Tribute to BEMAS

In 1219, this worthy representative of the Prince, surveying the largest building site Reims had ever known, stopped next to a man crouching in front of a block of limestone, a hammer in one hand, a chisel in the other, and asked him: what are you doing there, my good man? I am building a cathedral, my lord," replied the stonemason.

In 2019, the chairman of the board of directors of an industrial company visits one of the group's factories. At the head of a production line, a man is sitting at a table, reading the vibration profile of the bearings of a 50 kW compressor on his screen via the Internet of Things. What are you doing there, my friend," the visitor asks him. And the maintenance technician replies: Mr. Chairman, I am implementing the investment decided by your board of directors.

These two sketches, although caricatural, show that the cultural expressions characteristic of our civilisation have undergone tremendous changes; in particular, the emblematic "construction of cathedrals" of yesteryear has now been replaced by the peremptory "implementation of investments".

The updating of human activities therefore has a permanent obligation to integrate the knowledge, the ways of doing things and also the vocabulary of the present time. Maintenance must respect the injunction and make the most of it.

Is this really the case? Yes, certainly as far as knowledge and methodologies are concerned... and if we needed to be convinced of this, it would suffice to leaf through the programmes or visit the websites of maintenance training organisations. However, when it comes to vocabulary, there is still some doubt.

In all sectors of economic activity, maintenance is still too often considered to be an ancillary service, which is certainly essential but with variable geometry and whose ambitions must be modulated. Maintenance will therefore not be taken into account in the company's investment plan; considered as a cost, it will only be included in the annual operating budget, which is always subject to discussion and therefore to the ups and downs of the economy. In too many places, therefore, maintenance has not yet acquired its full credentials.

And yet, it is up to maintenance to guarantee not only the production capacity of a production system, but also the reliability of its operation, until it is decommissioned.

Although the famous "annual maintenance costs" represent only a few per cent of the capital invested in the acquisition of the production unit, their cumulative cost up to the decommissioning deadline reaches high values which sometimes approach or even exceed this investment. Shouldn't the sum of annual maintenance costs be called 'post-investment'?

With this new vocabulary, maintenance could undoubtedly enter the big league, that of investors, with great fanfare, and see its needs as well as its merits identified, endorsed and honoured by the sovereign authority of contemporary society: the investor.

To raise such a question is to answer it, and this is what economic science has done by introducing 'corporate asset management' into its methodologies. For a given production unit, depending on the duration of its operation, its life cycle, the following calculation is made:

[ Investment ] - [ Depreciation ] + [ Post-investment ].

Professional software programs perform these calculations with precision by introducing additional parameters such as the interest rate and the inflation rate. In any case, the results of these calculations provide unparalleled management information that also highlights the true size of maintenance.

May the maintainer, in his actions, be part of the implementation of the new managerial paradigm: Life Cycle Planning and Asset Life Cycle Management

This message is latent in all the activities of BEMAS; it is also latent in the conferences, workshops and all the conversations that will take place during this unique and exceptional day at the  BEMAS FORUM MAINTENANCE.

I would like to thank the organisers and moderators of this professional symposium for having met the expectations of the region's industrial forces so well.

And may the participants in this event be warmly congratulated for taking an active part in the continuous generation of efficiency and excellence.

May success be their companion on the road!

Robert Leenaerts
Professor Emeritus
Founder of BEMAS