All Member Open Forum

 View Only

  • 1.  Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-08-2019 03:39 PM
    Hello,

    Talking about Maintenance Organization in a Process Plant (fixed plant) it seems to be easy to asses what type of Maintenance Organization would be suitable based on your activity, Plant complexity, layout of the plant, size of the plant, quantity of systems, distance between areas,etc. My understanding is that all what I mentioned before help us to make the right decision on what type of Maintenance Organization fits best to our needs. Can anyone provide feedback on this subject?. Your time is greatly appreciated.

    Rene Davila

    ---------------------------------
    Rene Davila
    Regional Maintenance Manager
    Omya Inc
    Broomfield CO
    ---------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-09-2019 08:13 AM
    Rene, each type has its advantages and disadvantages. If the plant is geographically large, centralized organizations can have delays due to travel. Also, the crafts don't develop in-depth knowledge of the equipment since they are working all over the plant. Decentralized organizations (especially if managed by the local operating management team) can have significant variability in execution efficiency and maintenance strategy deployment. The best style that I have seen that overcomes these disadvantages is centralized control with decentralized execution. Maintenance Management, Maintenance and Reliability Engineering, Planning, Inspection, and related staff support functions are centralized, but area shops (with a local supervisor reporting to the Maintenance Manager) execute the maintenance and repair work. For large jobs (such as a turnaround), resources can be "borrowed" from other area shops. 
    I hope this helps.

    ------------------------------
    Bruce Hawkins
    Director, Technical Excellence
    Emerson
    Pendleton SC
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-11-2019 08:59 AM
    I think there are two parts to the term centralized and decentralized.  One is leadership (management) and the other is execution​ (maintenance techs/crafts).   Bruce hits on this and I agree the best model I have seen is central leadership and decentral execution. 

    For the execution part, I think there are pros and cons for having as central or decentral.  Many have already commented on those. 

    For the leadership part, centralized approach is the only one that will yield the best results.  I have worked in both models with the decentralized leadership being the most chaotic and problematic from a culture standpoint (beliefXbehavior) as beliefs and behaviors are not consistent area by area.  This leads to confusion among crews.  Decentralized leadership puts each individual area deciding how to execute maintenance (PM, predictive, precision, etc.), provide training, administer people management, and manage storeroom parts.  Basically everyone does maintenance how they want to do it. 

    Usually decentralized maintenance also means that a non maintenance leader (usually operations) gives the direction of how to execute maintenance which typically is a big mistake.  A fragmented organization with unmotivated maintenance techs doing below average work is a lot of times the result.  Eventually, it leads to mostly reactive maintenance (killing the operations emergencies of the day) satellite storerooms and out of control asset management.  In my opinion and experience, it would take a perfect organization and people to ultimately be successful in a decentralized maintenance management situation in any sizeable organization.  Smaller operations, it may work at an adequate level.

    ------------------------------
    Randy Riddell, CMRP, PSAP, CLS
    Reliability Manager
    Essity
    Cherokee AL
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-09-2019 09:12 AM

    Rene, in my experience decentralized maintenance structure tends to be less efficient and higher cost because they focus on immediate repairs and often are supervised by operations management who lack maintenance experience.  Centralized maintenance has often been the best because it relies heavily on planning & scheduling and is the most efficient and less costly.  The best structure that I have seen is centralized but with assigned "Do It Now Crews".  The "

    Do It Now crews handle the emergencies for immediate production equipment and they are backed up by central maintenance personnel.  When you rotate the "Do It now crew' it helps with getting them familiarized with the production equipment and Production seems to like that as well. 
    When I worked in the steel mills, every Production department had their own planner.  I was in charge of a central fab shop that met with the production planner every week to plan the following week's work.  Each Production department had a small maintenance crew that handled the daily issues and central maintenance would do weekly outage work.  In Summary, it all depends on the type of work, size of plant & craft skills required but I favor the central structure.​



    ------------------------------
    Srecko Suvajac
    Reliability Engineer
    Downers Grove IL
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-10-2019 07:13 AM
    ​Rene,

    In my opinion, both Centralized Maintenance and Decentralized Maintenance have their Advantages and Disadvantages...and the decision depends on various factors as mentioned...however an optimum mix of both (Decentralized Routine Maintenance and Centraliszd Reliability, Planning, TA Maintenance, Workshop Facilities, Performance Monitoring and Governance) gives the better and long term results...

