Maintenance organization and interactions between maintenance and production operators in an aluminium smelting plant

For a long time, maintenance operations have been identified as critical situations where safety is concerned. This critical aspect results not only from the nature of these activities but also from their organizational context. In particular, interactions between maintenance and production operators seem to be determinative for operators' safety. For these reasons, a study related to maintenance organization, interactions between these operators and their consequences on safety and reliability has been carried out.
Within this framework, a field study of corrective maintenance in an aluminium smelting plant was made. The content analyses performed on the basis of interviews conducted with 18 operators directly concerned by maintenance allowed to deal with six themes : computer-supported maintenance management in the firm, spares management, maintenance activities carried out by production operators, centrally-based maintenance, geographical maintenance and interactions between maintenance and production operators. The results obtained highlight that maintenance activities performed by production operators are varied and go beyond their assigned tasks in the scope of the "Total Productive Maintenance". These operators may indeed repair the equipments and assist maintenance operators in operation achievement, what allows them to overcome the workload and the operation conditions of the latter. Moreover, interactions between maintenance and production operators seem to be variable and not numerous, while their relations of interdependence are evaluated as important. The consequences of these results for the operators' safety and the reliability of systems are discussed.