Developing an Asset Maintenance Quality

Management System and Processes to ISO

9001 Requirements
This article highlights that ISO 9001 requires you to
include the maintenance activities you must do on your
physical assets to sustain their performance as part of ISO
9001 certification.

ISO 9001 requires your facilities and the physical assets needed to make your
products be maintained in the condition that delivers the product quality
specified. It requires your organization to determine, provide and maintain
adequate maintenance processes.

What used to be called a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS) has now
become a sub-set of something larger that involves and, supposedly, services the whole
operation. The focus of the larger information systems is financial control that, while being
fundamental to successful management, does not necessarily provide an ideal interface for all
departments, especially the maintenance department.

A successful ‘information’ system for the maintenance department is one which is built
around the fundamental structure of a modern quality system, the basis of which is the Act,
Plan, Do and Check circle. A focus on cost control alone may not produce the required
outcomes. For example, when a Work Order is raised to repair a pump, does the ‘system’
provide for a review of the quality of that overhaul and its contribution to asset utilisation? Or
is it enough to just report how much it cost to overhaul in terms of time and parts?

It appears that progress has been slow in establishing maintenance workshop quality systems
based on the ISO 9000 series of quality standards. While many organisations have introduced
quality systems directly associated with the production of a saleable commodity – no doubt
under pressure from suppliers - the maintenance departments that support the assets used in
the production have generally not been included in the systems.

Why is this so? Perhaps some of these reasons are valid.

 The very early ISO 9001 standards did not include maintenance as a required
management function to be included in a quality system.
 The ‘fire-fighting’ ethos of many maintenance organisations did not transfer easily to
a structured and procedurised management system.
  The potential benefits of a quality management system did not seem obvious to
management and therefore management were not committed to making it work.
 It was just too hard and too expensive to introduce procedures and work instructions
and nobody was demanding it be put in place.
 Reportedly "where it had been tried, it hadn’t worked".

The Origins of Quality Assurance and Quality Management Systems

The father of modern quality assurance principles is generally regarded as the late Dr W.
Edwards Deming who, upon returning to the USA from Japan fairly late in his life, postulated
a 14-point plan to change the way American industry should work. Reading the 14 points
from his book ‘Out of the Crisis’ is well worth the effort.

His quality principles became the foundation of the modern quality movement and the first
round of ‘Quality Assurance’ Standards were published in the early 1980’s.

It is hard to argue against the principle that being well organised and structured must help any
organisation. That is certainly the evidence we see when companies, for example, introduce
business-wide planning processes. One company reported to us that it cost 2% more in
operating expenses to establish and operate a formal planning department, but the
effectiveness gains generated 5% extra operating profit for the business.

The Changing ISO 9001 Quality Management System Standard

The later versions of the ISO 9001 Standard has the same general ideas as those that have
gone before, but there were significant differences.

Firstly, the words ‘Quality Assurance’ in the title of the early Standards gave way to ‘Quality
Management Systems’. This implies a total quality management approach rather that
restricting the issues to be addressed to the exact words in clauses and paragraphs.

For example, it might have been argued under the earlier Standard that employee safety did
not constitute a ‘product quality issue’. Obviously in today’s society the expectations are that
quality management includes safety, environment, job satisfaction and the like that were not
thought to be relevant to earlier quality systems.

Secondly, the Standard encourages a ‘process’ approach to quality management. Any activity
that receives inputs and converts them to outputs can be considered as a process. This very
much supports the modern ‘supplier – customer’ management approach. It makes the concept
of the maintenance department as an organisation with suppliers and customers easily
adapted to the Standard.

The following diagram, extracted from ISO 9001, is included in the Standard to show
graphically how the process works.
Thirdly, the modern Standard is much more ‘user-friendly’ than the earlier Standards. The
layout and wording of the new Standard is much easier to follow and readily integrated into
the modern workplace.

Fourthly, the Standard requires documented procedures to be prepared only where necessary.
This means that the Quality System can refer to established systems and procedures that are
already in place and they can be accepted as meeting the requirements of the Standard.

Fifthly, staff are required to be ‘competent’ and therefore the organisation must define what
‘competent’ means. In earlier Standards training was a requirement but there were no
specifics in terms of how the training might impact on quality or the objectives of the
organisation.

It may seem that in a maintenance trade environment this should be fairly straightforward as
a base level of competence is established by virtue of the trade training common to all.
However, a trade skill does not necessarily mean that a tradesperson is ‘competent’ to work
on a complex machine where clearly advanced skills and experience are required to achieve a
high quality result. Click on this link to view five slides on the meaning of competency as
specified in ISO 9001.
So ‘competence’ is not necessarily directly related to basic training, but might call for
additional training to satisfy the required objectives.

