Keeping a manufacturing facility running efficiently requires routine inspections along with maintenance and repairs. However, many routine repairs can be avoided when your facility uses quality equipment and follows standard procedures. Use these tips to safely avoid excess routine service to increase production time and reduce your labor costs. Use these tips across locations for even greater savings.
What defines routine maintenance?
Each facility will have a unique definition of routine maintenance. Machinery may undergo service on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on the nature of the equipment and the amount of use. Some of this cannot be avoided. Proper servicing is designed to reduce unplanned downtime and this makes the servicing valuable. However, by looking closely at each routine maintenance or repair procedure, you may find that some of the service being performed is not optimal.
Optimizing inspections and maintenance
Manufacturing facilities can use the same type of metrics that repair shops use to measure equipment performance and breakdowns. This requires accurate data collection and analysis of all machinery in the facility. Maintenance software programs can be customized to the type of equipment you use; the programs will help you optimize service intervals.
The first metric is Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). Determine the failure rate for each equipment group with the routine your facility is currently following. A very low MTBF may indicate that the time between servicing can be extended. A high MTBF indicates worn out equipment, poor-quality repair parts or faulty procedures.
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) measures how long routine repairs take for each set operation. Some of your equipment may end up out of service for longer periods due to extensive dismantling requirements. Other machines may not present the same issues. Lack of parts on hand or the skilled maintenance personnel needed are also factors in MTTR that must be considered.
Older equipment will often show more failures with a higher need for routine repairs. Your facility must analyze data collected to determine where the break point is for replacement. If machinery is failing frequently, you are losing production time, repair costs and the labor involved in the repair. Purchasing newer equipment could be less expensive than trying to maintain the existing machinery.
Routine inspections should always be performed for any safety issues. The same inspections can be used to prevent the breakdowns that are costly in equipment downtime. Cross-train your facility personnel if you have not already done so. Relying on just one or two individuals increases the MTTR and decreases your ability to extend service times.
Quality equipment and parts
Take a common example of routine oil changes in automobiles. Every three months or 3,000 miles was the standard. This is no longer true for many newer vehicles. Improvements in oil quality and filter materials are extending the service life. You can apply many materials improvement to enhance the equipment in your facility. By purchasing quality equipment at the start, and maintaining the equipment with quality replacement pieces, you can reduce the service required to continue full operations.
For example, using higher quality machinery oils can allow you to reduce the number of changes required. Using higher quality cables to operate the equipment will result in fewer replacements. Cables designed to provide impact resistance and higher flex life will reduce the number of times you have to replace wires due to wear.
Invest in higher quality belts and cutting blades and keep spare parts available for emergency repairs. While some items, like replacement motors, may be too expensive to keep on hand, the majority of the materials used for routine maintenance should be readily available. Having to wait for a shipment is not optimizing your operations.
By continuing to analyze data collected from machine operations, your facility can continuously improve your MTBF and reduce unnecessary service procedures. The end goal is to keep your equipment at the peak of performance without wasting labor and materials.
