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Rating: 
Summary: State-of-the-Art Maintenance Management
Review: Effective Maintenance Management:
Risk and Reliability Strategies for Optimising Performance
By V. Narayan.
Industrial Press, New York.
ISBN 0-8311-3178-0
Review by Mahen Das, Asset Maintenance and Reliability consultant.
Forty six years ago, soon after graduating as a mechanical engineer from a premier university in India, I joined the process industry. I was hired as a junior engineer and assigned as a trainee in the maintenance department.
The concept of maintenance at that time, was, "tear it apart every so often, repair if anything inside is broken, and put it together again"; This was called preventive maintenance, If it broke down before its turn for preventive maintenance, as it often did, then run around like mad to fix it as quickly as possible. Top management was too distant; they did not want to know anything about maintenance as long as the broken it was repaired as soon as possible. There were very sharp boundaries between operators who ran the machines, the technologists who advised the operators on process technology, and maintainers who "fixed" the machines. As a result, in general (i.e outside very critical systems such as aircraft and nuclear plants) concepts such as operational reliability with a holistic approach were non-existent. No one had yet thought of applying statistical techniques to the practice of maintenance. The idea of total life-cycle cost of the plant and its optimization was still a few decades in the future.
Over the last four decades, spurred by the increasing need for gaining the competitive edge, especially in the process industry where the cost of maintenance can be as high as 40% of the total operating cost, top management has started to take a very close look at maintenance. It is through the efforts of engineers such as Narayan that maintenance has today, reached the state it has.
In this, his latest publication, Narayan covers all that was missing from the practice of maintenance 4 ½ decades ago. In a simple and very readable manner, he demonstrates how maintenance, reliability and costs are linked and how controlling (i.e. assessing, quantifying and, if necessary, reducing) risk is the key for improving performance in these areas. He also suggests tools and techniques with which the practicing maintenance engineer will be familiar. At the end of every chapter, there is a list of useful references and suggestions for further reading should the reader want to go deeper into any aspect in that chapter. All this is packaged in 246 pages in a very reader friendly type and font.
In my opinion this is essential reading for all managers as well as maintenance practitioners in any industry where there is concern about maintenance and reliability of systems.
Rating:
Summary: A Practical and Balanced Perspective
Review: I come from a Reliability background which originated with a corporate R&D group of a Fortune 500 firm. Per our R&D efforts, we viewed Reliability Engineering as encompassing Equipment, Process and Human Reliability issues.Vee has concisely incorporated these three facets of Reliability into the Maintenance realm as well, allowing the reader to understand the big picture of developing an all-encompassing Maintenance and Reliability strategy. This "effective", all-encompassing strategy will consider the short-term and long-term objectives of the organization and identify the proper balance of reactive and proactive work to be optimally done. This book would also be an excellent desk reference for those who seek a foundation for terminology, as such standardized and accepted definitions are rare in our industry. Thanks Vee for sharing your expertise with others who can learn from your vast experience.
Rating:
Summary: A Practical and Balanced Perspective
Review: I come from a Reliability background which originated with a corporate R&D group of a Fortune 500 firm. Per our R&D efforts, we viewed Reliability Engineering as encompassing Equipment, Process and Human Reliability issues. Vee has concisely incorporated these three facets of Reliability into the Maintenance realm as well, allowing the reader to understand the big picture of developing an all-encompassing Maintenance and Reliability strategy. This "effective", all-encompassing strategy will consider the short-term and long-term objectives of the organization and identify the proper balance of reactive and proactive work to be optimally done. This book would also be an excellent desk reference for those who seek a foundation for terminology, as such standardized and accepted definitions are rare in our industry. Thanks Vee for sharing your expertise with others who can learn from your vast experience.
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Summary: It's all about risk management
Review: I like the way V. Narayan describes the maintenance process from risk management perspective. We also understand from his book that the risk can be described quantitatively, qualitatively or can even be just a perception, still to be addressed. As with all risk management issues there is a reward and also price to pay. You can collect most of the rewards at least cost if you can make informed decisions about your maintenance strategy. The author describes all the necessary tools and techniques, together with the possible pitfalls, for making the right decisions.
Rating:
Summary: A reliability consultant's view
Review: This book fills an important need for those trying to take a fact-based approach to maintenance management - it provides the essential grounding for understanding the maths and reasoning which underpins the rational management of risk, reliability and maintenance. This is presented in a way which is readily accessible to the average engineer or technical manager. The book also provides a lot of practical information on the use of this knowledge in management of performance and risk, illustrated with many effective examples. I recommend this book for anyone involved in asset or maintenance management.
Rating:
Summary: Distilled Wisdom
Review: This book is as succinct a distillation of business driven maintenance wisdom as you are likely to find anywhere.
All too often maintenance books focus either on motherhood statements with which you might agree but which take you nowhere useful; or else they target the job detail level so you can decide whether the bearing is worn out or not.
There are many maintenance tools and techniques out there which will do a good job for you if used appropriately; sadly almost all of them lack an inherent focus on the benefits they can bring the business.
What is really needed is a road-map which will tell us where to start, tell us what is important, and give us a series of achievable and pragmatic stepping stones taking us eventually to top performance.
We need to know what are the key issues in the business and how to align our maintenance approach to meet these goals? Which tools should we use to manage these issues effectively?
And most importantly how do the top performers do it? Because whatever they do, and however they do it,seems to bring them success most of the time.
This book shows you how to identify the key issues, devise the right approach for your business,and gives detailed recipes which you can use to bring success.
Rating:
Summary: Effective Maintenance Mamagement
Review: What I like about this book is that it places maintenance in context of the wider society. I think in this bottom line world we know the cost of everything but perhaps the value of nothing so it is fundamental to really understand why it is necessary, or not, to maintain functional assets. The author explains with clarity those analytical processes applied to develop maintenance tasks that when appropriately implemented will reduce the probability of failure or degradation of functional assets. This is particularly important in any industry where the Operator must demonstrate risks are as low as are reasonably practicable. The book also explains how effective maintenance will not only ensure technical integrity but can reduce operating costs significantly and more importantly increase revenue streams through high equipment availability. I also find it very refreshing that in its wider context the book illuminates the human aspects related to the maintenance process and how different are our perceptions of risk. It is critically important to understand for example the behavioural aspects as to why, after appropriate maintenance tasks have been developed, non-compliance with these tasks may be endemic, and how different individual perceptions of risk may lead to flawed decision making.
Rating:
Summary: Effective Maintenance Mamagement
Review: What I like about this book is that it places maintenance in context of the wider society. I think in this bottom line world we know the cost of everything but perhaps the value of nothing so it is fundamental to really understand why it is necessary, or not, to maintain functional assets. The author explains with clarity those analytical processes applied to develop maintenance tasks that when appropriately implemented will reduce the probability of failure or degradation of functional assets. This is particularly important in any industry where the Operator must demonstrate risks are as low as are reasonably practicable. The book also explains how effective maintenance will not only ensure technical integrity but can reduce operating costs significantly and more importantly increase revenue streams through high equipment availability. I also find it very refreshing that in its wider context the book illuminates the human aspects related to the maintenance process and how different are our perceptions of risk. It is critically important to understand for example the behavioural aspects as to why, after appropriate maintenance tasks have been developed, non-compliance with these tasks may be endemic, and how different individual perceptions of risk may lead to flawed decision making.
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