MANUFACTURING MAINTENANCE & ITS TYPES
By —
KSHITIJ DWIVEDI
ROHAN KULKARNI
KAUSHAL MUNDE
ROJINCE THOMAS
ASHWIN VAIDYA
Students of Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune.
Trying to deal with routine maintenance of your facilities, machinery, and property is an inescapable component of managing a business. Unfortunately, owing to natural wear and tear, your regularly used equipment may periodically glitch, collapse, or slow down over time but, as we’ll explore later, you can take efforts to extend the lifespan of your business’s most important assets.
This blog focuses on the various sorts of maintenance that you would experience as a business owner or manager, notably proactive maintenance strategies and reactionary maintenance strategies. We’ll discuss numerous forms of maintenance under these classifications, including preventive, predictive, planned, condition-based, reactive, emergency, and repair work. We’ll go through what these various sorts of management involve, how much they cost, and how they may help your business succeed in the long term.
Broadly, they are classified into two types of strategies;
· Proactive Maintenance Strategies
· Responsive Maintenance Strategies
Further, these strategies are categorized into subtypes of maintenance as can be seen in the following figure.
Proactive Maintenance Strategies
· Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is described as taking proactive procedures or efforts to avoid system failures from occurring. Preventive maintenance usually include continuous monitoring, upgrading, adequate lubrication (where applicable), adjustments, and the replacement of obsolete equipment or parts.
Preventive maintenance can be incorporated in many areas of the business and contains any preventative measures, such as switching water filters, frequently cleaning necessary equipment , inspecting business vehicles (such as delivery vans).
Of course, the preventative maintenance you undertake will be unique to your company, and it should always include a detailed analysis of your most important assets or machinery for operational processes.
Benefits
Downtime and business closures are reduced as a result of unforeseen equipment failures, allowing you to minimise monetary damage and safeguard your profitability.
Longer life span of critical machinery and devices — Inspecting, upgrading, and caring for your company’s assets will save you the cost of new technology in the long term.
Reduced energy consumption for your company’s assets — When equipment functions efficiently, less energy is used, resulting in cheaper electricity costs for your company.
Relevant Industries For Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is rather general and should be addressed in any business, including but not restricted to industrial manufacturing, food processing, petroleum & natural gas, cafés and eateries, gymnasium, retail, academia, and healthcare.
Example of Preventive Maintenance
An unanticipated refrigerator collapse may devastate a restaurant, leading to significant food wastage, shutting for the remainder of the day (or the time required to plan and conduct fixes), and substantial repair expenses. Routine checks and washing of the condenser coils can effectively deter such an expensive disaster and will mean less danger to your organization in the long term.
· Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance monitors an appliance or device’s routine performance to discover any flaws before they become a problem. This sort of service employs condition-monitoring technologies to assess the functioning of equipment, most commonly via IoT. (Internet of Things).
IoT is essentially a system that connects electrical devices to mechanical and digital machinery and is capable of detecting and transferring data without the need for human intervention or interference. This implies that predictive maintenance will notify you of potential machine flaws without your intervention.
Predictive maintenance examples include machinery observation, oil analysis, and energy use sensors.
Benefits
One of the primary reasons predictive maintenance is so beneficial is that it permits maintenance to be conducted only when absolutely necessary — that is, just before equipment breakdown is probable. That is to say:
Spending less money on preventative maintenance for equipment that doesn’t require it — Predictive maintenance allows you to preserve money until the last minute when service or repairs are genuinely needed but before any serious system damage happens.
Reduced manufacturing hours lost due to equipment failure — Because predictive maintenance is correct, you will prevent total machine failure, which may be devastating to routine operations if the unit in question is critical to your organization.
A tenfold gain in ROI, as well as considerable reductions in maintenance and downtime — Predictive maintenance, has been found to lead to a stunning tenfold increase in return on investment, as well as a 70–75 percent reduction in equipment crashes and a 35–45 percent reduction in downtime The numbers don’t lie!
Relevant Industries for Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance is typically used in companies that have machinery that is vital to their production and has failure mechanisms that can be predicted with frequent monitoring. Food production, oil and gas, manufacturing, electricity and energy plants, information technology, are some examples.
Example of Predictive Maintenance
To remain competitive, a food manufacturing business may rely on predictive maintenance for its important industrial ovens, which may be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A sensor would be inserted in the oven that would review and generate data on temperature and vibration, alerting employees to make repairs or tweaks to bad performing machinery in real-time, minimizing the need to totally shut down production.
