Creating Your Wear Plate Action Plan

A large paper mill maintenance manager was recently thrust into leading the woodyard maintenance department. He was out of his element and nearly overwhelmed with responsibilities where he had no prior experience.

He had been trained as an electrician who worked his way up to Electrical & Instrumentation supervisor. The company often moved supervisory people into different departments every couple of years. We had met in passing on some earlier projects, and knew each by sight. But now he was struggling in an area with little prior experience.

It is not your fault when the company assigns you in charge of mechanical maintenance, in a different production area with no prior training. Worse, they had changed computer systems twice in the past six years. This left little documentation or background on what previously failed, what worked or if it performed great.

Here you see a chain deck with 4 layers of ¾” thick AR400, where they added one plate over another rather than remove and replace them with the correct wear plate for longer life. Throwing patch after patch created new wear challenges not see previously.

This is particularly true when dealing with wear resistant steel.

There are NO INDUSTRY STANDARDS to use as a guideline; meaning without previous experience or records, you are literally flying blind.

Using company data and strategic planning…Here is what to do:

After a few months to get acclimated into his new position, the department team leaders held regular small group discussions and talked about their challenges and potential ideas.

The only way to get on top of it all was to have their meetings initially focused on what the production people identified as Chronic Issues with their equipment on a daily or weekly basis.

It is essential to clarify which wear resistant steel items, required the greatest investment of parts and labor in their manufacturing equipment.

Digging into past department purchases they logged each piece of equipment into a spreadsheet. Certainly it was time consuming, but necessary.

Then they could sort the spreadsheet by the maintenance investment with each wear plate application. Note what was replaced and the dollar amount involved for materials and labor.

This identified which wear resistant steel applications could potentially trigger a production breakdown.

These Are Your Top Priority Items:

Armed with this information, they had a more in depth meeting with production, to determine what could be addressed using their limited maintenance budget and labor resources.

TARGET YOUR FOCUS

The Outermost “A” Ring is where you are today, struggling to just keep things running.

The Middle “B” Ring are the parts of your business you have improved, but still require fine tuning. Here you will continue employing incremental advancements heading to a best practice scenario. Each move closer to the center of the bullseye delivers improved reliability, fewer breakdowns and increased production.

The Inner “C” Ring Or Bullseye of the circle represents your goals. This is where the important parts of your business are running smoothly.

Equipment operating here has preventative maintenance shut downs for upgrades and repairs, scheduled at your convenience. Working in this area is your greatest efficiency.

This exercise only works if you answer these questions honestly:

1. List three irritating or frustrating situations, and/or tasks in your business or equipment.

2. List three situations and/or tasks currently acceptable, in your business or equipment.

3. List three intriguing and motivating situations, people, and/or tasks in your business or equipment.

Out of 100% of your time, what percentage are you CURRENTLY spending in the “A”, “B”, and “C” activities?

In 90 days, what percentage of your time do you WANT to spend in “A”, “B”, and “C” activities?

For example, you might be spending 15% of your time on “A” activities right now. In 90 days you want to be spending 0% of your time there.

And you might be spending 40% of your time now on “C” activities, and in 90 days you want to be spending 70% of your time there.

Every 90 days, You Want To Have Eliminate Your A’s, And Systematize And Automate The B’s.

By doing this, you will have A LOT more time to focus on “C” items to fascinate and motivate situations, people and tasks.

Having listed your current “A”, “B” and “C” activities above, here’s what to do next:

1. Select the three actions you’re going to attack over the next 90 days, to eliminate each of the three most irritating situations, and/or tasks on your list.

2. List the three actions you’re going to take over the next 90 days to systematize and automate three current “okay” activities you listed.

3. List the three actions you’re going to take over the next 90 days to expand the three fascinating and motivating, situations, and/or tasks you listed.

Finally, answer this question: What’s ONE “Game Changer Action ” You’re Going To Focus On Implementing In The Next 90 Days?

A game changer should change the outcome of the game for your business.

Of course, you can have more than one game changer…but over the next 90 days, which is the ONE ITEM you’re going to focus on? Using these steps over the last 45+ years to partner with our customers, JADCO has focused exclusively on delivering consistent, longer equipment life.

Producing wear resistant steel with consistent hardness through the full thickness of the plate requires precise chemistry control and careful heat treatment.

After more than 45 years of focusing on longer, more predictable wear life, JADCO understands what it takes to help customers reduce downtime and improve operating efficiency.

We will schedule a meeting with one of our local wear plate specialists at a time that best fits your schedule.

Remember, the only thing you have to lose by not working with JADCO is profit.