"At MainTrain 2008 in Toronto, attendees were able to learn about the business of maintenance, take charge of their careers and build a foundation for excellence," said Brian Malloch, PEMAC president. "I would like to thank the MainTrain 2008 planning committee and other PEMAC volunteers for contributing their time, ideas and resources, as well as the valued support of our sponsors."

With the theme: "The Business of Maintenance," Terry Wireman, vice-president of Vesta Partners Inc., led off the conference with his keynote address. According to Wireman, before beginning to improve maintenance and reliability, it's important to define business objectives, proposed customers, key performance indicators (KPIs) and profitability.

To further properly enable an organization, Wireman said that organizational structures, roles and responsibilities and staffing levels must be understood. He explained that this methodology ensures the organization will be optimized. Wireman further said that "fix it when it breaks" isn't a goal or objective for maintenance departments to shoot for on the shop floor.

"Companies and their maintenance departments have to ask key questions," said Wireman. "For example, does your company consider maintenance a core competency? Does anybody really listen to maintenance? As maintainers, do you consider all aspects of the organization when making decisions? You have to remember that maintenance is always linked to the bottom line.

"If you don't know what poor maintenance costs are, then how would you know how much you could save by investing in good maintenance? You also need to know if your plant assets are currently underutilized. It's critical to make maintenance a business. The key is to implement a three to five-year maintenance business plan. Always remember that business involves competency and outside the fence-not inside the fence."

Training day

At the MainTrain 2008 conference in Toronto, one highlight was the training day. According to John Lambert, president of Benchmark Maintenance Services Inc., and moderator of the training day, the key elements of fundamental maintenance include machinery installation, a lubrication program and scheduled preventive maintenance system, planned maintenance, the maintenance team itself and a computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) system.

"The greatest influence during any installation will always remain the skill level of the wrench operator," said Lambert. "Our goal is to create a stress-free environment in which the machine units can run in."

Robert Dunkel, P.Eng., director of technical service, Henkel Loctite Canada, covered a lot of ground, including an update on the mechanical fundamentals of fasteners. Dunkel further talked about the torque-tension relationship in more detail. He said the torque-tension relationship is between torque and the resulting applied clamp load.

According to Dunkel, the relationship is controlled by friction, which occurs at two specific points-at the thread flanks and on the underside of the head of the bolt or nut. "Approximately 85-90 percent of the effort used to tighten a threaded fastener is lost to friction," he said. "Only about 10-15 percent of the effort is used to generate clamp load."

Safety first

Safety impacts the maintenance bottom line, as statistics continue to show that a significant number of work-related injuries and deaths take place each year in plants across Canada. Health and safety panellists at MainTrain 2008 in Toronto included Maureen Shaw, president and CEO of the Industrial Accident Prevention Association (IAPA) and Alan Quilley, CRSP, president of Safety Results.

"Good companies don't wait for legislation to improve safety performance. Safety must be a part of the entire business process," said Shaw. "We have to get CEOs to improve safety levels. Our leaders must realize the safety of their people is essential to corporate success. It's important to have an integrated health and safety workplace culture, which is non-toxic, trusting and supportive. This will create a healthy and safe workplace."

According to Safety Results' Quilley, a company's business and maintenance department will thrive because of safety. He also said that management and workers can't be afraid of safety, and a lack of holding people accountable for safety performance is what causes problems for most organizations.

"I always say to make it safe and make it last. If we know how to protect a person-we need to do this. As managers, you also have to ask people if they got the job done safely," said Quilley. "Strive for positives and use your own evidence to judge safety performance. I'm also big on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by workers on the job."

Choosing excellence

James V. Reyes-Picknell, president of Conscious Asset Management, said that choosing excellence, especially when it pertains to maintenance, requires more than 10 steps. He said achieving reliability excellence is the goal of every maintenance and facility manager. Getting there, however, requires an understanding of performance metrics, strategies and objectives.

"A game plan is also needed that will enable you to improve maintenance planning and scheduling, boost equipment uptime and reduce operation costs," said Picknell. "We're talking reliability at its best. You want to focus on improved maintenance, reduced costs, increased production rates and lower risks (i.e. the environment, safety and financials). Maintenance professionals also have to test their willingness to deliver."

Lean and mean

Joel Levitt, president of Springfield Resources, conducted a special lean maintenance workshop. According to Levitt, there are lots of opportunities to lean up maintenance departments. Levitt said this includes labour; maintenance parts and materials; raw materials; energy, fuel and other utilities; machine time; capital; management effort and overhead.

"It's equally crucial to improve reliability (uptime), repeatability of the process (quality) and safety for employees and the public/environment. You also need to increase production," said Levitt. "The mark of a good lean maintenance project reduces waste, saves money directly and increases knowledge. Additionally, these projects always use action language."

CMMS strategies

David Berger, partner with Western Management Consultants, talked about how maintainers can get their money's worth from computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) systems. "To get 'buy-in' from all of the stakeholders, you need a clear vision and plan, consistency over the long term, support through action, realistic performance measures and targets that define success," said Berger. "The same holds true for recognition, rewards and consequences that are aligned with success."

MainTrain 2008 sponsors included: (Platinum) Bosch Rexroth Canada, SKF Canada, ABB Group and Sutherland-Schultz Inc.; (Gold) SEW Eurodrive; and (Training Sponsors) Benchmark Maintenance Services Inc., Condition Monitoring International LLC (CMI), UE Systems, Henkel Canada (Loctite) and Fluke Electronics Canada. Visit the MainTrain 2009 Web site (www.maintrain.ca) for conference news and updates.

Robert Robertson is PEM editor. You can reach him by email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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