Hi Everyone,

My company does not do formal preventive maintenence so I have written an extremely general statement about how our preventive maintenance is conducted at the "shop floor level". (which it is since the fellows take care of their own work cells)

Does anyone know just how detailed I should get with the 6.3 clause of ISO 9001:2000.

I've posed the question to some of my ASQ section peers also to get their 'take' on the subject.

Unsure if the coverage I have written is sufficient, but don't want to get into too much detail and hang us later either.

Thanks for your input! Ree :thanx:

Did you use the SEARCH function for various threads that we have on this subject ?

One example is - ISO 9001 Clause 6.3 - Infrastructure - What to do for this Clause? (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=5175)

Yes, I did look at that thread, thanks for asking, however I did not think it answered how basic or bare bones we're allowed to be.

The fact that we do not have a formal / recorded preventive maintenence plan, nor do I believe the company will implement one, (kind of old school out here) is the reason for me 'generalizing' a statement to begin with.

I would love to report that they find the need for this type of activity, but they're more of the culture that it will run until it breaks and then it will be addressed by maintenence. Our maintenence supervisor actually told me that though the CEO does not support PM, he gets uptight and asks why someone did not do something prior to the equipment breaking down. Sad but true.

Additionally since we're not actually seeking ISO certification, more a 'mirroring' of the standard, just in case... I expect even less from them on implementing PM to our two facilities.

Thanks for the assistance! Ree

I think it depends on the type of business you are and how much impact the work environment can have on your ability to satisfy product requirements. I work from a home office so as long as I have a desk, computer, telephone line etc. I can do my job.

If on the other hand you were a manufacturing organisation who required specific equipment etc. you would need to go deeper into this.

Thanks Colpart, yes we are a MFG. facility, (construction equipment attachments & couplers)

The fact that we have two facilities, (Ohio & Washington) that are close to identical would cover force majeure from the production standpoint,but in terms of the actual planned, preventive, corrective, and predictive maintenence, I'd not be able to document that those activities occur in any formal or documented manner.

The standard does not say you must proceduralize everything that you do, or everything that is prescribed. You might need to DO preventative maintenance. So long as whatever process is in place can be audited, your ok.

Your policy/statement/procedure should be only as detailed as your needs dictate, if you dont need it at all, then it should be just enough to lead an auditor (or new employee) to ask the right questions. Right?

Well that's what I'm hoping... but want to be sure that will suffice. I am thinking a very general statement about it addresses it but does not place us in a corner when audited.

Have you run into this type of situation before Tmoreau?

Well that's what I'm hoping... but want to be sure that will suffice. I am thinking a very general statement about it addresses it but does not place us in a corner when audited.

Have you run into this type of situation before Tmoreau?

You are on the right track. Here are some recent threads on Preventive Maintenance (http://elsmar.com/Forums/tags.php?tag=preventive+maintenance) and a few are relevant and related to what you are asking. Have a look (including attachments) to have an idea of what others are doing.

Thanks Harry, I'll give it a look when I'm "back on duty" Monday.

Appreciate your help!

Actually there is nothing in the standard that requires preventive maintenance - but I would expect the auditor to ask how you know whether this approach is appropriate for the company or not. (We all do things that we shouldn't do - eg. smoking, not exercising, eating junk food etc - the standard just asks that we seriously think about whether the things that we do line up with what our customer needs of us. If my teenage son's coach was a hard-drinking, womanising kinda guy - I'd be thinking about moving my son on - or that coach had better be ultra-good at what he does).

So perhaps take a step back - ask yourself what data you have on what impact this maintenance approach has for your company (the past - what you know/can find out) , and what information you have on how it might affect the company in time to come (the future - what you can try to imagine). After all, the company mightn't have experienced the most important consequences yet - if the company bought equipment xyz three years ago (the only one this site has, it's fully utilised, and you're always rushing time-critical jobs through it), and the big PM jobs are at year 1, year 5 and year 10 - then...is there a time bomb ticking, and if it goes off, what would the impact on your customers be?

If you have an analysis that shows the company can afford to mainly do breakdown maintenance, then there is no problem for the auditor, really. In reality no equipment can get by without cleaning, lubrication, greasing, bearing inspections, etc. It is only a matter of whether the annual/2 yearly/5 yearly etc jobs can be put off to breakdown maintenance. So, you might consider a multi-pronged approach -

1. Find out what your equipment maintenance needs are. What are your product/service objectives and are they/would they be threatened by the current maintenance programme? Save this analysis as a controlled document somewhere.

2. Define your minimum expectations in the appropriate areas - if operators carry out online PM work (lube, greasing, cleaning, maintenance requests) then you can refer to these. This is only in the interests of your company - speak with any maintenace person or machine operator or production manager and they'll eventually tell you - "At the minimum, I expect my machines to be cleaned at least xxx times a month, machine Z needs to be greased at least once every ???". They know it - you are not asking the guys to do more than what they know they really ought to do, so writing it down isn't hanging anyone. Just don't make the standard higher than what everyone agrees they will commit to. And remember, this is for the good of the customer - if we can't make the product, they can't pay the company and the company can't pay us.

So that covers online PM work. Does your analysis indicate that there are any other jobs that can't wait for breakdown? Highlight them - these might be a formal PM programme (if your analysis shows good reason for needing these PM jobs - then you have facts to back up the cost of PM time and materials - which you can bring to the boss.). If you can't do it as a PM programme - perhaps you can make it the maintenance manager's responsibility to track these and bring them up as Preventive Action opportunities when the right Management review meeting rolls around? Or, for the true guerrilla approach, maybe schedule internal audits to follow up the list every year and make them audit NCRs.

3. Finallly, signal to your auditor that the company has decided on a breakdown maintenance approach with regards to everything else. Eg. if you document it in your procedure and the document approval process includes the relevant people (the boss, the production manager, sales (or whoever gets yelled at by the customer), maintenance manager, and you) - then you can say, well, we all discussed and agreed (based on facts) that this works for us. The key thing here is 'facts' - this is the opportunity to put your analysis in front of the relevant people so they can decide whether your new maintenance procedure is "adequate, suitable & effective": anyone can sign off on a procedure it takes a thinking team to make a procedure that serves the customer and the company.

Again, I don't think ISO9001 requires preventive maintenance - what do other people think, and what do you see as the minimum that should be passed by an auditor?

That's similar to what I had in mind... after talking to the operators, maintenence, and supervisors about it, they feel that a general statement about who does what & when that normally happens should probably cover the clause sufficiently.