A Financial And Technical Investigation Of The Maintenance Function In The Cosmetics Industry

The enlarged form of maintenance engineering and management of assets is called Terotechnology. This is a British concept coined by British engineers, accountants, and managers as well as academics with a specific aim in mind, that is to care for fixed assets and obtain the maximum utilisation from operating them. Although the concept did not mention the size of industry that can benefit most from applying it, many industrialists have believed, without questioning, that the concept is designed to give utmost benefits to the large capital-intensive projects. This is shown by the applications that took place during the seventies by major organisations like British Steel Corporation, British Airways, British Rail, The G.L.C., and many other similar sized establishments. The applications of concept at large projects made it very well known only in such a sector of British industry and the name was hardly heard of among small to medium sized companies. The cosmetic industry in the United Kingdom was chosen not only for being small in size, but also being one of the labour-intensive industries and the maintenance function plays a great role in operating its plants. In addition, the level of care for such industry's assets is not determined solely by the management of operating plant, where most purchases of capital assets including machinery are controlled by the mother company outside the U.K. This thesis has attempted to show the real need of the concept of Terotechnology and the use of its backbone Peer, namely life-cycle costing to help the plant management, managing their operating assets without incurring much additional resources. Making any decision is usually given and supported by facts. Facts are also based upon figures gathered, analysed and compared. Without having such figures it is difficult to differentiate between making a good decision and just guessing. Even having the necessary figures without their relevant analysis and comparisons would not offer the decision maker a solid base for reaching his decision. On the other hand, if the right decision is reached but necessary implementation action is delayed, expected benefits may be lessened or even lost all together. Many of these mistakes have been shown as direct reasons for experiencing a high cost of maintaining the operational plant at the chosen firm, as well as the resulted poor output and frequent outages. This research has led to indicate the real need of establishing a good communication system among the functional departments within the cosmetic industry on one hand and between the user's management and suppliers of their equipment on the other with some efforts paid to the collection of information and their exchanges. It also aimed for highlighting the relationship between the three parties concerned with the proper use of physical operating assets namely, the owners of the company, the management of their assets abroad and the suppliers of assets. Not only that, but a more important aspect of managing the assets with some difficulties goes back to the improper level of authority © offered to those who are responsible for achieving the manufacturing goals.