Proactive maintenance initiatives at Argonne National Laboratory-West
In the late 1980`s, ANL-W Management foresaw a need to provide dedicated technical support for maintenance supervisors. Maintenance supervisors were facing increased challenges to ensure all environmental, safety, and waste management regulations were followed in daily maintenance activities. This increased burden was diverting supervisory time away from on-the-job supervision. Supervisors were finding less time for their ``mentor`` roles to ensure maintenance focused on finding and correcting root causes. Additionally the traditional maintenance organization could not keep up with the explosion in predictive maintenance technologies. As a result, engineers were tasked to provide direct technical support to the maintenance organization. Today the maintenance technical support group consists of two mechanical engineers, two electrical engineers and an I&C engineer. The group provides a readily available, quick response resource for crafts people and their supervisors. They can and frequently do ask the support group for help to determine the root cause and to effect permanent fixes. Crafts and engineers work together informally to make an effective maintenance team. In addition to day-to-day problem solving, the technical support group has established several maintenance improvement programs for the site. This includes vibration analysis of rotating machinery, testing of fuel for emergency diesel generators, improving techniques for testing of high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, and capacity testing of UPS and emergency diesel starting batteries. These programs have increased equipment reliability, reduced conventional routine maintenance, reduced unexpected maintenance, and improved testing accuracy. This paper will discuss the interaction of the technical support group within the maintenance department. Additionally the maintenance improvement programs will be presented along with actual cases encountered, the resolutions and lessons learned.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 74033
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/IFR/CP--85395; CONF-9404269--1; ON: DE95012922
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Guide to good practices for maintenance supervisor selection and development
Guide to good practices for maintenance supervisor selection and development. [Contains a list of training subjects for maintenance supervisors]