alternative to the current operations approach

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1. The alternative to current operations approach of maintenance department is to allow maintenance to perform scheduled maintenance. If maintenance is performed on time, the possibility of breakdowns will decrease substantially. Besides, the time required for maintenance will be scheduled or known to operations so that the production disruption because of scheduled maintenance will be minimum. Scheduled maintenance is also called planned maintenance. Scheduled maintenance is preventive maintenance it prevents breakdowns (1). The scheduled maintenance is done in accordance with the recommendation of the manufacturer. What the plant manager should do is to allow scheduled maintenance so that planning of maintenance and ordering of spares can be done in an orderly manner. Beth Conner feels that maintenance people just sit around and play cards till a machine breaks down. Once scheduled maintenance is performed, maintenance personnel will be attending to one machine after another in a planned manner (2). There will be no personnel sitting around and playing cards. Another alternative to the present system is autonomous maintenance. In this alternative, the maintenance tasks are the responsibility of the machine operators. These responsibilities include lubrication, tightening of machine parts, and replacing them when they break. The present system of 'fix it' approach is inappropriate and causes production disruptions because of breakdowns.

2. Maintenance mechanics can be better used if scheduled maintenance is allowed and performed. Parts that have scheduled maintenance at fixed intervals are changed due to wear-out or a fixed shelf life. Scheduled ...