RCM is the best tool available to decide what maintenance to do to your equipment

RCM = Reliability Centred Maintenance. The maintenance of physical assets needs to be scientifically determined based on reliability considerations. Reliability stands at the centre. This is the principle that improved the safety of modern jet liners and many industries to the level which improves the quality of our lives greatly.

Modern production equipment design is complex. It thus needs to be maintained scientifically. So how do you decide what maintenance to do on your critical production equipment? By deciding which failures are the ones that matter and then designing maintenance tasks for them.

The maintenance suggested by the manufacturer of your equipment often leads to one of two things. In some cases the manufacturer's recommendations lead to over-maintaining the equipment and in other cases under-maintaining them.

The reasons for this are:

1. The manufacturer does not understand your specific production circumstances.
2. The manufacturer is often over-conservative in their approach to ensure that their good name is preserved. This leads to unnecessary expensive maintenance.

Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) has become an industry standard. It is the tool of choice for the design and development of effective maintenance plans.

One of the key drives behind RCM was to assure a high level of safety performance. The safety record of modern passenger airliners bears this out. Similar success has been achieved in many industries using RCM.

Courses in RCM

We present two courses in RCM: C903 and S801. They provide a good theoretical and practical base for the use of the RCM technique.

The difference between the two courses are:

• The three day short course (S801) teaches RCM as technique.
• The five day course (C903) adds two days. These two days essentially adds facilitation skills to S801.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The C903 course is recommended for facilitators of RCM sessions. The S801 course is meant for participants in RCM design sessions. Any person who needs to apply the RCM logic to a system or parts of a system will also benefit from any of the two courses.

Important note: Laptop computer required – refer to terms and conditions on Course Registration form, and footnote on the Course Listing.

Leadership in Asset Management presents a considerable challenge, which needs to be taken up with the necessary skills in the pocket

The Asset Management / Maintenance function intends keeping the Physical Assets in its care in a good operational condition. Its objective is to sustain a high level of Operational Readiness (Availability, Reliability, Operability, and Qualibility), at acceptable levels of Safety, Environmental Risk, and Cost.

Leadership in Asset Management involves leading the functions of Asset Management / Maintenance. It particularly keeps itself busy with achieving success through people. The objective of its companion course, C901, is to equip engineers with knowledge regarding the strategic and tactical aspects of Asset Management / Maintenance Engineering.

Even so, C901 cannot include all the necessary learning to prepare an individual to be a top class Asset Manager / Maintenance Manager. C902 fulfills that purpose. The two together produce the foundation for Asset Management Excellence and Career Progression.

Leading the Asset Management function needs considerable skill. It is much more than just managing technical results. Asset Managers need to steer the function to have the greatest effect on the output of the organisation.

To achieve this the Asset Manager should:

1. Understand the Asset Management / Maintenance function and the factors causing success well.
2. Be able to analyse and understand maintenance situations.
3. Have a good knowledge of modern management methods.
4. Understand that success comes through people.

This course aims to provide the skills, knowledge, and innovative capacity to practicing Asset Managers / Maintenance Managers to make them into successful achievers. This includes addressing and teaching them knowledge and vocational insight into issues such as:

• The profit impact of a properly run Asset / Maintenance department.
  • The challenges and dilemmas inherent to maintenance today; how to manage it, understanding the ‘New Maintenance Management Paradigm’.
  • Classical Management Theory as a basis for success.
  • Leadership and its critical role in maintenance.
  • Achieving personal mastery, so as to be enabled to lead others successfully.
  • Maintenance logistics - the ‘logics’ of the maintenance organisation - its role in achieving a successful maintenance department.
  • Creating and maintaining a workplace culture that fosters success.
  • Managing and developing a workforce to achieve success.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for Asset Managers, Maintenance Managers, Maintenance Engineers, and all others who manage the Asset Management / Maintenance function.

Reliable equipment produces sustainable production and safety results

Reliability is a built-in design feature of any physical asset. The designer makes decisions that influence the reliability of the machine/system in a major way. These decisions cannot be significantly changed during the operating and maintenance phase (the working life of the asset) without rebuilding the asset.

Naturally, achieving the designed-in reliability requires that the asset be maintained and operated so that failures are managed and their consequences minimised. This goes without saying, but does not change the fact that we cannot fundamentally improve the built-in reliability of the system in a major way.

If the machine is not maintained properly, the built-in reliability of the system will be affected negatively. Although reliability cannot be fundamentally improved through maintenance, it can at least be preserved by the appropriate quality maintenance actions. This can be achieved in two ways, namely by ensuring that the right maintenance actions are taken, and that these maintenance actions are carried out diligently and in a professional manner by the maintenance staff.

