Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2001. / Field problem. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

M.Ing. / Ever since man had invented the wheel, or for that matter any of his first hand tools, he had a definite need to maintain that object. Man did not have any means to predict failures and he had no idea of how to prevent them. He could not plan for these failures and would not know what material and resources to have on hand. He was obviously restricted to a very primitive and elementary form of breakdown maintenance or a sort of run to break strategy as we would call that in modern maintenance terms. His success could only be measured in terms of the time to the next failure. Due to the nonexistence of engineering standards, the large standard deviation in mean time between maintenance (MTBF) values would render these same values rather useless for predictive purposes. This situation restricted our forefathers to a very reactive approach to maintenance. The astonishing present levels of sophistication in man's skills, engineering design and manufacturing came about through revolution and evolution. This indicates a huge amount of change that has taken place over the years and is still taking place today. As the world is in a constant state of change no business organization can escape the effects of operating m a continually evolving landscape. The very forces of change come about typically through industrial globalization, technological advance, political upheaval, the opening up of new markets and the changing expectations of customers that become more knowledgeable and demanding. For any business to respond to customer needs in a satisfactory manner, that business will have to be highly dependent on logistics. As logistics is a major contributor to life cycle cost (Blanchard, 1992: 70-84) and therefor impacts directly on profit margins, there is a growing need for more effective and efficient management of an organization's resources. Logistic support for any organization or plant is a major consideration in the early design stages of any system or organization or plant. From a logistic support perspective it becomes therefor necessary to assure the effective and economical support of a system, organization or plant throughout its programmed life cycle. One of the most important logistic support elements is maintenance. A lot has been said and written about maintenance. A number of well known philosophies and procedures (Blanchard, 1992: 9-25) such as 'planned preventive maintenance' (PPM), `condition based monitoring' (CBM), 'reliability centered maintenance' (RCM), 'total productive maintenance' (TPM), 'just in time' (JIT), 'life cycle costing' (LCC), etc. have been developed over many years and are applied throughout the world today. Techniques such as 'failure mode effect and criticality analysis' (FMECA), 'fault diagnostics', 'quality circles', and others have also been introduced to the industry. However various studies (Willmott, 1990: 17) have shown that present levels of maintenance management effectiveness are still unsatisfactory. One of the most important reasons for this state of affairs is that maintenance is still viewed by many organizations as a technical activity rather than an integrated management discipline. This misconception is then reinforced by several factors such as that the maintenance department is at its most visible when an emergency malfunction occurs. As soon as the malfunction has been restored, production carries on with its activities and no one asks the question why the breakdown was not anticipated before it occurred and disrupted production. A second reason is that maintenance managers view themselves as fire fighters and not as managers. A third reason is that the maintenance department is viewed as an organizational function with unpredictable response times and erratic priorities. All of these prejudices and misconceptions are costing industry dearly. This study will indicate that much can be done to transform the maintenance function of any organization to such an extent that costs are minimized and plant availability is improved that will ultimately lead to higher profit margins.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Thesis (doctoral)--Tampere University of Technology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 1999

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)(Applied Sciences)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Title from opening screen (viewed 22 March, 2006). Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references.

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / Since the beginning of the knowledge era, individuals powered their ideals on the 20th century’s industrial knowledge age, also defined as “the power of knowledge”. The modern day knowledge era will use the collective intelligence of diverse groups to collaborate for specific purposes and objectives. Society and education developed from the “know what” and “know how” age to “what is the best way”. (NZCER, 2010) Leading into the 21st century, organisations are forced to adapt to a new state of mind and use a diverse knowledge spectrum to solve the problems of the future. This mind-set is being challenged by a recent recession and cautious investment future. The recession initiated a negative impact on the global markets and forced most organisations to become innovative and use their collective knowledge. (NZCER, 2010) This investigation is based on an increment of the global corporate environment. The collective thinking principle can be used to achieve success in an organisation based on a first and third world country, i.e. South Africa. The concern, Hall Longmore (Pty) Ltd. opened its doors to a 21st century strategic solution in respect of its maintenance department. Maintenance at the concern is currently a decentralised employee structure, where the current culture of the group impacts negatively on the performance of the department. During the industrial age this would have been solved by implementing autocratic structures and strict discipline on employees. This management style is feasible in the short term, but how do employees stay motivated, creative and innovative over time? World class maintenance programs need a clear vision to become a unified labour force functioning with an innovative and creative approach. The key aspects of the initial state need to be investigated and understood before decisions can begin towards reinstating the desired culture and behaviour. The aim of this dissertation is to change the paradigm of the autocratic 20th century management style relating to the maintenance function, which aims to decrease cost and increase reliability and availability to a more performance driven culture and integrated workforce, which will create a high performance concern through its actions.

This thesis reports the development by the author of a job order system for a maintenance department in a Burnaby petroleum refinery during the summer of 1952. The requirements of this system are (1) to provide a practical channel of communication for the planning and control of all maintenance department work, (2) to provide an adequate description and estimate of the work requested, (3) to provide information necessary for scheduling requested work, (4) to ensure the proper approval authorities for all expenditures, (5) to provide information necessary for costing all work done, and (6) to measure the overall efficiency of the maintenance department. These requirements have been fulfilled partially by (1) the establishment of approval authority limits, (2) the introduction of job order and job order memo forms, and (3) the employment of a job order clerk. At present, however, expenditures are controlled only by maximum approval authority limits. It is recommended, therefore, that the services of a qualified estimator be sought in order that costs may be controlled more closely by means of accurate job cost estimates. This method of control, in turn, will provide satisfactory measures of the overall efficiency of the maintenance department. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate