How to achieve WCM in your industrial plant?

World Class Maintenance (WCM) is a strategy used to improve the production cycle, and increase manufacturing quality and effectiveness levels, always targeting better results and time optimization.

The method should be implemented in several sectors of a company, as it requires an alignment between areas to be successful. Through WCM, it is possible to facilitate the development of activities, increase productivity and reliability, decrease costs, invest in people development, among other benefits.

Check out our complete guide to Maintenance Planning and Control

A key word that defines World Class Maintenance is leadership. All actions, best practices, and principles focus on growing this mindset among the team. Product quality increases as a consequence of maintenance professionals’ development and training.

In this article, we will discuss the main pillars for a successful World Class Maintenance implementation and how to achieve great results. Enjoy!

World Class Maintenance: technical pillars

In order to achieve WCM, some technical pillars should be implemented. It is important to mention that if one of them is missing, it does not invalidate the others, but ideally they all need to be interconnected for good maintenance management.

For example, reliability is related to quality, because the more reliable the asset is, the better the quality of the product. This also directly impacts costs: when you have high quality, you save money, since failures and production loss decrease.

Check out the 10 technical pillars of WCM below:

• Safety: prevent accidents and promote the safety culture in the company;
• Cost deployment: good maintenance management reduces costs and optimizes the expenses of the entire industrial plant;
• Focused improvement: apply appropriate tools and methodologies to increase production productivity and quality;
• Autonomous maintenance and workplace organization: eliminate everything that is not necessary and maintain good workplace conditions;
• Professional maintenance: minimize machine downtime and increase Planned Maintenance;
• Quality control: by avoiding asset failures, you have more product quality and less production loss;
• Logistics: inventory control is important to avoid production loss and extra storage costs. Also, delivering services on time should be the rule in any operation, as it directly impacts the level of customer satisfaction;
• Early equipment management: for new machines or processes to be implemented, you should consider if they are both easy to operate and easy to maintain;
• People development: as mentioned before, investing in the team’s leadership mindset is essential. Providing correct knowledge and training courses help the entire team achieve WCM;
• Environment: controlling the environmental impact of the industrial plant is also part of World Class Maintenance.

World Class Maintenance: management pillars

Besides the technical ones, WCM also considers the management pillars. These are completely dependent on each other and need to be aligned and executed for World Class Maintenance implementation. They are:

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• Management commitment: management needs to be committed and accountable to achieve World Class Maintenance, and leaders and managers should also be role models for the entire team;
• Clarity of objectives: goals and purposes must be clear and transparent to everyone, with direct communication among sectors;
• Route map to WCM: defining an action plan for the process is also very important;
• Highly qualified people: highly qualified professionals must be assigned to specific tasks and sectors, serving as an example for other departments;
• Organization commitment: the entire company needs to commit to the pillars and provide support for their execution;
• Continuous improvement: besides implementing the techniques, the organization must also seek continuous improvement. World Class Maintenance does not stop after being implemented;
• Time and budget: careful budget and time planning according to the plant’s needs to optimize both resources;
• Attention to detail: the team must pay attention to all details to understand production loss;
• Level of expansion: the maintenance team should create model areas and use them as an example for the others. This way, it is possible to expand projects gradually and continuously;
• Team motivation: keeping all team members motivated is also necessary, with training, career plans, and professional development.

World Class Maintenance: how to implement it?

As you have seen, World Class Maintenance aims to improve productivity and achieve great results. It also contributes to maintaining reactive or corrective maintenance rates as low as possible. After all, anticipating failures with predictive maintenance is essential for good asset management.

To implement all pillars presented above, some techniques are necessary. Investing in training programs for the team will help you achieve WCM concepts and establish a new mindset – view maintenance as a continuous form of improvement focused on the company’s goals.

Understanding the industry’s current state is very important when implementing new technologies. Investment in predictive maintenance is essential, as it enables automatic and real-time insights, helping you maintain great asset health and, consequently, productivity.

Adapting the organization’s existing processes is also important. With maintenance automation softwares, you will be able to achieve production efficiency and develop a World Class Maintenance mindset.

TRACTIAN is a solution that helps you achieve WCM in your plant. We use an integration of hardware and software to perform asset management and online monitoring, in order to democratize the concept of World Class Maintenance and bring high-level technology to maintenance.

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Maintenance technicians are the ones who make industries, the backbone of our economy, run, and our goal is to facilitate their work with smart solutions that will help them achieve great results. 

For example, our IoT sensor Smart Trac collects machine data and detects malfunctions that, combined with TracOS™, our CMMS software, delivers complete asset management and online monitoring. 

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With this efficient solution, we will help you optimize your maintenance team’s routine and facilitate asset monitoring –  an important step towards WCM.Do you want to achieve World Class Maintenance in your company? Contact one of our experts and schedule a demo.