· Planned Maintenance
Planned maintenance incorporates all planned, scheduled, and recorded maintenance. It is particularly described as preventative maintenance conducted in accordance with a predetermined plan.
Essentially, planned maintenance is conducted to minimize business downtime, which is frequently caused by unplanned equipment breakdowns and may have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. If such a failure occurs, any plan or strategy for getting the equipment back up and running would be considered planned maintenance.
One sort of planned maintenance is preventive maintenance, which prepares for and prevents machine faults before they occur. There is also planned, unscheduled maintenance, which is the practice of rectifying or repairing a faulty system and expecting such commercial setbacks ahead of time. For example, if you operate a franchise car, having replacement batteries on hand will allow a technician to replace a faulty battery quickly and easily.
Benefits
Planned maintenance is quite easy to conduct and often rather cost-effective. Among the advantages are:
Preparation in the case of equipment breakdown, or prevention of such failure entirely — If at all feasible, be prepared with backup supplies or an action plan in the case of a failure. Preparing for these infrequent incidents in advance might save manufacturing time and money.
Planned maintenance is frequently as basic as a regular, planned inspection, seasonal maintenance, and so forth. Planned maintenance, like preventative maintenance, isn’t very difficult to execute. Following manufacturer instructions for equipment checks, or summoning a technician to update critical systems as needed, is typically worth the short-term investment.
Significant long-term cost savings — The expense of regular, routine maintenance is frequently less expensive in the long run than dealing with a big problem after it has happened.
Relevant Industries For Planned Maintenance
Planned maintenance is applicable to all industries, including manufacturing, restaurant (food & beverage), hospitality, gymnasium and wellness facilities, retail, and schools, to mention a few.
Example of Planned Maintenance
Depending on the size and amount of business, it is typically advised that a restaurant check and empty its grease traps every 1–3 months. This helps to keep garbage from clogging sewer pipes.
· Condition-Based Maintenance
The method of taking immediate action on machinery that is in the initial stages of equipment breakdown is referred to as condition-based maintenance. Many devices generate some kind of warning that the system is starting to fail before it completely fails, and condition-based maintenance allows for a last-minute response to a system or device failure.
Benefits
Although condition-based maintenance necessitates a large amount of data collection, there are several advantages to this approach, including:
The reduced overall number of machine failures — Condition-based maintenance may help you prevent an overall equipment breakdown, which might also lead to you having to shell a fortune on last-minute replacement.
Equipment availability — If a critical piece of machinery fails unexpectedly, you may lose a whole day or more of manufacturing and supply while waiting for it to be repaired or before you can acquire a substitute. Effective condition-based maintenance means that you were able to keep your hardware from completely failing, allowing it to operate until you could properly diagnose it.
Breakdown notification — It almost comes as no surprise, but receiving notification that certain equipment or system needs care is better than losing its capability all at once. If such alerts are normal for your unit, you may have ample chance to schedule a professional rather than trying to repair equipment on your own.
Relevant Industries For Condition-Based Maintenance
Businesses have high-cost machinery that is crucial to operations. Heavy machinery is most commonly used in manufacturing industries, petroleum & natural gas, electricity and energy industries, and food production.
Example of Condition-Based Maintenance
A sensor that monitors the vibrations of a spinning piece of equipment can alert you when the mobile item begins to slip out of line and vibrates more. This will trigger the sensor to notify you if the vibration falls outside of the period you specify.
Responsive Maintenance Strategies
After we’ve gone through some proactive maintenance tactics, we’ll look at response maintenance, sometimes known as firefighting.
· Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance would be any reaction or reply to repairing a broken machine. If at all feasible, it attempts to restore damaged equipment to normal working circumstances. This method normally necessitates the services of a technician or manufacturer assistance to repair the damaged machinery, which may be fairly costly depending on the urgency and scope of the request.
Benefits
Lower upfront expenses (no investment) — Even if you don’t invest in preventive maintenance and instead wait for your equipment to fail before acting, you’ll still save money that you would have spent on initial preventive maintenance charges.
Less personnel required — If you aren’t utilising a preventative maintenance plan for your assets, managing equipment often involves less employees than continuously analysing and responding to machine alerts and problems.
There is no need to plan ahead of time — When machine breaks down, it fails, and engineers and technicians usually react soon — all you can do is wait for them to arrive and fix it, with no time on your end necessary.
