Application of military logistic techniques to industrial applications.

Abstract

The main reason for the low production efficiencies at North Coast Milling is the frequent stoppages due to equipment breakdowns and the requirement for unscheduled maintenance. In order for this factory to be able to reach the desired efficiencies, it is imperative that downtime and cost drivers in the production lines be identified and rectified. In order to achieve world-class performance, more and more companies are replacing their reactive strategies for maintenance with proactive strategies like Preventive maintenance (PM), Reliability-centred maintenance (RCM) and Condition based maintenance (CBM) and aggressive strategies like Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). While these newer maintenance strategies require increased commitments to training, resources and integration, they also promise to improve performance. New asset management philosophies are being implemented world-wide in an effort to improve industrial system reliability as well as to reduce maintenance costs. Concepts such as TPM, RCM and CBM are being customised for implementation in various industries. Real-time condition monitoring via computerised maintenance management systems has helped make it possible to transfer from a time-based maintenance strategy to a condition-based maintenance strategy. Detecting possible future failures is now a cost-effective reality that reduces considerably the risk of catastrophic failures and system breakdowns. The aIm of the study is to apply military logistic techniques to the industrial environment of North Coast Milling in order to identify downtime and cost drivers. It will be shown that more of the military logistics techniques can be incorporated into some of the existing maintenance techniques at this factory, which would aid in the achievement of maximum plant utilisation and minimum downtime.!