If, for example, it is desired that precision maintenance principles be applied in a

maintenance facility then clearly a whole new ethos for workmanship, tolerances, equipment
standards, tools, etc has to be applied.

There is also a need to have information readily accessible for all staff if we are going to
operate an effective and efficient maintenance department. The ‘precision maintenance’
approach is going to mean that lots of work instructions are going to need to be readily
accessible and be maintained. Data is also going to have to be readily entered, stored and
retrieved when required.

Most importantly, there need to be procedures in place to check the quality of the work
performed to ensure that it conforms to what has been set as the minimum requirements for
the operation.

It is our observation that few such ‘Check’systems exist in the maintenance departments of
our industries. That this is so must annually be costing us millions of dollars in lost
productivity and efficiency.

A Close Look at the ISO 9001 Standard as it Relates to Maintenance

A system which “continuously and forever” (quoting W. Edwards Deming) improves the
quality of the service provided by the maintenance department to the production department
must have the effect of producing the best outcomes for the company as a whole.

Looking again at Figure 1 representing the ISO 9001 Standard requirements we can see that
there are four main activities in the circle:

 Management Responsibility
 Resource Management
 Product Realisation
 Measurement, analysis and improvement

All the clauses in the ISO 9001 Quality Standard must be applied to a quality system;
whether it be for the compnay as a whole, or for the maintenance department quality system
within a company.

Anyone who has studied anything to do with quality systems will immediately recognise the
ACT, PLAN, DO and CHECK cycle that the late quality expert W. Edwards Deming first
postulated so long ago. ISO 9001 Standard deals with each of these matters and the
philosophy of the Standard is based firmly on Figure 1 and the Deming cycle.

The ISO 9001 Standard effectively deals with the framework structure of your 'System' itself
and can be thought of as explaining how the diagram holds together and works as an entity.
The Quality Management System you build is populated with the processes and procedures
you will use to run your organisation in accordance to ISO 9001. When it comes to the care
of your infrastructure and physical assets you need to explain how that will be done.
Infrastructure includes, as applicable, (a) buildings, workspace and associated utilities, (b)
process equipment (both hardware and software), and (c) supporting services (such as
transport, communication or information systems).

You can buy a full set of nine key maintenance procedures from our head office online store
that you can immediately use in your operation. These maintenance management procedures
cover and explain the foundational requirements for a good, effective asset maintenance
system, and they can be used by any company that has fixed or mobile plant and equipment
to make or move their products.

Management Responsibility

The words ‘top management’ appear numerous times and are implied many more times.
While absolute ownership by ‘top management’ is required, there is also the provision to
appoint others who are given certain responsibilities for the development, operation and
continuous improvement of the Quality System.

Here is the opportunity to establish a Maintenance Quality Team involving Supervisors and
Technicians along with representatives of senior management. The opportunities for all levels
of the organisation to be involved will be a vital part of breaking down the ‘them and us’
resistance that will inevitably be encountered.

While ‘top management’ may delegate much of the routine management of the Quality
System to the Quality Team there is a requirement for senior managers to conduct a formal
review of the system at ‘planned intervals’. Doing monthly 'Management Review' meetings is
best by far, but once a year is a minimum frequency for this meeting.

Document control is a vital part of every Maintenance Management System. The resources to
enable you to easily set up the required procedures for this will almost exist elsewhere in the
organisation and may therefore be easily installed.

Resource Management

The Standard requires that suitable resources be considered, provided and managed. This
includes human resources, facilities and the work environment required to achieve the
objectives of the organisation. This is best addressed by setting out a maintenance
management policy statement describing how each of the requirements in the Standard will
be addressed and records maintained by the maintenance department. This policy statement
can be developed into a Physical Assets Maintenance Procedure.

Product Realisation

This requirement of the Standard deals with the sequences of processes and sub-processes
that are used to achieve the required products and/or services. It will be worth looking at each
of the applicable clauses to see how they might be addressed in a maintenance workshop
situation.

Planning of the realisation processes.

This requires you to address four issues.

 a. Quality objectives for the product and/or service;
b. Establish processes and documentation, plus resources and equipment;
c. Verification and validation methods and acceptance criteria;
d. The required records to provide confidence of quality assurance.

In the context of a maintenance department these requirements are very relevant to the
Maintenance Planner. Most, if not all, of these requirements can be designed into the
Maintenance Management Software so that the process of planning and issuing Work Orders
automatically meets these requirements either directly or by reference to the appropriate
Work Instructions.

Customer-related processes.

This should be fairly easily addressed for the relatively simple service relationship with the
‘customer’ being the asset owner or their representative. The method for formal
communications with the customer must also be determined.