Asset Management / Maintenance engineers need to be the operating company's experts on the subject of reliability. They are firstly necessary to guard the reliability of operating equipment against degradation and abuse. Secondly, they should be the initiators of reliability improvement drives, leading to higher operating capability and thus profit.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

 The course is intended for Asset Management Engineers, Maintenance Reliability Engineers, and Maintenance Engineers.

Important note: Laptop computer required – refer to terms and conditions on Course Registration form, and footnote on the Course Listing.

'Good maintenance project managers are both scarce and worth their weight in gold'

Maintenance abounds with projects, originating from the objective of high plant uptime. These include a seemingly perpetual stream of small and not so small improvement projects requested by production, as well as those deemed necessary by observation of failure trends.

Furthermore, the nature of the equipment being maintained often necessitates grouping preventive maintenance actions into shutdown occasions, varying from a weekly maintenance shift to extended maintenance occasions, ranging from a few days to a week or more. As lost production time is expensive, these events need to be managed closely using project management principles. It is consequently necessary to have a sound knowledge of the subject.

Short shutdown turnaround times are vital to profitability

Project and Shutdown Management embraces a variety of disciplines, including detailed project scheduling, task planning and control, purchasing control, cost control, and the ability to coordinate actions under highly pressurised circumstances.

The course in Shutdown and Project Management endeavours to provide the necessary theoretical foundation to equip maintenance people with the necessary skills to facilitate successful Maintenance Shutdowns and Project Management occasions. It is presented by a seasoned maintenance manager with extensive experience in this field.

The course is presented in an alternating fashion, with hands-on practical sessions in the use of Microsoft Project, to facilitate project planning and control, being interspersed between successive project management foundational sessions. Course documentation includes a comprehensive course file, and the book 'Microsoft Project 2010 Step by Step' (or the older ‘Microsoft Project 2007 Step by Step’ until our stocks are depleted), by Carl S. Chatfield and Timothy D. Johnson, Microsoft Press.

Course Content

Note: Hands-on work is based on the Microsoft Press book 'Microsoft Project 2010 Step by Step' (or the 2007 book until stock is depleted) by Carl S. Chatfield and Timothy D. Johnson, of which each student receives a copy.

Who Should Attend

The C501 course is primarily intended for maintenance managers (to manage maintenance shutdowns and maintenance projects), and secondly for maintenance planners (who need to plan shutdowns and maintenance projects).

Important note: Laptop computer required – refer to terms and conditions on Course Registration form, and footnote on the Course Listing.

While the Maintenance Planning course (C301) fundamentally prepares a planner for the task of planning, more is required to ensure a high level of output from the planning function. This has led to many requests for an advanced course.

Maintenance planning is the function that ensures that the correct maintenance actions are performed to the right equipment at the right time, and having all necessary preparation and resources in place. It is furthermore arguably the function that ensures that all maintenance actions can be completed correctly and efficiently.

Make sure that your artisans are used efficiently by giving them tasks that are "ready to go" **

Maintenance Planning is becoming more and more important to secure the success of maintenance actions. The theory and tools of maintenance planning are also becoming more sophisticated.

The Maintenance Planning course (C301) prepares planners to understand the first part of the planning process, namely Work Order Planning. But it does not address the process of preparing the Weekly Schedule, and it does not equip the planner with advanced capabilities, such as Task Design, and Work Measurement. These are provided in this advanced course. This course:

     1. Completes the tuition of the planner regarding the full planning function. 
     2. Prepares he planner for taking the role of senior or head planner after gaining enough experience.

This course (C302) is ideally aimed at the further development of maintenance planners after they successfully completed the course in Maintenance Planning and had time to implement and integrate that knowledge in practice.

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for maintenance planners and those who manage them. Having attended and passed the C301 course is  prerequisite for enolling for this course.

** Tasks that are "ready to go" are ones for which all the necessary resources (men, materials, permits, instructions, drawings, manuals, etc.) are available for the artisan to complete the task without delays.

Course Content

If one compares maintenance to the human body, maintenance planning provides the thinking capacity that determines what work to do, and when, while the artisans provide the doing capacity of the hands and feet, and supervisors provide the controlling function of the brain, steering the hands and feet.

Because nothing in life takes place before it has been thought through, no worthwhile maintenance task can take place before planning (naturally including any planning done by supervisors and artisans).

