What is Preventative Maintenance?

Preventative maintenance (or preventative maintenance) is management that is conducted on property resources on a frequent and recurring basis to decrease the likelihood of equipment malfunction and unscheduled machine downtime, which can be highly costly for trained technicians and facility managers. 

 

Effective preventative maintenance is planned and organized utilizing real-time data insights, frequently with the use of software such as a CMMS. To avoid unexpected breakdowns, preventative maintenance is conducted while the equipment is still operational. A Preventative maintenance plan is a popular method that lies between reactive (or run-to-failure) and predictive maintenance. 

 

What is the Significance of Preventative Maintenance?

 

Preventative maintenance is critical because it establishes the groundwork for successful facility management. Preventative maintenance maintains your equipment and assets working smoothly, ensures the safety of your personnel, and assists you in avoiding significant and costly problems down the line. Overall, a well-functioning Preventative maintenance programme keeps operational challenges to a minimal level.

 

What is the Purpose of a Preventative Maintenance Schedule?

 

A Preventative maintenance schedule assists you in organizing and prioritizing your maintenance duties, allowing a maintenance specialist to provide the greatest functioning conditions and life span for the system. You can guarantee that your equipment continues to run effectively and safely by doing regular preventative maintenance.

 

Establishing a preventative maintenance plan can be difficult when dealing with large amounts of pieces of equipment, thus maintenance professionals frequently utilize Preventative maintenance software to arrange their Preventative maintenance activities.

 

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Types of Preventative Maintenance With Examples

 

Preventative maintenance is classified into three types: time, usage, and condition-based triggers. To avoid unanticipated failure, a variant of these forms of preventative maintenance should ideally be scheduled and done on all pieces of equipment. 

 

Manufacturers frequently give advice on how to effectively maintain their products. Your management crew may arrange Preventative maintenance utilising the proper form of Preventative maintenance in addition to real-time data insights. 

 

Types of preventative maintenance are shown below.

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Types of Preventative Maintenance

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1. Time-Based Preventative Maintenance

 

A time-based strategy schedules preventative maintenance tasks on a regular basis, such as every 10 days. Other examples include starting preventative maintenance (such as a routine check of important systems) on the first of every month and once every three months.

 

2. Usage-Based Preventative Maintenance

 

When asset utilisation reaches a specific threshold, usage-based Preventative maintenance initiates a maintenance action. This can occur after a set amount of kilometres, hours, or manufacturing cycles. A motorized vehicle's regular 3. maintenance being planned every 10,000 kilometres is an example of this event.

 

3. Conditioned Based Preventative Maintenance

 

Condition-based maintenance is a type of Proactive Maintenance. It is a management method that analyses an asset class real state to decide what maintenance tasks have to be performed. According to diagnosis maintenance, maintenance should only be undertaken when specific indications indicate a drop in productivity or an impending breakdown. 

 

Preventative maintenance, for example, will be planned when vibrations on a specific component hit a given level, signalling that it needs replacing or oiled.

 

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Examples of Preventative Maintenance

 

Preventative maintenance chores include routine cleaning, lubrication, part replacement, and machine repairs. The scheduling constraints for Preventative maintenance vary based on the technology being preserved.

 

Within a production facility, specific instances of Preventative maintenance include verifying that machinery in the manufacturing line is operating effectively. Other examples include ensuring that your HVAC, heat, ventilation, or air conditioning systems are examined, maintained, and repaired as needed and that your water, sanitary, and electrical systems are operating safely and in accordance with regulations.

 

 

Advantages of Preventative Maintenance

 

Preventative maintenance provides numerous significant benefits to enterprises, including:

 

1. Increased Safety

 

Maintaining assets reduces the risk of potentially harmful failure, reducing the risk of damage and any associated responsibility litigation.

 

2. Longer Equipment Life

 

By ensuring that equipment functions according to specifications, you may assist to extend the asset's life. Failing parts shorten the life of the equipment, necessitating costly repair and replacement.

 

3. Enhanced Productivity

 

According to statistics, inadequate maintenance may diminish a company's output capacity by 20%. By satisfying maintenance needs, you may avoid a drop in production while also reducing downtime, allowing for increased efficiency and productivity.

