Plant & maintenance engineering is most important part of successful operation of a factory. But many companies ignore this function. Here is a brief presentation about aspects of plant & maintenance engineering, which is important part of operation and maintenance management.

1. Nirjhar Chakravorti

2. Nirjhar Chakravorti has completed Graduation in Mechanical Engineering
in 2000 from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, India.
Nirjhar has received & Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management
(PGDBM) certificate from Institute of Management Technology
(IMT), CDL, Ghaziabad.
Nirjhar has experience in design, development and project engineering.
During professional life, Nirjhar has worked on different engineering
activities, like core design, management planning and project
engineering, along with the analysis of life cycle costing for capital
expenditure of a profit making company.
Also, Nirjhar has worked on organizational re-structuring, implementation
of ISO, six sigma and total productive maintenance (TPM).

3. After erection & commissioning of a new plant,
a company named ABC private limited focuses
on production…
Operation engineers remain busy to produce more and
more product
Maintenance engineers stay busy to oil the machine
Procurement engineers remain busy to keep inventory
And so on…..
The result: Management is happy, as Return on
Investment generates fast

4. Operators report small adjustment of various machines
for ease of operation
Fitters report accessibility problem of various machines
while lubricating oil, as part of preventive maintenance
Machines start breakdown, despite of preventive
maintenance, due to bolt shearing, shaft breakdown,
bearing failure, etc.
Procurement engineer plans to maintain high inventory
for costly spare parts as getting spare part is a time
consuming affair.
The result: Production hampers.
Effect: Maintenance Engineers try various options, but
can not analyze root cause. So problems remain at its
own place.

5. A customer asked for big order execution. But the
company can not bag the order as plant has not
capacity to meet the stiff delivery schedule of the
customer. The competitor grasp the order as they plan
for enhancement of the plant capacity. But ABC Private
limited has not any infrastructure to improve
machine’s production capacity.
The only way out is to install a new set of machines for
same sizes of product with enhanced production
rate, which is not an economical and feasible option, in
such a short time.
The result: Loss of order, loss in market share.
Effect: Helplessness.

6. To handle these situations in future, a probable
solution is to….
Set up an In-house Design & Engineering
centre.
The result: Implementation of comprehensive
Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Management which
can analyze failures, adjust machines for considerable
production improvement, eliminate minor inherent
design errors of the machines, prepare drawings for
major spare parts to reduce inventory cost, etc.
Effect: Profit maximization, maintain market share.

7. Effective O&M is one of the most cost-effective
methods for ensuring reliability, safety, and efficiency.
Pillars of O&M Management are….
 Operation
 Maintenance
 Engineering
 Training
 Administration
The purpose of O&M Management is to prepare a link
between these pillars, i.e. establishing an OMETA link.

8. To ensure effective O&M Management, following need
to be done:
 Set up a design & engineering centre
 Link design and engineering centre activities with
operation and maintenance activities.
Benefit:
 Maintenance engineers can concentrate in hardcore
maintenance activities, instead of searching for design
related activities.
 Operation engineers need not to worry when drastic
production increment is required beyond machine’s
design capacity. They can concentrate in production
and operation management only.

9. Engineering Support :
Engineering Support Administration – To guarantee effective
execution and control of technical support.
Equipment Modifications – To ensure proper
design, review, control, realization, and documentation of
equipment design modifications in a timely manner.
Equipment Performance Monitoring – To perform monitoring
actions that optimize machine reliability and efficiency.
Engineering Support Procedures and Documentation – To
ensure that engineering documents provide appropriate
direction and that they support the efficiency and safe
operations of the machine.

10. Reliable facility
for
production&
maintenance
Modify series
equipments
when production
needs to e
increased up to
an extent
Failure Analysis
for regular
breakdowns
Small design
changes in
machines to
Minimize spare
Ensure safety
ensure lesser
part inventory
breakdown
Design of new machines if
Training to operation &
required
Maintenance Team
Measure actual
Tracking
Life Cycle Cost
operation compared
energy
Analysis when new
to full utilization
consumption
investment made
operation

11. Design & Engineering Centre shall drive the
O&M Management system within the
organization.
Design & Engineering centre shall be trained
with machine design, project management,
maintenance engineering, safety regulations
and basic economic analysis.
Design & Engineering Centre need to obtain full
support from their management structure in
order to carry out an effective O&M program.

12. Alternate
location:
Major metro city
near plant/
factory
Best location:
Within Plant/
Factory Premises

13. Plant/ Factory Premises:

Advantage:
Easy access to plant
Provide in-hand solution
Better control and implementation

Disadvantage:
Most of the plants/ factories located away from cities.
So retaining design & engineering centre professionals
become an issue, which hamper proper
implementation of O&M program. Company needs
proper people for successful implementation of O&M
program. Also, if people associated with O&M program
leaves company regularly, then it is tough to re-orient
the team.

14. Major metro city near plant/ factory:
 Disadvantage:
It is tough to control plant activities (especially
operation & maintenance management) from
remote location.

Advantage:
Recruiting and retaining members of the Design &
Engineering Centre. Any company and department
is build by human recourse, so recruiting and
retaining proper people is the key to success for
any organization.

15. Major metro city near plant/ factory:
To overcome major disadvantages, company need to establish proper planning and control for design &
engineering centre.
Some simple rule:
The members need to be properly trained (w.r.t. design, factory layout, project execution,
economics, energy conservation and EHS point of view).
The members should visit plant at least for 4 days every month (irrespective of their workload and
assignment).
After any new development, design & engineering centre must visit factory along with complete
design plan and discuss with all respective person (including maintenance, operation, safety and
procurement). Designer must discuss the issues with operators.
Management should encourage maintenance and operation people (supervisor, officers including
operators) to propose suggestion for improvement to design & engineering centre. Design &
engineering centre must verify any proposal with proper logic and data and accept/ reject with
proper data based reasoning.
Design & engineering centre has to work on both developmental and execution mode, depending
on demand of situation. The modus of operandi must be situational and flexible.
Cost analysis (including life cycle cost analysis) should be practiced after any design activity.
Design and engineering centre must encourage and train plant & operation personnel regarding
various developmental concepts (like total productive maintenance, six sigma, lean production,
etc).
Design and engineering centre personnel should impart training to plant and operation personnel
(officers, supervisors, operators).

16. Modus of operandi for remote design & engineering centre
can be designed and planned with more accurately, once the
company decided to implement such function.
Flexibility is the key for design and engineering centre . So,
function and activities of design and engineering centre
should be customized to implement effective and efficient
operation and maintenance management .
Design & Engineering Centre’s effects are mostly intangible
and long run; so to get the short term benefit this concept
can not be effective.
But design & engineering centre’s objective must be SMART
and long term to ensure proper O&M management.