Maintenance

1.7 Maintenance Pyramid

Maintenance of Cement Factories

Module 1. Maintenance Foundations
1.7
Maintenance Pyramid
We have reached the final session of this Module 1 of the course where we are thinking
about the scope and scale of the task in maintaining a cement factory. We have been
talking about how the success, or otherwise, of maintenance will be judged, and the
contextual factors such as location, number of lines, different equipment suppliers,
layout, etc., which must be taken into consideration.
Some measures of maintenance success can be quantified; availability, utilisation,
MTBF, MTTR, cost of maintenance, spares coverage, manpower coverage, maintenance
backlog etc, but others are qualitative and much more difficult to objectively assess. To
help with these qualitative assessments I like use the concept of a maintenance pyramid:

Scale

Best Practice
Maintenance
Risk Based
Maintenance
Equipment Alarm
Analysis
Process Control
Integration
Effectiveness
MTBF, MTTR
Weekly
Maintenance Plan
Budget

Maintenance
Master Schedule

Total Productive
Maintenance

Reliability Centered
Maintenance

Multi-Skilling &
Demarcation

Maintenance
Succession
Schedule
Planning
Optimisation
Computerised
Cause & Effect
Work Performance
Maintenance
Analysis
Evaluation
System

Condition
Monitoring

Equipment History
System

Maintenance
Reporting

Plot Pyramid

Asset Numbering

Procurement &
Inventory

Work Order
System

Complexity &
Maintainability

Work
Specifications

Cleanliness &
House Keeping

Training &
Apprentices

Tools &
Workshops

Craftsman & Skills

KEY
Not existing or at a
rudementry level.

Under-developed or
under-used.

In place at a
reasonable level.

Well-developed
systems.

Fully-developed
systems.

Using a pyramid allows the multiple quantitative and qualitative factors that build into a
world-class cement factory maintenance system to be visualised.
There are certain systems, procedures and contextual factors which form the foundations
of such a system; the maintenance budget, procurement and spare parts inventory, layout
and complexity, housekeeping and cleanliness, tools and workshops, craftsmen and their
skills. If there are problems with any of these areas then it is unlikely (or impossible) to
perform world-class maintenance of a cement factory.

Maintenance

1.7 Maintenance Pyramid

The way I use such a pyramid is by making site inspections and conducting interviews to
assign a qualitative score to each building block of the pyramid. Colour coding is then
used to represent the stage of development of each of the building blocks of the pyramid;
blue denotes fully developed and effective systems, teal = well developed systems,
yellow = in place at a reasonable level, orange = underdeveloped or underused, red =
non-existent or rudimentary.
Scale

Then as the months and years progress

you like to see the teal and blue migrating
up the pyramid. With maintenance it can
be expected that making such a transition
will involve a period of months and years.
The results in terms of equipment
reliability and effectiveness will also take
time.

Best Practice
Maintenance
Risk Based
Maintenance
Equipment Alarm
Analysis
Process Control
Integration
Effectiveness
MTBF, MTTR
Weekly
Maintenance Plan
Budget

Maintenance
Reporting

Maintenance
Master Schedule

Multi-Skilling &
Demarcation

Maintenance
Schedule
Optimisation

Computerised
Maintenance
System

Asset Numbering

Procurement &
Inventory

Total Productive
Maintenance

Reliability Centered
Maintenance

Condition
Monitoring

Equipment History
System

Plot Pyramid

Work Order
System

Complexity &
Maintainability

Succession
Planning

Cause & Effect

Analysis

Work Performance
Evaluation

Work
Specifications

Cleanliness &
House Keeping

Training &
Apprentices

Tools &
Workshops

Craftsman & Skills

KEY
Not existing or at a
rudementry level.

Under-developed or
under-used.

In place at a
reasonable level.

Well-developed
systems.

Fully-developed
systems.

I know that such an approach to maintenance evaluation is used in some multinational

cement companies. I have also seen it used by various consulting organisations. Anyone
who looks into this approach will come across the techniques of Strategic Asset
Management Incorporated, SAMI, of Connecticut, USA. They use similar pyramids
focusing on (i) capacity development, (ii) production, and (iii) logistics, in addition to (iv)
maintenance. These four pyramids are seen as the four sides of a larger pyramid building
into factory or organisational excellence, an interesting concept which Im sure would
apply to cement factories, but beyond the scope of this course!
The exact definition of the building blocks and their order to achieve world-class
maintenance of a cement factory will always be open for debate. To my mind this is
important, but not over-ridingly so. More important is to use such a tool consistently to
recognise the qualitative and quantitative factors combining to produce world-class
maintenance.
In this module 1 of the course I have been focusing on the foundation level of this
pyramid. In module 3 we will look at the systems and procedures which make up the
blocks in the upper levels of the pyramid, but in module 2 we need to turn our attention to
the condition of the cement manufacturing equipment. If the equipment is in a poor
condition then repair will be the first priority, rather than maintenance.
There is no exercise associated with this session, but there is of course the exam! Good
luck with it, its not too difficult.

ii