Relevant Industries For Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance is applicable to all sectors, however, it is less commonly utilized as a “tactic” in the industrial, oil and gas, and information technology industries, and is more frequent in the restaurant and retail industries. This, of course, is dependent on the worth of these organizations’ assets and how much the owners are prepared to pay ahead to preserve expensive equipment.
Example of Reactive Maintenance
If a restaurant refrigerator suddenly stops operating, it can cause food deterioration and perhaps force the restaurant to close for health concerns. Depending on how long the refrigerator is out of commission, a faulty refrigerator might be hazardous to the business as a whole.
· Emergency Maintenance
Emergency maintenance is related to reactive maintenance in that both procedures need a quick response to unexpected equipment failures. However, emergency maintenance poses a risk to one’s health and safety.
Benefits
In general, performing emergency maintenance is not something you want to be forced to do. The mess is usually not worth the money saved on preparation and prevention. However, there are two advantages:
There is no upfront cost — You can’t always predict when or how a serious danger to your organization and employees will arise. As a result, other than adhering to conventional health and safety rules and taking regular safeguards, investments do not exclude the risk of odd incidents occurring.
No preparation necessary — Again, this isn’t much of a “benefit” when you’re really in a position that poses a big health danger to your company, employees, and customers, but the “upside” is that planning time is low for these sorts of incidents.
Relevant Industries For Emergency Maintenance
Chemical and industrial plants, leased buildings, and housing estates are just a few businesses that use emergency maintenance on a constant schedule.
Example of Emergency Maintenance
A wastewater backlog that floods a tenant’s unit may quickly cost the facility thousands of rupees in repairs and property damage and will almost certainly necessitate an evacuation from that flat (and surrounding apartments).
· Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance is defined as any operation that identifies and corrects a system malfunction so that the device can be returned to proper operating condition. It is hardly a strategy, as opposed to reactive maintenance, but rather an activity directed towards a single piece of equipment. Furthermore, the flaw may be detected or discovered before it produces a serious problem or complete equipment malfunction.
Benefits
The following are some of the advantages of corrective maintenance:
Reduced period of scheduled and unexpected downtime — Corrective action is often conducted swiftly, resulting in (ideally) minimal equipment downtime.
Reduced cost and time of running a reactive maintenance strategy — A reactive maintenance approach necessitates the preparation, which frequently entails fees and time spent scheming rather than producing. Remedial action, on the other hand, is a speedy corrective reaction to a single piece of hardware.
Reduced maintenance operations costs/reduced emergency maintenance orders — If left unchecked, objects that require remedial action might advance to emergency maintenance. Corrective maintenance typically minimizes the likelihood of an emergency scenario arising.
Relevant Industries For Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance may be used in any business, including eateries, gymnasiums, retail outlets, schools, educational institutions, and commercial establishments.
Example of Corrective Maintenance
If frost or icing accumulates in a walk-in refrigerator, it can lead to severe consequences for a restaurant. Ice buildup can obstruct proper cooling, leading compressors to require more electricity and run inefficiently. If ice has already formed in an industrial freezer, it should be defrosted either by temporarily shutting off the unit or by using a tool such as a blow dryer to speed up the process. This is one example of a completely cost-effective corrective maintenance measure.
Every sort of maintenance approach has advantages and disadvantages, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution for your corporation. Take the time to figure out what works best for you and how to effectively shield your organization from expensive maintenance and repairs.
Maintenance Applications
· Facility Maintenance
Facility maintenance guarantees that all areas, equipment, and infrastructure inside or surrounding a facility are running as efficiently and safely as feasible. Preventive maintenance is usually used to keep a facility’s assets such as HVAC equipment, whereas reactive maintenance is mostly used to keep sections of a facility in excellent functioning condition, such as wall painting.
· Property Maintenance
Any preventive or corrective maintenance action conducted to keep a property fully operational and running at its best is referred to as property maintenance. Reactive maintenance is typically used to respond to tenant requests to fix items in their apartments, whereas preventive maintenance is used to examine and replace filters in important assets such as an HVAC machine on a regular basis.
The authors of this blog tried to provide an overview of maintenance and the numerous types of maintenance strategies utilized in manufacturing businesses. Furthermore, we hope the readers can determine which maintenance solutions are accessible based on the importance or criticality of industrial assets after going through this blog.