SIX SIGMA aims for continuous process improvement to attain the desired results expected by the customer.
SIX SIGMA focuses on collecting data from the process, analyzing it, and improving the process by removing errors and wastes.
Across the industries, all the Maintenance teams have only one goal which is to keep the assets up and running. So that they can help the plant or facility achieve its desired results.
Prism software helps the plant maintenance team implement the guidelines of SIX SIGMA in the maintenance process.
SIG SIGMA suggests five steps to improve the process.
1. Define or Identify a Problem in the Maintenance Process:
The Maintenance team can define problems like low MTBF, high MTTR, more downtime for assets, high maintenance cost, etc.
2. Measure data from the Maintenance Process:
The Maintenance team can measure the data from the maintenance process implemented in the plant daily. The collected data should be error-free.
While the maintenance team uses Prism CMMS software for their daily maintenance activities, Prism collects data about every maintenance task.
3. Analyze the data collected from the Maintenance Process:
The maintenance team will analyze the data, and identify the errors and waste.
Since Prism digitizes the maintenance data daily, it analyzes it and highlights the errors and waste in the maintenance team.
Some of the wastes in the Maintenance Process | Prism Solution |
|---|---|
Idle time or downtime of assets | Maintenance Team is alerted about the downtime of the assets and failure reason. So that the Maintenance team can take corrective action like adding new PM task to avoid such unplanned downtime in the future |
Waiting for resources like parts | Maintenance Team is alerted to re-order a part so that the waiting time can be avoided. |
Unproductive works like paperwork | Zero paper waste from day one as the maintenance records are digitized. |
4. Improve the Maintenance process:
The maintenance team has to learn from the mistakes or errors and improve the maintenance process.
Prism highlights the errors in the maintenance process through its intelligent reports.
Possible improvements are
Optimization in the Preventive Maintenance
New PM tasks get added as learning from the root cause analysis of the machine's breakdown
Get support from the equipment supplier
5. Control:
Prism software provides Maintenance KPI reports at plant or equipment level. The maintenance team can verify the improvement made in the maintenance process from various reports.
In short, Sig Sigma says
Reduce dependancy on tribal knowledge
Knowledge gained through experience needs to be shared with others so that the entire maintenance team can get to the next level and it's a huge time save from training the new joiners.
Prism helps digitize the team's knowledge, and builds a digital knowledge base for future reference.
Make informed decisions based on data
Prism provides multiple analytics on Maintenance Key Performance Indicators to Maintenance Manager to make informed decisions.
Follow organised approach to solve a problem
Prism helps the maintenance team schedule Preventive Maintenance work orders for all the equipments. In the Maintenance Calendar view, the manager can get an insight about how his team is engaged. So, it's easy for him to assign a technician to the PM work based on his availability.