Graphical Analysis for Operation Management: A Graphical Method to Support Operation Decision Making

This paper proposes a graphical method to easy decision‐making in industrial plants operations. The proposed tool ‘Graphical Analysis for Operation Management (GAOM) method’ allows to visualizing and analyzing production‐related parameters, integrating assets/systems maintenance aspects. This integration is based on the Total Productive Maintenance model, using its quantitative management techniques for optimal decision‐making in day‐to‐day operations. On the one hand, GAOM monitors possible production target deviations, and on the other, the tool illustrates different aspects to gain control on the production process, such as availability, repair time, cumulative production, or overall equipment effectiveness. Through appropriate information filtering, individual analysis by class of intervention (corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance, or operational intervention) and production level can be developed. Graphical Analysis for Operation Management (GAOM) integrates maintenance information (number of intervention, type of intervention, required/not required stoppage) with production information (cumulative production, cumulative defective products, and cumulative production target) during a certain timeframe (cumulative calendar time, duration of intervention). Then the tool computes basic performance indicators supporting operational decision‐making. GAOM provides interesting graphical outputs using scatter diagrams integrating indicators on the same graph. GAOM is inspired in the Graphical Analysis for Maintenance Management method, published by the authors (LB, AC, and PV) in 2012.