Looking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

When the maintenance department does its job properly, nothing unusual happens. That "invisibility" subjects maintenance to unwelcome budget cuts.

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Is maintenance the Rodney Dangerfield of the pulp and paper industry? Like Rodney, maintenance managers sometimes say, "I don't get no respect!" Despite the proven benefits of predictive or even proactive maintenance, many mills--under budget pressure--revert to reactive, "run to failure" maintenance that destroys productivity. During difficult financial times like the present, maintenance budgets are often the first to experience reduction since the negative effects are not immediately felt.

How can the pulp and paper industry escape this negative cycle? The best way is to have a mill management in place that understands maintenance is an investment and not a cost. Mill management must also become an advocate for maintenance when the budget cutters call. Maintenance works best when three factors are present:

* Production believes proactive maintenance delivers up time.

* Management believes maintenance excellence provides good ROI.

* Management recognizes and supports cultural change initiatives.

Those were some opinions that arose during a lively discussion at the "Bill Babbington Maintenance Roundtable" held at the 2003 TAPPI Spring Technical Conference in Chicago, Illinois, USA, on May 12, 2003. The roundtable, sponsored by the TAPPI Maintenance and Mill Engineering (M & ME) Committee, honors Bill Babbington's memory. Babbington was an active member of the M & ME Committee who founded and moderated the TAPPI Maintenance Roundtable for many years. After his death several years ago, the Roundtable was named for him. Jerry Kahn of Siemens Energy & Automation led this roundtable. Note: The Bill Babbington Roundtable will he held again at the TAPPI Fall Technical Conference in Chicago on October 28, 2003, from 3:30 to 5:00 pm.

HOW TO MEASURE MAINTENANCE

A constant challenge facing maintenance professionals is the lack of a standard measure for maintenance efficiency. Some mills use maintenance hours per ton of production by grade; others use overall machine efficiency considering how many minutes the machine is available for production. Some mills include planned downtime in machine efficiency, but others do not.

Factors outside the control of the maintenance department affect maintenance. "If we are not running at maximum production, that obviously affects maintenance hours per ton of production," said one mill participant. "Every machine also has a 'sweet spot' where the machine runs extremely well with fewer breakdowns and less downtime. If we produce more than expected, we slow the machine since we are told to supply a certain amount of linerboard. If the whole process is geared to run at a higher speed while running below the sweet spot, maintenance costs will increase."

A big challenge facing maintenance professionals in the pulp and paper industry has been the rise of reactive maintenance--basically running equipment until it breaks down (see Figs. 1 and 2). While the problems caused by reactive maintenance are well documented, the desire by management for short-term profits sometimes leads to drastic reductions in maintenance staffs and budgets. By deferring maintenance costs, managers can show dramatic "improvements" in cost since the damage from this approach typically occurs one to two years later. By then, the manager who implemented the budget cuts has moved to another mill. At the end of this cycle, maintenance costs often increase far more than the original savings.

"When we have down cycles, the austerity programs come out of the woodwork so that we reduce critical maintenance," said one participant. "When mill managers only stay for one or two years on an assignment, the problem is worse. If these managers had to stay and be accountable for their decisions, we would not have these kinds of practices."

Another participant confirmed the devastating damage of reactive maintenance. "After a new company purchased our mill, we discovered that the previous owner had cut all capital funding for 18-20 months before the purchase including maintenance. We had to spend millions of dollars to fix this situation. The previous owner installed equipment as cheaply as possible and did not institute proper maintenance programs. In these situations, obtaining the capital you need to catch up is difficult let alone improve the situation." He also noted in the current business climate that some pulp and paper companies have reduced maintenance spending as much as 75%.

Other mills with more enlightened management have completely different experiences. These mills invest in preventive maintenance typically focusing on four key areas: lubrication analysis, alignment, balancing, and housekeeping.

"We have management backing from the top," said one mill participant. "Our mill manager believed in the proactive approach throughout his 25-year tenure. We have an older mill, but our uptime is 97%-98% minus scheduled outages. We have very high maintenance costs compared with other mills in our company, but we are among the lowest cost producing mills." He also advocated a centralized approach to maintenance management. "The best organizations I have seen have a central maintenance organization in the mill that then works in different areas. This provides consistent practices throughout the mill."

Statistics support proactive maintenance. In one 19-mill company, a study revealed that mills with the lowest manufacturing costs had the highest maintenance budgets.

Another benefit of a healthy maintenance program may be lower insurance rates according to one participant. "Insurance underwriters are becoming more interested in proactive maintenance programs that use techniques such as thermography, vibration analysis, and non-destructive testing," he said. "They are factoring these program into business continuation policies. In Sweden you can cut your insurance rates with a preventive maintenance program."

Another discussion at the roundtable focused on European mills that operate on lower maintenance budgets than their North American counterparts. One participant said the difference in maintenance costs in Scandinavian mills is not due to maintenance practices but to the design and building of the paper machines. "Newer Scandinavian mills typically use five times more stainless steel in their mills," he said. "They are overbuilt by American standards, but have dramatically reduced lifecycle costs. They are built to require less maintenance."

By contrast, older mills such as those operating in North America are running far above design capacity he noted. "As a result, paper machine bearings are on the edge. These mills previously ran their machines at 1600 ft/min and now run at 1900-2000 ft/min. Machines are running far above their operating window. The bearings in those machines were designed for the older window. The staff is expected to run the mill for no additional cost at 1900 ft/min compared with 1600 ft/min. From a maintenance perspective, this does not compute."

Figure 1: Maintenance definitions.

BASIC MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES DEFINED

Reactive    Run-to-failure or breakdown maintenance
            - "Unplanned"
Preventive  Periodic and prescribed maintenance
            - "Time-based"
Predictive  Maintenance based on equipment condition
            - "Condition-based"
Proactive   Focus on mitigating the need for maintenance
            - "Root cause-based"

Figure 2: Techniques needed for varied strategies.

NEEDS FOR MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES

Maintenance   Technique                   Human Body
Strategy      Needed                      Parallel

Reactive      Large Maintenance           Heart attack or stroke
Maintenance   Budget

Preventive    Periodic component          By-pass or transplant
Maintenance   replacement                 surgery

Predictive    Monitoring of vibration,    Detection of heart
Maintenance   heat, alignment, wear       disease using EKG or
              debris                      ultrasonics

Proactive     Monitoring and              Cholesterol and blood
Maintenance   correction of failing root  pressure monitoring
              causes                      with diet control

Note: For details on a two-part "Virtual Seminar" on maintenance, see "Additional Resources" on page 45.

IN THIS ARTICLE YOU WILL LEARN:

* Different ways of measuring maintenance performance.

* Why mills spending more on maintenance are low cost operators.

* How some mills "build in" lower maintenance costs.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

* TAPPI Virtual Seminars: Results Oriented Reliability and Maintenance Management Part 1: Oct. 21 and Nov. 3 Part 2: Oct. 27 and Nov. 20 Presented by IDCON via Internet and telephone. For more information, go to www.tappi.org and search for "virtual seminars'"

* Plant Maintenance Resource Center: www.plant-maintenance.com.

* Maintenance World: www.maintenanceworld.com

ALAN ROOKS, Editorial Director