0.5 to 2%
of revenue lost to breakdowns and unplanned downtime (order of magnitude observed in industrial SMEs)
CARE Method.
Choose. Analyze. Redesign. Execute. A structured 4-step approach to durably improve the reliability of your critical industrial equipment. 30 years of field experience in factories turned into an applicable method, equipment by equipment.
ACTION-TRAINING ALM-CR01 · QUALIOPI · OPCO-ELIGIBLE
−30 to −50%
Fewer breakdowns
+2 to +10 pts
OEE gain
−25%
Maintenance costs
01 — THE STAKES
Unplanned downtime costs more than you think.
For an industrial SME with €60M in revenue, losses caused by breakdowns can represent €300,000 to 1.2 million per year. Faced with this challenge, a purely reactive approach is no longer enough.
~1/3 of MTTR
spent on diagnosis alone — half of that time is recoverable with a structured method
20 to 55%
of Wrench Time — actual time spent on value-adding tasks. The factory target: 55-65%.
~15%
share of maintenance cost in the industrial conversion cost
02 — THE METHOD
Four steps. One single logic.
The CARE method breaks the reliability process down into four sequential steps. Born of 30 years of industrial experience, it is applied equipment by equipment, from the most critical to the least critical.
C
N°01 — CHOOSE
Choose the priority equipment.
Focus resources where the impact will be most significant.
Maintenance resources are by nature limited: there's no point in spreading them thin. The goal is to select the most critical equipment for production at the moment the CARE project starts.
By applying the theory of constraints, we identify the bottleneck in the production system. Once this critical point is determined, analyzing the breakdown history pinpoints the most penalizing piece of equipment.
A
N°02 — ANALYZE
Analyze the root causes.
Understand the real origin of breakdowns, beyond the symptoms.
Improving reliability means reducing the frequency of breakdowns. This is measured by MTBF or — more meaningful to everyone — by the number of breakdowns per tonne produced.
The first action: build the breakdown profile over 6 to 12 months to identify the most penalizing sub-assemblies (duration, frequency, total cost). Then, the DIAGFIAB© methodology traces back to the true root causes by distinguishing natural degradation from forced degradation.
R
N°03 — REDESIGN
Redesign the maintenance plan.
Adapt and optimize to prevent breakdowns from recurring.
Once the causes are understood, the maintenance plan must be adapted to prevent recurrence. This structuring step aims to fix the current situation and to build a solid preventive foundation.
- Record anomalies and restore the equipment to its nominal state
- Inventory the existing preventive actions
- Leverage the breakdown history and identify recurring causes
- Conduct a failure risk analysis (FMEA / RCM)
- Build the autonomous and professional maintenance plan
- Optimize tasks by integrating the appropriate technologies (1.0 to 4.0)
- Recalculate and optimize intervention frequencies and procedures
- Update the CMMS with the new plan
E
N°04 — EXECUTE
Execute with excellence.
Planning & Scheduling — prepare and carry out efficiently.
The performance of a maintenance plan depends directly on the quality of its execution. This final step focuses on the rigorous organization of interventions through Planning & Scheduling (P&S) best practices.
The goal: eliminate non-value-adding activities (waiting, unnecessary travel, searching for information) to maximize Wrench Time. Preparation answers the questions What? How? and scheduling answers the questions Who? When?
03 — RESULTS
Measurable. Repeatable. Sustainable.
Applying the CARE method generates concrete and lasting improvements — for both production and maintenance. Orders of magnitude observed across the majority of our engagements.
−30 to −50%
Fewer breakdowns (6 months)
+2 to +10 pts
OEE gain
−25%
Maintenance costs
04 — TAKE ACTION
Let's assess the potential of your maintenance.
Let's talk through your specific challenges and identify together the gains achievable with the CARE method. First meeting remote, free, no commitment.
05 — YOUR CONTACTS
Your point of contact.
Industrial maintenance expert — Creator of the CARE method
Pascal Flatrès
30 years of field experience in factories. Founder of ALM. Operational excellence applied to maintenance.