Benchmarking maintenance performance has little provenance in industry for a number of perfectly valid reasons. It has no accumulated breadth or depth of historical data on which to base decisions as to its viability. It has often tended to have been developed and used by consultants with little or no input from industry, and with even less input from practising maintenance professionals. What data there is tends not to be in the public domain, and that which does freely exist tends to be simplistic in nature and, if used without care, could often give misleading or downright wrong indications of performance. However, like many other things, benchmarking of maintenance can offer valuable insights into maintenance performance which can provide the basis for an effective improvement programme and the tools for monitoring progress. PRIME have developed some simple protocols for using the power of benchmarking to drive the improvement process forward, protocols which are based upon a synergistic use of both metric and diagnostic benchmarking in harmony.

                To understand the basis for the PRIME methodology it is necessary to understand the essential differences between metric and diagnostic benchmarking.

                Metric Benchmarking involves the comparison of performance indices. As long as the comparison is validated on an “apples with apples” basis it is an approach which is useful in providing general indications of how close an individual company’s maintenance operation approaches best practice levels. In the main, difficulties involved in metric benchmarking tend to be concerned with data interpretation and the validity of the comparators. For instance, would you expect the same plant availability achievement in industries as diverse as, say, mining and spray-painting? Probably not. However, you may well expect comparisons of the percentage of maintenance work which is pre-planned to be independent of the industry involved. In reality, there are a number of key indicators that do tend to be independent of the industry, and many more that can be ranked into a small number of variants. On the downside, the most serious limitation of metric benchmarking is that, while it may well provide useful information as to where a company may be ranked in a particular area of measurement, it gives little or no assistance in understanding why.

                Diagnostic Benchmarking is used to explore specific areas of both performance and practice in maintenance in a particular company. It can assist in identifying areas of weakness, and point towards improvement goals. However, as it is based on a self-assessment approach it is qualitative in nature and lacks the rigour that derives from measured and quantified data. Historically diagnostic benchmarking has a patchy track record in maintenance because of its limited use. Where it has been applied it has been used more as a health check for maintenance than a basis for practical improvement planning.

                The PRIME methodology is to combine the strengths of both metric and diagnostic benchmarking. By using the metrics to provide a quantitative basis for comparison and for trend measurement, and the diagnostics to identify the areas which would support the most effective improvement programme, PRIME  have designed a benchmarking approach which can act as the cornerstone of a structured performance improvement programme. It does not attempt to calculate a overall "company rating" value, but does present comparisons with expected World-Class levels of performance.

The metrics are presented in 4 distinct areas :

                 - Key Performance Indicators, used as an overall measure of operational performance at the business level

                - Organisational Effectiveness Indicators, used to measure improvements in the use of maintenance personnel

                - Equipment Reliability Indicators, used to measure the effectiveness of the maintenance systems

                - Materials Management Indicators, used to measure the effectiveness of stores management systems

                As maintenance management practices move more and more towards the application of proven business management tools and techniques in the delivery of improved performance, the sort of approach that is applied to the use of benchmarking by PRIME is likely to become the recognised basis for continuous improvement, working in collaboration with other tools used by PRIME . Examples of such tools are the use of the reliability-balanced scorecard in a similar way as that developed by Kaplan for monitoring manufacturing performance, and the PRIME Best Practice model for developing truly integrated plans between operations, design and maintenance functions to provide the most effective strategy in a particular manufacturing environment. However, the kick-start to the process will come from the benchmarking strategy which measures the starting point and sets the targets for the future.

For more information on the PRIME approach to maintenance performance improvement, contact can be made by e-mail to Frank Chambers at prime00@talktalk.net

                                                                          {Home}