Maintenance is perhaps one of the most important elements of ensuring an organization’s operations remain running smoothly. The way in which every business maintains their equipment and machinery will largely differ business, but there are two major approaches to maintenance that most efforts are split between to: predictive and preventive maintenance. This post will break down the value each of these methods offer in length.
Preventive maintenance has reigned over the manufacturing industry for some time now. This strategy is founded on a calendar driven maintenance approach, meaning performing maintenance on all pieces of equipment in a fleet at set intervals throughout the year. In most cases, these intervals are based on age and overall run time of any piece of equipment. The older and more time spent running, the more frequent the maintenance intervals for example. The opposite could be said of a younger, less ran machine.
The alternative is a much more effective maintenance approach for organizations hoping to maximize their maintenance resources. Predictive maintenance strategies require sophisticated systems capable of connecting to an organization’s fleet or equipment. Once connected, these systems are able to collect and analyze output data of each piece of equipment. This data is then able to indicate when a machine will face critical failure and what maintenance is required to prolong that failure. The efficiency that these systems provide comes at a steep cost, though. As these system’s barriers to entry are high, many organizations are unable to integrate this maintenance approach.
However, despite the costs associated with these systems, the implementation has continued to become easier. As more and more machines are becoming compatible with the Internet of Things, the more common these systems have become in manufacturing operations around the world. The information from these systems that get fed to managers allow a much clearer insight than preventive maintenance would ever provide. As such, the ‘predictions’ for when machines require maintenance is much more accurately measured. This data also allows managers to better predict when their equipment is at risk for failure and what must change to avoid any amount of down-time as a result of failure.
These benefits may make it seem as though predictive maintenance is the clear favorite of the two strategies, but the truth is it will vary organization. Predictive maintenance is not the only solution for unplanned downtime. In fact, with such high barriers to entry the investment becomes inherently more risky to less established businesses. While high cost is a large concern, these predictive maintenance systems will also require highly integrated technology platforms to be brought into their operations. Which means organizations will be responsible for retraining existing personnel to garnering a new mastery over these systems. Only when organizations have the expendable capital and the resources necessary to enable these systems through their employees will predictive maintenance be the best choice for maintenance.
No business should ever have to approach their maintenance efforts without knowing which method fits best for their operations. To learn more about the needs of your business and how they can be met either of these methods, be sure to spend some time reading on to the infographic coupled alongside this post. Courtesy of Industrial Service Solutions.
