All Services are Custom based on your need - Servicing Western Wisconsin

Many companies find it useful to be able to focus on their core business.  Caring for facilities can be viewed as a necessary cost of doing business.  Together we can create a custom plan to support your facilities, your equipment, or both through a mix of outsourcing and work done by RFE associates.  Various methods of reporting could be implemented to give visibility of facility conditions, work planning, and completion reports.  All this work can be managed by RFE to allow you to focus on your core business.  We focus on servicing Wisconsin and Minnesota regions in most cases.

Many small to medium businesses operate their maintenance organizations in a reactive nature.  Breakdowns tend to be unpredictable and can create excessive amounts of downtime and lost production.  RFE Specializes in implementing common-sense improvements based on world class maintenance strategies.  Making these work in an effective way in smaller organizations is an art.  Budgets are a bit smaller, and resources tend to be stretched more than average.  Partnering to choose the right strategies can help transform the organization toward a proactive and reliability-based maintenance strategy in the most cost-effective way.  All other examples on this page are tools that can be used to help make that transformation. 

CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) systems are a valuable tool in organizing maintenance work, planning and scheduling work, tracking costs, identifying improvement opportunities, and determining the total cost of ownership of your assets.  There are many different systems out there and choosing the right one can be a challenge.  These systems can be difficult to use effectively if you have never used them.  RFE can help determine the right system to fit your business goals and help implement the system to make sure it is used in an efficient and sustainable way.  If you already have a CMMS and would like to take it to the next level, we can help with that as well.

Planning & Scheduling maintenance work is probably one of the most impactful improvements you can make to your maintenance organization.  It works best partnered with a good CMMS.  It is a very good way to start on the road to a more proactive maintenance approach.  It provides the basis to identify, prioritize, and plan work.  The system can be used to assign and track work.  It is a great way to create a record of equipment history.  It can help establish baselines for your current operations to help quantify future improvements.  We can suggest ways to setup, train and implement these programs in any size organization.  If you already have a planning system in place, RFE can help streamline its use through recommendations and assistance.

Preventative Maintenance is an important part of any maintenance strategy.   Planned Preventative Maintenance is essential to keep assets healthy and reliable.  Care must be taken to not just rely solely on manufacturer recommended PMs.  These recommendations are often for ideal conditions and don’t take into account your specific operating and environmental considerations.  Many PMs are not written well enough to give operators and maintenance techs adequate understanding of what needs to be done.  RFE can assist in writing PM programs as thoroughly as your organization requires.  RFE can perform Optimizations to use data to help shape effective program.  These Optimizations make sure the right things are being done at the right times based on data and equipment history.  Effective PM programs save time, reduce unplanned breakdowns and add reliability to equipment.

Predictive Maintenance is useful to detect potential equipment failures while equipment is still running.  It allows operators to identify signs of equipment in early stages of failure.  This can help shape a response to do planned repairs or replace failed components in a planned, cost-effective manner.  This saves time and money.  RFE Consulting does not perform predictive monitoring routes but can advise on effective technologies for your specific process.  RFE can help you find a cost-effective approach to this technology and recommend companies that can perform these services.  

There are two approaches to Condition-Based Monitoring.  One is the people approach.  Monitoring ”routes” can be setup to be able to inspect equipment while it is running.  Technicians can be trained to “look, listen, and feel” for abnormal conditions that can be acted on prior to an unplanned failure.  A variety of simple tools can make these inspection routes even more effective.  

A second approach is installing sensors that continuously monitor the specific points on the equipment that raise alerts which can be addressed before unplanned failures occur.  RFE can help select the right technologies, implement these systems, and help care for alerts that are generated. RFE is proficient in finding root causes to equipment issues and implementing long term solutions. 

Autonomous Maintenance (a fundamental part of Total Productive Maintenance) is an approach to operator-based maintenance that can greatly improve the health of equipment.  Operators know their equipment the best and tend to know when something is wrong well before the equipment fails.  If these operators can be developed and trained in some basic skills and given the proper support and tools, they can work to greatly reduce downtime.  To effectively implement Autonomous Maintenance, a culture shift in how work is done needs to happen.  RFE can assist in developing these programs, designing support systems, and training the entire organization in AM Methodologies to improve reliability of processes and equipment. 

Equipment lubrication is an often overlooked component of maintenance organizations.  Lubrication can be very expensive; and if not done correctly, it is a leading cause of premature equipment breakdown.  Lubrication management can help standard operators to properly lubricate equipment and protect the lubricants from contamination.  There are many techniques, technologies, and types of equipment that simplify lubrication tasks and make it easy for even entry level operators to properly perform.  RFE can help you determine the right strategies for your team, implement the right technologies, and offer support depending on your circumstances.

Whether a project is a physical installation, organizational improvement, or a process change; it requires a specific focus to help ensure its success.  RFE can offer project management services that allow your teams to focus on their day-to-day work, and we can carry the load of delivering your vision.  RFE can help with everything from ideation and writing Scopes of Work to project execution and handover training.  

Do you have a problem you don’t know how to solve or have the resources to attack as fast as you would like, RFE can help.  RFE can help source physical work like construction, maintenance, cleaning, painting, etc.  

RFE can also help with solving problems with processes or programs, can evaluate the current state of troubled processes, determine where you want to go, and help develop an implementation plan to get there.  

Use RFE as an additional resource to solve problems quickly, thoroughly, and sustainably.