Factors Affecting Maintenance Organization and Nationalization of Maintenance Roles (Feedback): A Case of a Mining Share Company

Internally, an organization?s maintenance objective establishes the deliverables for its execution strategy and a focal point for engaging its people. Externally, an organization?s maintenance objective creates an insight into the organization?s attitude to maintenance. Commencing with a clear objective is fundamental to a clear delivery strategy, otherwise, maintenance becomes too expensive. Thus, maintenance represents a significant proportion of the overall operating costs in the mining industry. As such, maintenance of Heavy Mining Equipment (HME) must be effectively and efficiently managed. However, before 2020, the reliability of the HME at AMSC was not satisfactory and this was attributed to poor management within the HME Department. During the initial stage of the Mine, maintenance did not appear critical as almost all or all the equipment was new and received less attention. Though the maintenance personnel at AMSC were? comfortable? with this approach in the past, as the Mine started to expand and production pressure increased, reliability of the core mining mobile equipment became critical and the existing personality / individual driven approach to maintenance was no longer sustainable nor desirable. Maintenance at the Mine lacked a clear objective and a clear strategy. Work execution was personality driven (driven by the individual) with loose coupling of roles and accountabilities allowing informal sub - systems to become acceptable responses in a capital - intensive business with various third - party obligations. The lack of systems of work led to duplication, rework and waste. This further, resulted into generating unproductive costs to the Mine, contributed to frustration within the HME Department staff and diverted resources away from activities that could increase machine health in the short term and shore up revenue generating capacity in the medium term. Therefore, the report gives feedback to AMSC Management on the outcome of the 2020 reliability improvement study recommendations. The most significant action to emerge from the study recommendations was the need to divide the HME Department into manageable Sections based on equipment type and activity. Each Section was assigned a Supervisor with specific responsibilities and accountabilities. The result of this intervention was improved equipment reliability, reduced maintenance cost as well as efficient utilization of manpower. The top management, the General Manager and the Employee Services Manager created an enabling environment where the HME maintenance staff was able to make reliability improvement decision without interference. The duo only provided guidance, transparency and ensured the Department operated within the confines of the organizational objectives and policies.