 1 - Machine Downtime
More than 90 percent organizations surveyed in a study have said that a single hour of downtime costs them over a hundred thousand dollars. This creates the need for a solid maintenance strategy that can reduce downtime and keep operations running at optimal efficiency.
When a machine breaks down or a vital component fails, operations come to a screeching halt. With a computerized maintenance management system, the maintenance crew has easy and instant access to key assets. By extracting and analyzing the data stored in a CMMS, the maintenance crew can establish internal benchmarks and identify inefficiencies that lead to breakdowns. Calculating the average downtime across the manufacturing facility enables maintenance managers to make informed decisions for increasing equipment reliability and uptime.
No. 2 - Maintenance Budget
Forecasting the maintenance budget is the biggest challenge faced by maintenance professionals because it requires accurate reporting and a timely documentation of the maintenance costs. Considering the frequency of unplanned downtime, repairs, replacements, and inventory stockout, predicting the budget needs precisely, gets a little tricky.
With a CMMS, facility managers have real-time insights into underperforming equipment, breakdowns, and service schedules along with a well-documented history of repairs, service and maintenance for individual equipment. Timely tracking and reporting of total money spent give facility managers a much better understanding of the amount of time, effort, and resources that are being spent on maintenance. This facilitates accurate decision making and enables the maintenance management staff to better forecast their future spend.
No. 3 - The Service Life of Assets
Predicting the useful life of an asset and the repairs and replacements that will be needed during its lifecycle is difficult. Using a CMMS makes this easy with greater insights into repairs and maintenance across the facility for every individual equipment and machine installed. From failure trends to the root cause of breakdowns, manufacturing management software tracks every activity in real-time. This level of visibility enables facility managers to build a hierarchy tree that precisely represents all the assets along with their locations including the ones that are newly added to the facility. As a result, maintenance managers can establish precise benchmarks, compare uptime versus downtime based on history, and accordingly take proactive measures to extend the service life of assets.
No. 4 - Responsiveness
Responsiveness refers to the ability of the maintenance crew to respond to a work request, take the necessary action, resolve the issue and restore operations to normal functioning. Right from opening a work order request and starting work to reporting lags and identifying major pain points, responsiveness plays a crucial role in helping facility managers save a significant amount of time, effort and money.
A CMMS collects data on major metrics like underperforming assets, technician efficiency, labor costs, and the time taken to respond to work orders and complete maintenance tasks. This helps the maintenance staff identify the root cause of frequently occurring downtime, weed out assets that are not functioning optimally and improve responsiveness by sending notifications to technicians anytime, anywhere. It also eliminates paperwork, cuts down the travel time and ultimately accelerates productivity.
No. 5 - Workforce Productivity
Are your maintenance technicians putting in extra hours? Use a CMMS to generate accurate performance reports and identify the reasons your workforce is required to work overtime. CMMS will help you get to the root cause – whether it caused by handling emergency requests or due to existing inefficiencies in your standard operating procedures.
A CMMS stores all the maintenance records so even a new technician can be productive from day 1 without spending hours searching for records and machine nuances. With instant access to the right information anytime, anywhere, technicians don’t need to remain tied to their desk or travel all the way from the field. Mobile CMMS eliminates the need for paper printouts and manual records so technicians can stay focused on improving productivity. As facility managers have a clear picture of the manpower being utilized to maintain assets, it becomes easy to downsize PM schedules or add a workforce wherever needed while ensuring the optimum use of the available resources.
No. 6 - Planned (Proactive) vs. Unplanned (Reactive) Maintenance
Most organizations service equipment only when an emergency strikes and a work order is generated. This approach is called reactive maintenance and it typically costs much more than proactive maintenance in the long run. When work orders are generated at the last minute they often interrupt operations and bring them to a temporary halt.
With a CMMS, facility managers can adopt a proactive approach to maintenance management and experience less downtime while avoiding expensive interruptions and costly repairs. A CMMS automates work orders and service inspections to ensure that assets are using their highest capacity. It also compares planned and unplanned maintenance ratios to keep facility managers updated on all work orders and maintenance schedules.
Measuring these KPIs with manufacturing management software empowers facility managers improve processes and implement the best practices while staying compliant and reducing maintenance costs.
Lindsey Walker works for NEXGEN Asset Management as their Marketing Manager.