7 Steps of Autonomous Maintenance

How to effectively integrate maintenance in Production

What is Autonomous Maintenance

Autonomous Maintenance aims to empower the operator of a machine to clean, lubricate and inspect his machine. It should lead to:

  • Higher knowledge of the operator about his machine
  • High reliability of the machine
  • Fast detection of abnormalities
  • Allowing mechanics to spend more time for Preventive Maintenance

Role of the operator in Autonomous Maintenance

Compare it to the driver of a car. While cleaning your car, you might detect irregularities like a new scratch, a flat tire, rust or oil leaks. You do not need to solve those yourselves; you may call for a mechanic, schedule an appointment or ask for advice. Small things you may do yourselves: checking petrol level and washer fluid and fill it up. Checking air pressure of your tires etc.

The more such tasks the operator can do, the more time is freed up for the technician in order to do more complex task, that need a higher qualified technical job. And the more technical knowledge the operator gains, the better he can operate his equipment.

Role of the technician in Autonomous Maintenance

The trained mechanic will take care of more complex issues. The mechanic may observe unusual situations and ask the operator questions. He might give him advice how to prevent this. Or teach him how a certain component works in order to make the operator understand the machine better and be able to operate it in a better way.

He also will teach the operator essential technical knowledge about the equipment, so the operator:

  • can be his ‘ears and eyes’ at the machine,
  • will prevent wrong usage of the equipment which might lead to defects or abnormalities.

7 Steps of Autonomous Maintenance

Below find a scheme explaining all 7 steps of AM, what is done in each step, what is aimed for and what is the role of the supervising manager(s). If you need any help, give me a call!

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Step 1.

Initial clea­ning

Major Activities

  • Conduct educa­tion for lubri­cating
  • Develop overall lubri­ca­ti­on in­spection
  • Establish lu­brica­tion con­trol sy­stem
  • Set cleaning and lubri­ca­tion stand­ards

Aims from equipment perspective

  • Expose hidden de­fects by remo­ving con­tami­nants
  • Restore de­fecti­ve are­as in equ­ipment
  • Identify sou­rces of con­tamination

Aims from human perspective

  • Become familiar with group acti­vity by way of easy tasks such as clea­ning
  • Group leaders learn lea­dership
  • Look at and touch every corner of equ­ipment to en­hance its care and to pro­mote curiosity and questi­ons
  • Learn “Cleaning is in­spec­ti­on”

Managers' supervision and support

  • Lead by staying one step ahead, compre­hen­ding TPM through prac­tice, and demonstrating with exam­ples of ma­na­gers’ models
  • Teach defects of equi­p­ment
  • Teach importance of clea­ning, lubrica­tion and ti­ghte­ning
  • Teach “Cleaning is in­spec­ti­on”

Step 2.

 

Countermeasu­res to sources of con­tami­na­tion

Major Activities

  • Remedy sources of contaminati­on
  • Prevent conta­mi­nants from irregu­lar and unde­sira­ble dispersion
  • Improve diffi­cult clea­ning areas to reduce cleaning time

 

Aims from equipment perspective

  • Prevent con­tami­nants from gene­ra­ting and ad­hering to equip­ment in order to en­hance relia­bility
  • Definitely main­tain equ­ipment clean­liness so as to im­prove main­tai­nabi­lity

Aims from human perspective

  • Learn motion and working mechanism of machinery
  • Learn methods to improve equipment focused on sources of contamination
  • Encourage interest and desire to improve equipment
  • Feel pleasure and satisfaction with successful achievement of improvement

Managers' supervision and support

  • Teach motion and wor­king mechanism of ma­chinery
  • Teach where-where and why-why analy­ses to ex­ami­ne pro­blem
  • Assist in implemen­ting ideas for im­provement
  • Promptly respond to work orders

Step 3.

Cleaning and lubri­ca­ti­on stand­ards

Major Activities

  • Remedy sources of contaminati­on
  • Prevent conta­mi­nants from irregu­lar and unde­sira­ble dispersion
  • Improve diffi­cult clea­ning areas to reduce cleaning time

 

Aims from equipment perspective

  • Correct dif­fi­cult lubri­ca­ting areas
  • Apply visual controls
  • Definitely main­tain ba­sic equi­pment conditi­ons (cleaning, lu­brica­ting, tigh­tening) to esta­blish deteriora­ti­on prevention system

 

Aims from human perspective

  • Set rules by on­eself and follow them
  • Know importance of fol­lowing rules and autono­mous supervi­sion
  • Encourage aware­ness of one’s own roles and team­work

Managers' supervision and support

  • Prepare lubrication con­trol rules
  • Provide education and practi­ce in terms of lubri­cati­on
  • Teach how to prepare clea­ning and lubrica­ting stand­ards
  • Assist actual pre­para­tion of stand­ards

Step 4.

