Predictive Maintenance Practices in Indian Industry

Abstract

Managing industries into new millennium is a challenging task. Increased global competition, fast technological change, consumer perceptions towards total quality, reliability, health and safety, environment considerations and change in management structure not only provide many manufacturing units with considerable opportunities to improve their performance but also the much-needed competitive edge to those firms that strategically plan for the future and exploit fully the advantages of modern manufacturing techniques and methods. The maintenance management and operation of high value and strategically important industries in the increasingly stiff market require that each plant/process industry provides maximum return on investment with minimum threat of unplanned outages – all within a need to control production costs. Pro-active maintenance management has become a holistic multi-discipline, based on systems approach. The potential benefits from such an integrated multi-discipline based on system are many. It has been clearly demonstrated that the use of appropriate pro-active maintenance management techniques can give industries significant improvements in efficiency and directly enhance profitability, maintenance cost as a proportion of total operating costs are increasing and now in some industries they are one of the top three cost elements. There are several case studies which point to the fact that maintenance of manufacturing assets can no longer be ignored. There are sufficient economic justifications and benefits, if industries adopt PMP (predictive maintenance programme) management principles and practices effectively. Objectives of the study: I. To carry out an overview of PMP implementation in various industrial sectors in various advanced countries in the world. II. To estimate magnitude of annual savings in maintenance in respect of various core sector industries in India and identify potential industries for PMP implementation. III. To estimate total conceivable gross annual savings if PMP could be implemented throughout Indian industry. IV. To suggest a criteria for identifying the most critical machinery in a given manufacturing plant based on certain criticality index and relate this index to economic viability of PMP. V. To provide a cost-benefit analysis and estimate the likely operating cost of PMP in various industrial sectors and evaluate the market potential for PMP instrumentation. VI. To identify limitations for wider application of PMP throughout the Indian industry and explain future trends. Research methodology: The study needed both primary and secondary data to accomplish the tasks set forth above. Primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire. The sample space for the questionnaire consists of an industrial sector encompassing steel, refineries, fertilizers, Petro chemicals, cement, sugar, automotive, food processing etc. Another questionnaires was also distributed to individuals like plant managers, maintenance engineers, PMP equipment suppliers, manufactures etc. the secondary data mainly sourced from economic reports, maintenance journals, conference proceedings, departmental reports, balance sheets, government committee reports etc. In addition to use of questionnaires, the investigator visited industries in different sector and conducted structured interview with plant managers, maintenance staff, finance executives, senior technical managers, production managers etc. Contribution in the field of proposed work: The results of this study are briefly given below: i. Efforts were made in this thesis to study the status of PMP in the industrial sectors of various advanced countries. This study revealed that PMP has been sectors of various advanced countries. This study revealed that PMP has been accepted towards late 80’s and early 90’s as viable option in maintenance strategy in countries like USA. A number of case studies have bought out that PMP is just not a technical tool, but an advanced maintenance management strategy to cut down cost of production. ii. Implementation of PMP in many industrial sectors in India as a paradigm shift in maintenance management has been analysed in detail. The magnitude of annual savings in maintenance across 507 potential industries in India has been estimated at Rs. 4071.73 crores. Separate study has been made on savings in power sector, it is estimated that PMP will reduce energy shortage from 6.5% to 2.7% at normal load. At peak load, this corresponds to reduction from 16% to 12%. iii. The investigator proposed a machinal criticality assessment model based on six criticality indices and a 10-point grading system. The study also includes a cost benefit analysis due to investment on PMP in any manufacturing/process plant. iv. The total market potential for PMP equipment has also been studied and proposed suggestions for effective exploitation of core strengths of Indian industries in developing indigenous PMP equipment. v. The survey on current maintenance practices and potential of PMP in reducing maintenance cost carried out by the author as part of this thesis is first of its kind in India. No such studies were carried out earlier in India by any individual or by any organization. vi. Besides improving the bottom line of profits, the study revealed that, PMP will have a force multiplying effect on the industry in enhancing product quality, reliability, safety and above all, global competitiveness. A number of suggestions were made to implement PMP across whole India industry effectively.