Design and/or development.

Design matters are not normally managed by a maintenance workshop. However, the
processes of reliability improvement do require minor design changes from time to time and
these need to be managed and documented. Documentation needs to be prepared setting out
how design changes will be managed and who ultimately approves such changes.

In particular the tracking of new equipment or changes to the installation that require
drawings to be updated must be carefully controlled. The appropriate method is to refer all
changes to the engineering department where the specific requirements for change
management should be met.

Purchasing.

The requirements of purchasing replacement equipment, parts and materials are similar to
those of earlier Standards and are common sense. However, the purchasing policies of many
maintenance departments have been fairly slack in the past and this will require a fair degree
of rigour to ensure that goods and services are purchased in accordance with appropriate
Standards, certification requirements and the defined policies.

This consideration includes the requirements for purchased services, such as sub-contractors,
external maintenance services and consultants, and therefore demands some appropriate
specifications and requirements for these providers to conform to the quality requirements of
the organization.

Services such as workshop balancing can be clearly specified in Work Instructions attached
to the Purchasing Procedure and thereby ensure that the required balancing outcomes are
achieved.

Production and Service Operations.

This where "the rubber hits the road"! This is where the many and varied activities of the
maintenance department need to be carefully reviewed and documented.
There are specific requirements for Operations Control, all of which are immediately relevant
to the activities of a maintenance workshop. It will need to be demonstrated that each of these
requirements has been met in the organisation.

There will be many Work Instructions to be developed to ensure that the required level of
quality is achieved. These will include work instructions for generic things such as alignment,
fits and tolerances and the like. Others will be work instructions for routine tasks such as
machine inspections and overhauls.

Control of measurement and monitoring devices.

This stipulation provides for management and calibration of the various test instruments and
test equipment procedures required at all levels in the organisation.

Measurement Analysis.

This requirement of the Standard and gets you to define how the processes of review of
product quality, customer satisfaction and continuous improvement are to be managed and
monitored.

Continual Improvement.

Four common procedures are used to address the requirements to make a company perform
better:

1. A Procedure for Internal Audits.

2. A Procedure for Control of Non-conformities.
3. A Procedure for Corrective Action.
4. A Procedure for Preventive Action.

These procedures required in the Standard shows that the real meat of a Quality System is in
the way in which quality is monitored and continuous improvement is done.

In Conclusion: The Way Ahead

At the time of writing this paper we have seen only one organisation that has an effective
Quality System operating in its base workshop as well as in all regional workshops and work
sites. This system has taken 10 years to develop and was created and continues to be
developed entirely ‘in-house’ with no external assistance.

The owners refer to it as the ‘Quality Information System’ which seems very applicable as
you can find out almost anything you want to know about anything from the system. They
also adopted that name because the term ‘management’ has connotations that may be
negative in a workplace environment.

A Quality Information System can operate as an intra-net drawing from any of any existing
CMMS or Asset Management Systems. It is not necessary to change the existing
infrastructure but rather to organise it so that information that will support quality
workmanship can be readily stored and retrieved. Within the concept of the
Production/Maintenance Partnership the information should be readily accessible by all.
The sort of information might be as follows.

a. Work Instructions describing the repair and overhaul of all significant machines or
machine types.
b. Tolerances and standards for routine functions such as alignment, shop balancing,
fitting of bearings, lubrication, etc.
c. Selected KPI’s in support of quality such as reliability indicators (eg MTBF),
maintenance costs per unit of production, maintenance costs per hours run, etc.
d. Records of the maintenance work done on each machine, the quality checks made and
listing of the potential improvements that could be applied to system or machine
design or the maintenance processes.
e. Condition Monitoring records of plant showing the status of tests, the current reports
and the condition of plant under test.
f. Reports and recommendations from Root Cause Failure Analyses

There is no doubt that the implementation of a Quality System into a maintenance workshop
situation will require a lot of work and expense. However, on the basis of many years of
experience with quality systems in related environments, we believe that the effort and
investment would quickly produce good returns on the bottom line.

It has long been known that High Reliability Organisations use thoroughly documented
maintenance procedures. We suggest that you adopt the Accuracy Controlled Enterprise 3T
Target-Tolerance-Test method when writing your maintenance procedures if you want sure
work quality control and work quality assurance.

Our experiences in industry tell us that a Quality Information System, based on the principles
of ISO 9001 and operating in a maintenance workshop environment, has the potential to do
all that is required of the financial department as well as manage the quality and effectiveness
of the actual work being done for the production customers.

A Quality Management System to ISO 9001 provides an excellent framework around which
to organise a maintenance department. The latest Standard, more so than any that preceded it,
is easily applied to a maintenance workshop environment.