Maintenance is increasingly recognised by organisations as vital for improving safety, operational effectiveness and efficiency. Maintenance itself has constantly evolved, as machinery became more complex and new technology emerged. Yet, in some industries the maturity of maintenance could be substantially improved.
This blog is for anyone passionate about maintenance. We will discuss maintenance principles, methods, processes and enablers, and how these apply to different industries and contexts.
My experience in maintenance has spanned my entire career. The story began with operating plant and turning spanners in the Royal Navy submarine service. As I gained seniority I was involved with planning, scheduling and maintenance improvement at the working coal face. After 23 years in the service, I joined a major manufacturer who trail blazed servitisation and the development of predictive maintenance.
Formal training as an RCM facilitator and reliability engineer, a BSc in Computer Science and MSc in Information Systems, consolidated my IT education and engineering experience. During my academic studies, discovery of Systems Thinking and Systems Engineering was personally transformational. Systems thinking reduces the risk of engineering project failures by opening new ways of innovating in engineering - a traditionally reductionist discipline.
During my industrial career, I worked at the heart of developing predictive maintenance, responsible for its research and development. I began to appreciate there are subtle differences from perspectives of design and support engineering and how they thought about operating and maintaining assets. This enabled me to gain valuable insights.
Recently I co-founded a software company that specialises in extracting key knowledge from multiple data sources to automate processes for optimising maintenance.
This blog will include anecdotes and stories, and it will describe successes and tips for avoiding failure. On occasion we may release videos to simplify the explanation of more complicated concepts. We’ll also invite people to directly contribute or participate in interviews.
We will differentiate between hype and reality, and aim to reduce the fog and focus on what is truly effective in maintenance technology.
There are other challenges this blog seeks to address… How can we make this truly fascinating and rewarding career more attractive to a diverse set of people?
Engineering holds a leading role in steering our world away from carbon-based energy. Engineers take science and make it practical to apply and use. Maintenance engineering ensures the performance, safety and reduces the impact on the environment. This is essential; it ensures our economies continue to develop, whilst being committed to sustainability.
I personally believe in lifelong learning; no one person can know everything! So, this blog will be interactive, a place for debate and the promotion of alternative views. I would like to continue to adapt and learn from your experiences. Future content can be influenced by your feedback and requests.
We hope this fortnightly blog will offer readable, relevant and interesting information and insights for those passionate about maintenance.
Children often ask the most basic but penetrating questions, that often stump adults. The answers are multifaceted or we all assume we know, but have never really challenged ourselves to answer. The next blog will discuss what maintenance is and what its purpose is… We would like to hear your opinions on what the answer to this question is, in the comments!
You can reach me at: maintenanceguru@oxmt.net