Today’s Maintenance Industry has one major obstacle,
Training. Both “Mechanical Training” and “Safety Training”
have been sore spots. With newer, faster and more powerful
machinery being used in today’s Industrial Factories,
Plants & Work sites, today’s maintenance professional must
also become a more knowledgeable and much more aware
employee. The risk’s on job sites and in plant facilities
is much higher with all the new advancements in machinery.
Employee’s simply must keep up with they’re maintenance
schedules for each and every machine. Having and practicing
Good Preventive / Predictive Maintenance,
Reliability-Centered Maintenance and OSHA Regulations -
Restrictions -Guidelines are fundamental in todays
maintenance field.
A large number of Veteran Maintenance Professionals are now
entering retirement, leaving the much younger and less
experienced worker to perform maintenance tasks that they
may or may not have been properly trained on. Training at
this point becomes a vital necessity for each facility and
the overall industry. The risk of machines & or lines going
down becomes extremely costly, when downtime could have
been avoided with the proper training of a Preventive /
Predictive Maintenance schedules.
Chuck Mize, a Senior Maintenance Professional and
Maintenance Instructor, had this to say when asked what he
felt the greatest weakness’s in todays maintenance
facilities was? “In many cases the skilled trades man is in
direct contrast to the title “Skilled”. In fact they are
skilled only at guess work. Most of which are gifted in
mechanical reasoning but very lacking in the skill that is
necessary to make a correct analysis of machinery
breakdown root cause. This is due almost entirely to the
low level of training that journey men have available to
them.” Mize continues on “For instance in the area of
Hydraulics’s. Nearly all industrial mechanics and
electrician feel that they understand with some clarity
hydraulic systems. However, in my experience most are
trying to troubleshoot with only a limited understanding of
the fundamentals concerning hydraulics. This leads to poor
troubleshooting and ultimately to costly downtime due to
ineffective repairs.”
Training, in any field always seems to be a sore spot.
However it’s those companies that make room in there
budgets and make a point to keep their maintenance staff
antiquity trained with the materials needed, that we here
and see the best results from. Do Facilities seem to be
providing enough training for their maintenance staff? And
If not, how could they improve? “In some cases such as
PLC’s I think that a great deal of training is done. It is
easier to see the need for training on cutting edge
technology and therefore in most cases tradesmen are
trained in this area. Also, I find that in the electrical
fields the younger tradesmen are offered adequate training.
However in the fields of Mechanical Power, Drives,
Hydraulics, Rigging, and many more. I see a great need.
Said Mize.
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Materials supplied from interviews with Maintenance
Perfessionals & Maintenance Instuctors.
For for information on this topic:
http://www.maintenanceresources.com/productsshowcase/index.htm
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