No worthwhile maintenance task can take place without good planning

Maintenance planning fulfils a crucial role in the organisation. Maintenance success is absolutely dependent on good scheduling of maintenance work, proper task planning, and timely procurement of parts and materials. The Maintenance Planner plays a critical role in achieving this essential outcome.

The course thus has as its purpose to prepare Maintenance Planners for this role. This includes training in the various scheduling techniques, such as simple time slot scheduling, detailed network scheduling of maintenance shutdowns and projects, as well as batch workshop scheduling. It also includes training in task planning methods, procurement methods, use of maintenance systems, task flow optimisation, maintenance information analysis, and the support of maintenance management through well defined and formatted reporting.

The course is extremely hands-on, allowing candidates to practice the skills learnt through practical application during four to five group assignments per day. This is augmented by an application project following course completion.

Course Content

Who Should Attend

The course is intended for maintenance planners, maintenance supervisors, artisans and those who manage them.

The reason for including the wording 'those who manages them' in the sentence above is that we often find that some class of Asset Management / Maintenance people are sent on courses without the person managing them being able to activate their newly acquired knowledge after the course. What rather happens is that they are managed exactly in the same way as before the course, which often leads to the course not having the required effect.

Artisans are also specifically added above as the effect of maintenance planning and the information fed back to the Computerised Maintenance System is to a large extent dependent on their knowledgeability of, and support to, the Maintenance Planning function.

The Maintenance Supervisor needs to be able to get results through people

It is certainly so that the technology, that the maintenance function maintains, needs a sophisticated approach to maintenance. However, there is a growing gap between this need and maintenance’s ability to fulfil it.

The person that plays a critical role in this is the maintenance supervisor. He/she must firstly understand and embrace modern maintenance technologies (such as Condition Based Maintenance, Laser Alignment, and Tribological Practice), methodologies (such as Reliability Centred Maintenance), and Systems.

Secondly, the role of maintenance workers implementing and effectively using these technologies, methodologies, and systems is critical to the success of the organisation. And the only person that can ensure that this does occur is the Maintenance Supervisor.

He/she should be able to get the best (sometimes even the almost impossible) from maintenance artisans and workers to ensure that this gap is closed properly.

The problem is that maintenance supervisors are mostly appointed from amongst the artisan fraternity and have to supervise on the little knowledge regarding supervision that he/she gained from his/her previous supervisor(s). Although this often teaches one the negatives of wrong supervision and some of the positives, it is simply not enough to produce the supervisor that will get quality maintenance output through other people.

This course above all focusses on three aspects of supervision, namely to be open for new learning, getting results through people, and manage the facilities/resources to his/her disposal effectively. Its aim is to effectively motivate and equip the maintenance supervisor for his/her role in ensuring maintenance success.

Course Content

Who should attend

The course is intended for maintenance supervisors, maintenance charge hands, and artisans who have to perform supervisory relief.

Credits 12*, level 5**                                      * The course comprises 60 hours of study of which 32 hours are in class, with a further 12 hours of private study, and 16 hours for an assignment. **Occupational Certificate level.

We live in a time of high economic risk

Maintenance is not spared the magnifying glass of cost cutting, as it is one of the bigger contributors of business cost. It thus has to be as efficient as it can be.

And there is no efficiency measure as good as a competent work force. Employing the best maintenance technology, philosophies and techniques can of course do much. But all of these are only as good as the people who drives them, and those who implement their outcomes.

Peter Senge promotes the idea of a Learning Organisation to foster innovation at every level of the business. Although such a Learning Organisation involves much more than training, training is at its foundation.

We thus believe that maintenance training is and will be one of the major drivers of maintenance success. And consequently business success....

Because of this it is our view that it is inevitable that the traditional engineering departments at universities will have to be augmented by Maintenance Engineering departments. This college is a stepping stone in that direction.

A short history of Terotechnica Maintenance College

The Terotechnica Maintenance College is a division of M-Tech Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd.

M-Tech was founded as a maintenance consulting company. However, maintenance training became the main activity in 1991. This was after it became clear that industry has a great need for maintenance training.

The Terotechnica Maintenance College has trained thousands of Maintenance Practitioners at different levels in the industrial organisation in the Art and Science of Maintenance Engineering over the 19 years of its existence.

The name Terotechnica Maintenance College was registered in 2003. The name is derived from the name Terotechnology, which is a historic name given in 1969 by a commission of enquiry into maintenance. Their suggestion was that the name Terotechnology should be used for what has come to be known as life cycle management.

The name Terotechnica was used in the 80's for a later discontinued maintenance journal. It is thus a history rich name, which we are proud to bear.

The college now offers tuition at three different levels: Diplomas, Certificates, and Short Courses.