INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS STANDARD OF WRITTEN BY SYLVIA ARROYO
managers are taking a more administrative approach when evaluating their mainte- nance practices in order to extend their fleet’s lifecycle cost. Robert T. Pudlewski, STN’s technical editor and the retired vice president of fleet operations for both Laidlaw Education Ser- vices and First Student, said good managers continuously evaluate their current methods of maintaining their fleet to deliver an as effective and reliable service to school districts as possible. If change is needed in some way, managers must first answer two basic questions. “Where does your transportation depart- ment stand relative to best maintenance practices, and can you accept the existing maintenance effectiveness?” he said. Te goal is for managers to determine the
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district’s acceptance level for performance in order to replace older, costly practices with cost-saving, reliability-enhanced best mainte- nance practices as a standard of performance. “[Maintenance managers] must make a
transition from a reactive/corrective main- tenance organization to a totally proactive/ reliability-based structure,” he said.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
Maintenance practices have changed throughout the years, and as a result, dis-
The SAE JA1011 standard describes the minimum criteria for a maintenance process to be called a Reliability Cen- tered Maintenance (RCM) program, which should answer the following questions: • What is the item (bus component) supposed to do and its associated performance standards?
• In what ways can it fail to provide the required functions?
26 School Transportation News March 2013
he approach to managing the maintenance of a school bus fleet has changed throughout the years. In many cases, fleet
tricts are at different stages of maintenance management practices. Here’s a breakdown
of the current different phases: Corrective. Considered the oldest and
least effective maintenance approach. “It refers to action only taken when a system or component failure has occurred. It is a retroactive strategy,” Pudlewski said. As- sociated costs include repairs (replacement components, labor, consumables), vehicle
down time, breakdowns and reliability. Preventative. A step up from corrective, this approach is to repair and service equip- ment before it fails completely by conducting systematic inspection, detection and preven- tion tactics. “It aims to eliminate unnecessary inspection and maintenance tasks, to im- plement additional maintenance tasks when and where needed and to focus efforts on the
most critical items,” Pudlewski said. Predictive. Based on when a change in
component failure is noted, not according to a fixed preventive schedule. Diagnos- ing the condition of a vehicle system or component also plays a role. An example is changing the oil on a bus every 5,000 miles based on changes in the oil’s properties found through a chemical analysis.. Good record keeping is important to identifying
repetitive issues. Proactive. Designed to extend the
life of a vehicle’s system or components instead of making repairs when something? is broken. Tis includes predictive and pre- ventive characteristics, but it does not detect contamination in components that impact a
Ü EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR RELIABILITY-CENTERED MAINTENANCE
• What are the events that cause each failure?
• What happens when each failure occurs?
• In what way does each failure matter? • What systematic task can be performed proactively to prevent or to diminish the consequences of the failure?
• What if a suitable preventive task can't be found?
£ An example of a district maintenance program laid out on a spreadsheet.
vehicle system’s life such as rust prevention,
hydraulic fluids and transmission fluids. Reliability Centered (RCM). Consid-
ered the most effective method of fleet main- tenance by public and private organizations worldwide that is based on the consequences of failure. It emphasizes the functional im- portance of the entire bus chassis and body system components and their failure/main- tenance history, and moves away from total dependence on time-based tasks.
RCM SIMPLIFIED While reliability-centered maintenance
is considered the ultimate goal — it’s commonly practiced in the airline and manufacturing industries — it would be best to modify the process for the school bus industry, said Joe Scesny, a maintenance consultant and retired supervising motor vehicle inspector with the New York State Department of Transportation. He noted that many school districts
already practice many of the tasks outlined under the RCM concept, but they are described in a less technical way. “For example, school bus maintenance fa- cilities staff should, and often do know, their equipment and shelf life of components,” he said. “Computer recording-keeping of maintenance activities, such as parts used, frequency of component wear and repair time can all be utilized for optimum results.” Yet, what strikes Scesny as an issue
with RCM in the industry is the lack of expert engineering personnel to adminis- ter this program. “I would like to see the school bus industry
utilize some of these procedures, but laid out in a more simplified way,” he added. “Tere are many factors that the average bus shop across the country would have difficulty with respect to wholesale change to RCM.”
PERFORMANCE MAINTENANCE PROGRAMS ARE EVOLVING FROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVE, BUT THERE REMAIN NECESSARY STEPS ALONG THE WAY
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