After providing maintenance consulting services to 66 mining operations in 16 countries, I concluded that a modest level of management oversight can yield an effectively managed maintenance effort. But there were some differences between US and many overseas operations. The overseas operations typically chose an engineer to manage maintenance while most US operations promoted from within. While the US operations gained a superintendent with diagnosis and repair savvy, there was often no documentation of what, how and why of maintenance. This omission led to lots of guesswork by warehouse, purchasing and operation managers on how best to support and cooperate with maintenance. But the maintenance superintendents promoted from within are not to be criticized. The real question is in management oversight. If not provided - - no program. If provided, a program will somehow emerge. It won't be perfect. But it will be a start, get attention, be commented on, criticized and emerge as a management guideline to establish how all mining departments must interact to result in effectively managed maintenance. Next - - a how to . . .
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Paul D. Tomlingson
Retired, Maintenance Consultant
Denver. Colorado USA
303 656 7875
pdtmtc@msn.com------------------------------