Lesson 6 - Maintenance

One’s initial thought may be ‘Well, just keep everything running!’. While completely true, executing maintenance in something as complex as a brewery has many facets. To begin, let us take our first look at the goals and deliverables of a successful maintenance programme:

• To sustain the functionality of the plant.

• • Reliable equipment and systems enable you to produce the right product at the desired time and of the required volume. High equipment reliability, efficiencies, and utilisation will maximise brewery output, and strongly leverage the investment in capital.

• To minimise downtime.

• • We want to ensure that time associated with unexpected or scheduled stops in production is kept as low as possible.

• To provide a safe working environment.

• • It is our obligation to have brewery personnel return home safely every day. We perform maintenance in part for this very reason – items in ill-repair pose a direct threat to the welfare of all who work in their presence.

• • Equipment that frequently faults or is unreliable can be frustrating to all involved. We must ensure that emotion never clouds judgment and that the perceived need to put production first never results in the removal of equipment guards, bypassed system interlocks, questionable work-around techniques, or generally unsafe practices. No amount of beer is worth the safety of you or your colleagues. That said, thought and effort applied to proper and consistent maintenance is well spent and worthwhile relative to your well-being.

• To improve production margins.

• • Poorly maintained equipment which does not work effectively can lead to increased operating costs. Typical examples of these costs are explained in the table below.

Table:  Examples of costs that successful maintenance can address

• To protect product quality.

• • Three of the points highlighted under production costs in the table above also directly pertain to quality – process variation, out-of-specification product, and improper sanitation. Processes that are not performing as expected will yield unpredictable results. This may result in undesirable process variation, which in turn yields out of specification product or product that may contain microbiological or chemical contamination. In any of these instances, the affected product is not something you wish to be representative of your brewery, and could even put consumers at risk.
    
    
• To provide due diligence for customer safety.

• • We brew our beer to delight our customers. Their interest and enthusiasm in our products is what generates our revenue and allows us to continue to stay in business. Our customers have placed their faith in us for their safety. We cannot betray this trust and will put in place the systems necessary not only to provide the best tasting, most innovative and appealing beverages possible, but to also ensure that they are completely safe to consume.
    
    
• To ensure legal compliance with environmental, health and safety, and food safety legislation.

• • A suitable and sufficient maintenance system is an integral part of food safety programmes. This ensures a due diligence defence against prosecution for food safety violations.
    
    
• To protect the value of the plant.

• • Our industry requires a great deal of capital to produce a finished product. This investment in the facility, equipment, and personnel training is not a one-time expense. Plant items such as vessels, valves, conveyors, and utilities require ongoing attention in the form of cleaning, lubrication, repair, and replacement. Our maintenance system must ensure that equipment operates for all its required lifespan. For example, it would be cheaper to maintain a boiler every month than to replace one every year.

Now we have discussed the goals of maintenance, let us now explore the methods we can use to achieve them, looking specifically at the maintenance approaches presented in the next section.