    In my view, there are usually no extremes, a fully Centralized or Decentralized Organization. For Process Units, Centralized or Decentralized Maintenance Organizations do usually have a Centralised Reliability, Condition Monitoring, TA Planning,  and Common Facilities like P&M, Workshope etc with a separate Team for Development + Implementation of Maintenance & Reliability Management Systems and Processes, Maintenance Strategies etc....also their Governance..
    It's mainly the Routine Maintenance Planning, Scheduling, Execution and History Capture that's Decentralized at Plants or Centralized at a common location.

    Having the Routine Maintenance Centralized helps in Resource Optimization, Proper allocation and sharing of common Resources like P&M, Special Contractors, Development of Common Practices etc. between Plants. 

    Decentralized Maintenance improves the team work, coordination and shared responsibility between Operations and Maintenance Teams. It also gives the Ownership and Responsibility of Assets, their Reliability, Performance to Plant Teams and Accountability to Production Leaders.

    hope this helps.

    ------------------------------
    Sundar Naranammalpuram P.
    India
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-10-2019 05:24 PM
    Great discussion!   Very good points by all.   My two cents...

    Focus the organization on the problem you are trying to solve -- Don't blindly select centralized or decentralized.    Examples: 
    1.  If your main problem is getting drawn into emergency work,  move to centralized work control.     
    2.  If your main problem is lack of craft skill and ownership, move to decentralized.
    3.  If you problem is that your PdM work is a side-show or hobby for most departments to perform hit and miss, centralize.

    Summary, structure the organization to elevate the performance of your specific plant.

    ------------------------------
    Joseph Kuhn
    Lean Driven Reliability - Owner
    Alcoa
    Newburgh IN
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-11-2019 08:29 AM
    A number of good comments have been made.  I would add....it depends on the people (talent, culture), process (planned vs reactive), and technology. 

    One approach would be to whiteboard the workflows. Define the outcomes, and then work backwards from there.  Does a centralized vs decentralized organization have the same talent across the teams, or do some have deep experience in certain areas? How much planned/compliance work is performed vs reactive?  How much daily maintenance is performed by the operations staff?  Who/Where are decisions made on Asset health, and corrective repairs?

    In my experience, operating multiple distributed power generation facilities, we started with a decentralized team at each facility, with outside contractor labor for specialized or turnaround work.   We changed to a centralized organization with reduced staff on each facility and reduced our outside contractor usage with the centralized team.  

    Michael Watson

    ------------------------------
    Michael Watson
    Product Application Specialist
    Bonita Springs FL
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Centralize vs. Decentralize Maintenance Organization

    Posted 07-14-2019 09:20 PM
    Gents,

    I appreciate all the comments as part of this discussion. Your feedback showed some of my experiences between Centralized and Decentralized Maintenance Organizations (good and bad in general)as well. I would not be opposed to a Decentralized Maintenance Organization if this would make sense on specific Plant Configurations and so forth. Probably most of the biggest concerns I have, is when we see plants in which the Maintenance function as a Decentralize Organization without considering the essentials to make the right decision. As a result of this usually happens all the negative effect mentioned by most of you. I think that this usually happens because the decision has not been traditionally made on a systematic and quantitative basis. Meaning for instance, based on a formal assessment of all the current state, opportunities, constraints and synergies, etc. Does anybody had the chance to see that kind of formal evaluation?

    Tanks again for your great feedback!


    Best Regards

    RMD



    ------------------------------
    Rene Davila
    Regional Maintenance Manager
    Omya Inc
    Broomfield CO
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


Related Content