2 ELEMENTS OF MAINTENANCE SYSTEM
Before analysing data from maintenance systems it is important to understand the key elements of the maintenance system.
This section presents the key elements of a well-structured maintenance management system (2). The first element is a plant
dictionary that has all maintainable equipment listed in hierarchical form. The next element is the development of a
comprehensive and efficient maintenance procedure database, which should also include safety procedures as they relate to
maintenance tasks. The third element is a master schedule that ensures all registered equipment is covered by an appropriate
maintenance strategy. The last element is monitoring maintenance management system with 2.1 Plant Dictionary
The level of detail that is necessary for adequate maintenance system design is quite extensive. This is often a major problem
to the improvement team given the poor state of documentation and local knowledge regarding some machines, despite their
criticality to the process.
We recommend the plant dictionary to be structured according to a parent-child hierarchy. The lowest level in the hierarchy is
a maintainable item that needs to be checked or inspected – a PM work order is not usually provided for an item at this level
but is more normally associated with a singular task such as a corrective maintenance work order or a breakdown.
The second tier is used to logically identify a group of maintainable items – the PM work order covering one or more
inspections is assigned to an entity at this level, which normally identifies the equipment types (e.g. boiler). The top tier is a
multiple layer of levels, which identifies a department.
The plant dictionary includes important equipment information such as manufacturer, date of supply, serial number, criticality,
equipment and location identifiers.