“It certainly deepened my knowledge in terms of things to consider when selecting a maintenance strategy”.
Reflecting on the course less than one month after attending, Wayne explains it’s already influenced discussions about equipment shut down strategies at Lenzing.
In particular, the course covered failure curves, a way of predicting when equipment is most likely to go bust. One failure curve is (the macabrely named) ‘infant mortality’; this is the notion that certain types of equipment are most likely to breakdown soon after being turned on.
Wayne explains that certain pieces of equipment at Lenzing are often made available for maintenance just a few hours each week. However, using the infant mortality curve, he realised this approach might increase the risk of those machines’ failure. So, he is currently talking with colleagues to find ways to turn this machinery off less frequently, but for longer periods. That should reduce their failure rate overall.
Besides this, the course deepened Wayne’s knowledge of various topics related to downtime, safety, statutory issues and legislation.
He also says that learning about failure probabilities could help with the company’s stock management of spare parts for when machines break down. The course covered methods for predicting when new parts are needed, and this can reduce the need to procure more spares than necessary – thereby saving the firm money.
“I’d absolutely recommend it to anyone, to any of my colleagues” Wayne says of the course. Future attendees can really benefit from simply getting involved and taking part in conversations with peers he believes. As a self-described “prolific note taker”, he’d also recommend writing down as much as possible. “There was a lot of content in there; a lot to get through in two days”. So, jotting down as much as possible helps with refreshing your memory later, he says.