SIRFrt method : assessing and improving maintenance reliability

The focus of this paper is to assess ways to improve plant availability of an organisation in order to reduce its reactive maintenance from its current level of 30%. The pharmaceutical products the organisation (name withheld) produces are in short supply. It is vital the equipment that produces these products are reliable and produce quality products all the time. Loss of one batch due to equipment malfunction not only equates to loss of revenue but also the loss of vital medications which could jeopardise patient safety. This paper solely focuses and reports on the SIRFrt method to assess plant reliability in order to achieve maintenance excellence. There are seven elements that can impact maintenance excellence, however the focus of this paper is on reliability improvement since the audit scores were low in comparison to the other elements considered under the SIRFrt method. As a result of using feedback gained through the SIRFrt method assessment, it is anticipated that reactive maintenance will reduce below 10%.