News & Articles

AMPRO Webinar - (July 2010)

Join us for a free live webinar lead by one of our AMPRO experts. You'll learn about the many features of AMPRO and get to ask questions. You'll see first-hand how AMPRO can help you manage your maintenance management operation. Sign up...

Africa Agent - (May 2010)

FacilityScope in Johannesburg, South Africa have been appointed the AMPRO agent for that region. Keith Thompson is a very experienced facility/plant maintenance specialist and is also a Cert. Eng. (Mech.). He has extensive hospital and data centre exposure, as well as proven project management skills in specialised, high risk environments. He has come onboard to head up the AMPRO operations in South Africa due to the increase in workload in this and surrounding countries.

New service - AMPRO Review - (Feb 2010)
We are now providing a service whereby our trained maintenance consultants can review your AMPRO system and report back to you with any suggestions for improving the way your AMPRO data has been structured and configured. We can also go through our findings with you online. For more information on this new service email one of our consultants or give them a call on +61 7 3359 2488.

Is maintenance an expense?

by: Miia Rahja

You probably thought, yes. And so would many people. It is often thought that maintenance personnel are spenders and do not bring money to the organization. Well, this may be true to a certain degree, however if you didn’t have maintenance people how much value do you think your assets can bring to your company.

In today’s environment, where competition between companies is fierce it is important to be able to gain competitive advantage in as many areas in your business as possible. This includes maintenance and asset reliability issues. The responsibility of the maintenance and engineering personnel is important, and with an effective maintenance plan in place they turn out to be important reliability providers for your business.

Most people think that reducing staff, maintenance staff, could be an answer for reducing maintenance costs. It might be for the short term, but after a year you are most likely to incur bigger costs and problems because you have poorly maintained assets. Having said that… I am pleased to have noticed that companies are now starting to recognize that by performing the right maintenance tasks you can improve equipment reliability and that way start reducing your maintenance costs.

I would advise you to bear in mind that cost reduction does take time, and no maintenance cost should be reduced quickly. It takes time to improve your equipment reliability. However, by keeping track and recording the Preventative Maintenance work in your CMMS, your maintenance efforts become more proactive and efficient, and you will start noticing a return on your investment for your CMMS.

If you came and said to me that your organization goals include any of the following; be a low cost producer, earn profit, introduce new products ahead of competition, reduce lead time, ship high quality products, maintain good relationships with your customers, then maintenance is NOT an expense, it is a valuable tool used to ascertain your company goals.

Streamline, optimise and revolutionise

by: Miia Rahja

After spending a couple of years in Europe discussing issues and topics around changing manufacturing facilities to Eastern Europe where the manufacturing costs were lower, I returned to Australia and interestingly enough found similar problems on this side of the world.

A few days ago, I was reading some industry related news and came across an interesting study made by Australian Industry Group. The study was based on a survey of over 800 manufacturing companies. As further basis for my story, I came across a maintenance officer from a manufacturing company and he was highlighting the same concerns that were brought up in the study conducted by AIG. He also mentioned that his company used to be a multi-million dollar business, but because of the high manufacturing costs within Australia and the growing

competition that has risen from China for example, they have recorded constant losses and have suffered from significant staff reduction. Further to this, the AIG study revealed other concerns for the manufacturing industry such as inability to secure export markets, insufficient domestic market growth and inability to keep pace with business regulations.

I am confident that manufacturers do recognize their responsibility for changing and implementing the processes that will increase their productivity. The problem is, not many companies know how to do this. In my job I come across people complaining “oh, I am way too busy”, “I am doing a job meant for 3 people”, I have no time because I am running between the factories etc. and I am fairly sure that many of you think the same way. Yes, it is recognized that businesses should have a focus on “ongoing improvements with efforts made in lean manufacturing and building a capital intensive production line”. This is especially true for small and medium size enterprises as it is important to have the competence to reach to higher performance levels in order to guarantee future growth of the company.

Is there anything we could do to help this? Well let us consider for example, if your company was to use a CMMS. By having a CMMS in place you can keep record of your company assets, their maintenance work, inventories, supplier contacts etc. it ensures that you have all the information required to make sure that your business is running efficiently and smoothly. And what does this mean? It means that you can easily not only improve your business planning and productivity but also make better informed decisions in regards to your future growth. Also, having the right CMMS system in place means you can significantly reduce downtime of your assets and make sure that you can meet the production requirements set to ensure your company’s productivity. By having a CMMS running means that you have an innovative and a robust way of making sure you have a “global outlook” to your business.

In conclusion, it is essential for manufacturers to be able to meet the new challenges they face and to be able to create new strategies to overcome these types of industry concerns.

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