Economic justification for maintenance analysis and condition monitoring

With increased global competition and increased emphasis being placed on the "bottom line", it is sometimes difficult to convince the senior management of the necessity of instituting a world class maintenance organization. When maintenance is viewed as a cost center, and not a profit center, gaining the necessary assets to implement an improved maintenance program is extremely difficult. A good deal of the frustration encountered by maintenance and engineering personnel and the outside consultants they hire to assist them, is the difficulty in explaining "simple facts" to those people that control the finances. The lack of a common language, or common background makes the problem just that more difficult. Since the accountants control the money required to do the job properly, it is incumbent on the maintenance and engineering staff to learn and use the language of the accountants to acquire the assets required to accomplish the job. There are other people who do not have the maintenance departments best interest at heart either. To that end, we will present some terms and strategies that have been successfully used to advance the goals of maintenance. It will provide some useful economic equations and methodologies which will put the maintenance organization on the same plane as the money people. The goal is to provide the engineering and maintenance department with the tools required to alleviate the headaches that come at budget time.