Understanding the Machine Ledger

By Business Solutions Lead | November 7, 2019

Tags: Breakdown Recurrence Matrix, World Class Manufacturing PM , Machine Ledger , PM Calendar, Breakdown Matrix

The Machine Ledger is used in World Class Manufacturing to better understand machines, sections, assemblies, and components so that maintenance teams can more effectively predict failures and plan preventive maintenance activities.

The Machine Ledger is a powerful graphical visualization that allows maintenance teams to understand at a glance:

When maintenance was planned
When planned maintenance was executed
Which and how many components failed an inspection
When unplanned maintenance was executed
When breakdown maintenance was executed

The Machine Ledger provides insights that help maintenance teams optimize preventive maintenance scheduling and understand the impact each component has on product non-conformance (abnormalities) and breakdowns.

This helps maintenance teams better predict and prevent breakdowns, reduce maintenance costs and increase OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) for the plant.

How does the Machine Ledger work?

To chart this information, the Machine Ledger uses a grid structure, where each column represents a day and each day is split into 4 quadrants that each represent the status of maintenance activities.

Through Inspections Manager, the information is automatically input when maintenance is scheduled and executed.

For each component and day, the data shows if maintenance was scheduled (or is scheduled for the future), if it was executed, if additional unplanned maintenance was required and if breakdown maintenance was required.

Each grid includes links to the maintenance report to gather more information.

What are the benefits of the Machine Ledger?

The Machine Ledger allows maintenance teams to understand maintenance/breakdown trends and patterns at the section, assembly and component level of your machines so they can better predict failures and plan preventive actions.

Machine Ledgers can be used to answer the following questions:

What are the root causes for a breakdown?
What components, assemblies, sections and machines require the most maintenance?
What is our PM completion rate?
When are the BD happening? Before/after PM, how close to the next PM?
How much extra unplanned maintenance was required and why?
Can we increase the frequency of PM and reduce the costs associated to breakdowns?
What is the MTTR (Mean Time to Repair) for each component and how do they compare to each other?

By answering these questions, maintenance teams can optimize preventive and autonomous maintenance schedules to maximize up-time and eliminate breakdowns. The ultimate goal is to reduce maintenance costs and increase the plants OEE.

Another core, and sometimes overlooked, benefit is that in order to set up the Machine Ledger, maintenance teams are required to “de-compose” machines into their assemblies and components. This includes adding part information, PM type and frequency and classifications (A, B or C).

This activity improves the skills of technicians and provides teams with a superior understanding of the relationship between components and assemblies.

If you would like to learn more about how the Machine Ledger works, feel free to schedule a live demo with our Business Solutions Team.