The control of the cost of maintaining industrial equipment is a permanent concern for manufacturing and maintenance management.It is part of the difficult compromise that must be found between the availability of equipment, returns on capital outlay and maintenance costs.

There are a number of levers that can be applied to performance.They must be adapted to each situation and each organization. Examples include:

• the adaptation of maintenance policies to the required levels of availability:preventive (systematic, conditional, predictive) or corrective measures,
• sizing of spare parts stocks according to their criticality, statistical wear laws, the characteristics of the spare parts logistics network and constraints (financial, storage),
• implementation of progressive initiatives:first-level maintenance by operators, “5S” programs, application of methods derived from TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), application of Lean Management methods to maintenance processes,
• deployment or upgrade of a maintenance information system to facilitate the management of operations and resources and to provide decision support,
• selection and control of subcontractors, review of core business / tasks to be outsourced,
• adaptation and adjustment of the volume and skills of maintenance staff according to the importance of efficacy and efficiency,
• monitoring of performances by indicators that are adapted to each level of the organization.

There are many serious issues that have significant economic consequences:

• optimize the stock of spare parts (sizing and location in relation to the demands for availability and proximity to the place of use):reduction of stocks by 25% to 50%,
• cut production losses and, more generally, downtime due to maintenance (cut the frequency and severity of breakdowns, control repair times, coordinate maintenance operations with the production schedule and use of assets):reduction of downtime due to maintenance by 25 to 40%,
• reduce maintenance costs through improved planning of the use of human resources:reduce needs for direct human resources by 10 to 30%,
• optimize the maintenance policy and renew assets according to technical and economic targets, while guaranteeing the dependability of the means of production.

Argon Consulting has the methodologies, tools and benchmarks required to identify and qualify paths of improvement in the maintenance of industrial assets. Our interventions are based on a participative approach that aims at defining the most appropriate paths of progress in each situation and at making the organization self-sufficient enough to durably implement these measures itself.