Overall inspec­tion

Major Activities

At each inspec­tion cate­gory:

  • Conduct educa­ti­on and prac­tice
  • Develop overall in­specti­on
  • Remedy diffi­cult inspection areas in equipment to reduce required time
  • Set tentative in­spec­ting sta­n-dards

Aims from equipment perspective

  • Detect and reme­dy minu­te de­fects
  • Thoroughly apply visual controls
  • Improve dif­fi­cult in­spection are­as
  • Maintain es­ta­blished equip­ment conditions by means of rou­tine inspec­tion to im­prove reli­a­bility fur­ther

Aims from human perspective

  • Learn structure, function and in­spec­tion methods of equ­ipment to master in­spection skill
  • Master easy ser­vi­cing procedures
  • Group leaders learn lea­der-ship through con­duc­ting roll-out edu­cati­on
  • Learn recording, sum­mari­zation and analysis of in­spec­tion data

Managers' supervision and support

  • Prepare overall in­spection schedu­le, check sheets, ma­nuals, and other tea­ching materials
  • Promptly respond to work orders
  • Provide training for easy ser­vicing
  • Teach how to impro­ve diffi­cult in­spection areas by applying vi­sual con­trols tho­roughly
  • Teach inspection data h­and­ling

Step 5.

Autonomous Mai­nte­nance stand­ards

 

Major Activities

  • Set autonomous ma­inte­nan­ce s­tand­ards and sch­edu­le to fina­li­ze acti­vities focused on e­quip­ment
  • Faithfully con­duct routi­ne maintenan­ce in ac­cordance with standards
  • Move forward ai­ming at Zero Brea­kdowns

    Aims from equipment perspective

    • Assess suc­ces­sful re­me­dies achieved in ot­her pro­cesses, and apply them to similar equi­pment
    • Totally re­view visual con­trols
    • Preserve equ­ip­ment in highly relia­ble con­di­tion along with ope­rability and maintai­nability
    • Realize an or­derly shop­floor

    Aims from human perspective

    • Understand equip­ment as a total system
    • Develop ability to detect signs of ab­normalities to pre­vent break­downs
    • Train knowledgea­ble ope­rators
    • Establish autono­mous supervision system con­ducted by PM group

    Managers' supervision and support

    • Allocate inspection work
    • be­tween auto­no­mous and full-time maintenan­ce
    • Teach basic mainte­nan­ce skill and easy ma­chine dia­gnosis
    • Teach examples of bre­ak­down prevention
    • Teach particular func­tion of each piece of equip­ment to under­stand equi­pment as a system

    Step 6.

    Organisation

     

    Major Activities

    • Prevent outflow of de­fective products to dow­nstream pro­ces­ses
    • Prevent manu­factu­ring of defective pro­ducts
    • Attain process quality assu­rance and move forward aiming at Zero Defects

      Aims from equipment perspective

      • Assess pro­cess quali­ty
      • Attain a relia­ble pro­cess to pre­vent out­flow of quality de­fects
      • Assess quali­ty conditi­ons
      • Attain a hig­hly reliable process to prevent ma­nu­facturing of quality de­fects

      Aims from human perspective

      • Train knowledgea­ble ope­rators on equip­ment and quality aiming at new type of engi­neering sta­tus
      • Attain autonomous su­pervi­sion wit­hin each operator

      Managers' supervision and support

      • Teach quality spe­cifi­cations, quali­ty cau­ses and qua­lity re­sults along with their relati­onship
      • Teach the five cri­te­ria for ease of obser­vation
      • Teach the five cri­te­ria for quality assu­rance
      • Address matters of quali­ty with coop­era­tion by all re­lated departments

      Step 7.

      Autonomous Maintenance

       

      Major Activities

        Aims from equipment perspective

        • Predict ab­norma­lities to pre­vent break­downs and quality de­fects prior to occurrence
        • Attain Zero Ac­cidents, Zero Break­downs
        • Move forward aiming at higher level of produc­tion technology

        Aims from human perspective

        • The O.E.E. shows the week spots of the equip­ment
        • Firmly establish self-su­per­vision to be able to deve­lop factory’s strate­gy by SGA groups them­selves without ma­na­gers’ detai­led in­struc­tion
        • Detect and resol­ve ari­sing pro­blems by SGA gro­ups themselves by way of short re­medial program

        Managers' supervision and support

        • Assisting with the calcula­tion of the O.E.E.
        • Assist activities to maintain, impro­ve and hand down cur­rent TPM status
        • Encourage further im­prove­ment of tec­hnical kno­wled­ge and skills
        • Move forward toward Monozukuri
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