For most manufacturing operations, there are two fundamentally different approaches to maintenance. Most manufacturing operations default to preventive maintenance, but a more resource-sound approach comes from predictive maintenance.
Differentiating between these two maintenance philosophies is important in order to understand all of their unique benefits and which is the better fit for your organization. Preventive maintenance is likely the more common strategy of the two and has been a cornerstone of the manufacturing industry for some time. Preventive maintenance is a blanket maintenance strategy that covers all pieces of equipment in a manufacturing operation at once. That is, regularly scheduled, calendar-driven maintenance on all pieces of equipment. For most manufacturing operations, the scheduling of this sort of maintenance depends on a number of elements related to the equipment. Elements like average run time and age are the most considered as they have the greatest impact on when a piece of equipment would require maintenance.
The philosophy behind predictive maintenance is almost opposite that of preventive maintenance. Rather than having all of an operation’s equipment serviced at the same time, predictive maintenance uses data collected from the pieces of an operation’s equipment to signify when maintenance is necessary. Sounds great, right? Except the systems necessary to collect this data are much more expensive to implement than what businesses would spend just opting into preventive maintenance.
While they might be more expensive on average, predictive maintenance systems are becoming easier to implement by the day. As the number of Internet of Things technologies that are made specifically for the manufacturing industry increase, so do the possibilities they present. For example, these IoT technologies are able to provide equipment owners with in-depth reporting and analysis of performance and external data on their equipment. This in turns allows equipment owners to better predict when their equipment will fail and what maintenance measures should be taken in order to prevent said failure and ensure greater efficiency over time.
However, despite these advantages, sometimes these systems are not as accessible to every manufacturing operation. The barriers to entry for these systems are often much higher than many operations can afford. They require the implementation of highly sophisticated technology platforms that must be able to fully integrate with the existing systems a manufacturing operation currently employs. This also means manufacturing managers would be tasked with retraining existing personnel on newly established maintenance policies as a result of these systems. If you believe that your operation can support the costs associated with these systems, in addition to having the trust in your employees to master these systems, predictive maintenance is likely the strategy that will provide your organization with the greatest amount of benefits.
If you’re looking for more information regarding these two approaches to maintenance, be sure to check out the accompanying infographic featured alongside this post. Courtesy of Industrial Service Solutions.