Preventative Maintenance

Here at CE Mechanical services we have geared ourselves up to some of the best preventive maintenance schemes around. We can also supply a complete software package if required.

What is Preventive Maintenance?

Preventive maintenance is planned maintenance of plant and equipment that is designed to improve equipment life and avoid any unplanned maintenance activity. PM includes painting, lubrication, cleaning, and minor component replacement to extend the life of equipment and facilities. Its purpose is to minimize breakdowns and excessive deprecation. Neither equipment nor facilities should be allowed to go to breaking point. In its simplest form preventive maintenance can be compared to the service intervals on a car. 

A bona-fide preventive maintenance program should include:

• Non-destructive testing
• Periodic inspection
• Pre-planned maintenance activities
• Maintenance to correct deficiencies found trough testing or inspections

The amount of preventive maintenance needed at a facility varies greatly. It can range from a walk through inspection of facilities and equipment noting deficiencies for later correction up to computers that actually shut down equipment after a certain number of hours or a certain number of units produced, etc.

Many reasons exist for establishing a PM program. Listed below are a few of these. Whenever any of the reasons are present, a PM program is likely to be needed.

• Increased automation
• Business loss due to production delays
• Reduction of insurance inventories.
• Production of higher quality product.
• Just-in-time manufacturing.
• Minimize energy consumption. (5%)

Why have a Preventative Maintenance program?

The most important reason for a PM program is reduced costs as seen in these many ways:

• Reduce production downtime, resulting in fewer machine breakdowns
• Better conservation of assets and increased life expectancy of assets, thereby eliminating premature replacement of machinery and equipment.
• Timely, routine repairs circumvent fewer large-scale repairs.
• Reduced cost of repairs by reducing secondary failures. When parts fail in service, which usually damage other parts.
• Reduce product rejects, rework and scrap due to better overall equipment condition.
• Identification of equipment with excessive maintenance with reduced costs, indicating the need for corrective maintenance, operator training, or replacement of obsolete equipment.
• Improved safety and quality conditions.

If it cannot be shown that a preventive maintenance program will reduce costs, there is probably no good reason other than safety to have a PM program.

How to have a successful Preventative Maintentance program.

The key to a successful PM program is scheduling and execution. Scheduling should be automated to maximum extent possible. Priority should be given to preventive maintenance and a very aggressive program to monitor the schedule and ensure that the work is complete according to schedule should be in place.

Conclusion.

It is possible to have a successful preventive maintenance program. From a cost reduction point of view it is essential, but it does entail risk. When the proper care is taken, the risks however can be minimized. In order to minimize risk, preventive maintenance has to be carefully planned and carried out by well-trained personal. The biggest benefits of a PM program occur trough painting, lubrication, cleaning and adjusting, and minor component replacement to extend life equipment and facilities.