 

4. Cost Savings

 

Running a piece of equipment to failure is expected to cost 10 times more than undertaking the routine maintenance. The cost is incurred as a result of unanticipated downtimes and repairs. 

 

Identifying the maintenance needs allows you to arrange an essential repair or part replacements at an appropriate time, whether they can be strictly implemented or require the services of an outside specialist.

 

5. Lower Energy Consumption

 

Preventative Maintenance may also be beneficial to the environment because badly maintained electrical assets tend to be more expensive than those that are well maintained. Of course, there is also the financial advantage of reducing energy expenses.

 

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Disadvantages of Preventative Maintenance

 

While the benefits of preventative maintenance are obvious, there are a few possible drawbacks to following a Maintenance schedule:

 

1. Financial Constraints

 

Some smaller firms have discovered that advanced digital maintenance solutions are prohibitively expensive due to the high cost of software and the expense of employing outside expertise. 

 

Because of such financial constraints, some people regard PM as a luxury rather than a need. Fortunately, this scenario has started to improve in recent years, as more economical solutions have entered the market.

 

2. Requires Additional Resources

 

Completing preventative maintenance may need extra personnel, components, and time. As a result of this necessity, some businesses will limit their preventative maintenance to only important, business-critical equipment.

 

3. Time-Consuming

 

As previously said, project management can be time-intensive. Inspection of intricate equipment may be a time-consuming activity, leading some people to want to avoid normal inspection and maintenance tasks.

 

4. Difficulties in Organization

 

Preventative maintenance can be tough to organise, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of assets to manage. These issues, however, are substantially alleviated by the employment of a maintenance software package. 

 

A dedicated project management application eliminates the need for physical notebooks and individuals to understand what has to be done and when.

 

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Types of Preventative Maintenance Softwares

 

Preventative maintenance software allows users to manage maintenance, send warnings to the appropriate individuals when work is due, and improve resource availability and allocation, making scheduled chores faster and more effective. As a consequence, you may streamline operations that promote preventative maintenance.

 

Preventive maintenance software comes in a number of different forms, ranging from highly specialized systems to massive frameworks that connect maintenance to other functional departments. The most prevalent forms of preventative maintenance software are listed below.

 

1) Computerized-Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)

 

Maintenance teams may use CMMS software and maintenance applications to keep thorough and centralized logs of all resources, equipment, and finished projects. A CMMS enables facilities to plan, track, and optimise work orders, inventories, and all other aspects of maintenance.

 

A CMMS's key responsibilities include the following:

 

• Work order automation
• Making a timetable for preventative maintenance
• Reporting and auditing records
• Routing and resourcing
• Workflow management and process
• Providing operating and repair instructions

 

A CMMS coordinates all maintenance actions that occur throughout an asset's operating life. Simultaneously, this form of preventative maintenance software functions as a productive component of a facility.

 

2) Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)

 

EAM software gives a comprehensive picture of an organization's information systems assets and infrastructure over the full lifespan, from design and purchase to operations, management, disposal, and replacements. 

 

EAM systems collect asset information, handle work orders, coordinate inventory acquisition and usage, arrange labour, maintain contracts, analyse expenses and spending, and compute key performance indicators (KPIs).

 

3) Business Resource Planning (ERP)

 

So this is how ERP technology works: each firm has distinct business divisions that allow it to run, such as accounting, human resource management, and maintenance. ERP software integrates anything these many departments accomplish so that the complete firm has the same procedures and knowledge.

 

ERP systems, while still not strictly maintenance software, but part of the greater maintenance technological environment. It is critical for maintenance technicians to be able to interact with an ERP system in order to maintain precise levels of inventory and keep your accounts department informed.

 

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Difference Between Preventative and Corrective Maintenance

 

When you perform corrective or reactive maintenance, typically wait for an issue to occur before resolving it. Often, a little issue will go undiscovered until it becomes a major one. This is regarded as the 'run to failure approach.'

 

This form of corrective maintenance, however, is not cost-efficient since it increases unforeseen downtimes, which might result in unforeseen expenditures.

 

These costs might include missed productivity and extra labor costs to fulfill deadlines in addition to the cost of repairing or replacing equipment. A run-to-failure working strategy may also cost you your reputation if you are unable to complete work on time for a client or customer due to a lack of project management.