Ru En Es

Maintenance & reliability · Two-week diagnostic

Find where your availability is leaking — in two weeks.

The Maintenance System Diagnostic is a fixed-scope look at how your maintenance system really performs: schedule adherence, criticality, spares, failure history and availability losses.

You get the losses in money, the first changes that pay back, and a plan your team owns — not a report that leaves with the consultant.

Book a 20-minute call Download the Maintenance Diagnostic (PDF)
Alexander Shein

What we look at

Six things that decide plant availability

  1. Schedule adherence.

    Plan versus actual for planned maintenance, and the reason behind every miss. Emergency work crowding out planned work shows up here first.

  2. Equipment criticality.

    Whether criticality classes exist, and whether the maintenance strategy for each piece of equipment matches its class.

  3. Spares.

    Stock-outs on what fails, excess stock on what doesn't, min/max levels, lead times for critical items.

  4. Failure history.

    MTBF and repair time of critical equipment, repeat failures, and whether root causes are found and removed.

  5. Availability losses.

    Where the hours go: planned and unplanned downtime, waiting for parts, people or permits.

  6. KPIs and routines.

    What maintenance teams are actually measured on, and whether a weekly review turns the numbers into decisions.

Most of what we find is visible in your own data and on the shop floor within days. The work is in turning it into a few routines that stick.

What you get

A plan your team owns

Two weeks, on site for the key reviews and remote in between. At the end you have:

  • a loss tree: availability and cost losses by equipment and by cause;
  • an effect estimate in money for closing the main gaps;
  • a 100-day action plan with owners, targets and a weekly review routine;
  • a written report and a session with your leadership team.
  • Then, if you want it: implementation support, and later a retainer.

Track record

Maintenance and spares: four cases

From operating roles at Nordgold, RUSAL, SUEK and EuroChem.

  • Fleet availability to industry benchmark

    Nordgold — Deputy COO, gold mines in Russia, Kazakhstan and West Africa

    Situation
    No working spares system at the mines: min/max levels weren't used, parts were ordered after a failure. The result was unplanned downtime and excess stock at the same time.
    What we did
    Min/max levels for critical parts based on operating hours, MTBF and failure statistics; consignment stock with the equipment makers on site; storage-quality audits; a repair vs. replace vs. outsource model by component group; in-house component rebuilds.
    Result
    Fleet availability at the industry benchmark: 85–87% for haul trucks, 85% for excavators.

  • Pump reliability at an alumina refinery

    RUSAL — project manager, repair optimization

    Situation
    Frequent unplanned pump repairs and poor coordination between the warehouse, maintenance and the repair directorate.
    What we did
    A kaizen team; clear rules between the warehouse and maintenance; a rotating pool of rebuilt units ready to install; statistical failure tracking with root-cause analysis; an alternative pump design.
    Result
    MTBF +211%, repair time –12%; the new design removed about 30% of unplanned repairs.

  • Maintenance program for 41,900 equipment units

    SUEK — acting Head of Operations Improvement

    Situation
    No standard material norms for repair work: excess safety stock at some sites, shortages at others.
    What we did
    Standard material norms for typical repairs, prioritization of repair work, and a formal repair vs. replace analysis.
    Result
    Program for 41,900 equipment units (RUB 15.4B annual budget) approved by the Strategic Committee.

  • Criticality as the base of the maintenance system

    EuroChem — Head of the Business System, mining division

    Situation
    Maintenance and spares were managed the same way for critical and non-critical equipment.
    What we did
    An equipment hierarchy and criticality classes: safety stock for critical equipment, buying on demand for the rest; mine and plant debottlenecking with lower maintenance cost.
    Result
    ~USD 30M business-system impact in the first year across 4 sites.
Alexander Shein

About me

I'm Alexander Shein

I spent 20 years on both sides of the table in mining, metals and chemicals.

In consulting, I worked at McKinsey & Company (Operations; Global Energy & Materials) and Partners in Performance. In operating roles, I was Deputy COO at Nordgold, head of the business system in EuroChem's mining division, and head of the target operating model program at EVRAZ.

I'm a mechanical engineer by training (Bauman Moscow State Technical University) and a Six Sigma Black Belt. I spent a year in Changwon, Korea, with LG. Today I work independently, so the person you talk to on the first call is the person who does the work.

LinkedInFull CV (PDF)

FAQ

What do you need from us?

Access to maintenance and production data for the last 12 months, a few hours with your maintenance, operations and stores leads, and time on the shop floor. An NDA comes first.

Do you work remotely?

Mostly, yes. Diagnostics and quarterly reviews happen on site; the rest is remote.

How is the fee set?

Diagnostics have a fixed price, quoted after the first call. The retainer is a fixed monthly fee, agreed once the diagnostic is done.

Confidentiality?

An NDA before any data changes hands. I don't share client material, and the cases on this page are described without client data.

Is schedule adherence a tracked KPI at your plant today?

Twenty minutes is usually enough to tell where availability is leaking and whether I can help.

Book a 20-minute callalex@alexshein.com