Management of equipment can be divided into reactive, preventive, proactive, and predictive approaches. A lack of predictive strategies often leads to reactive servicing, triggered by unexpected failures. Reactive upkeep is usually associated with higher costs due to increased labor, materials, and managerial effort.
Proactive care keeps equipment operational by combining predictive strategies with a focus on eliminating the root causes of failure. An ideal set of preventive techniques would prevent all equipment breakdowns before they occur, allowing repairs to be performed at the most convenient time, which boosts availability and improves customer service.
Most industries in the Philippines still rely on reactive strategies as a major part of their equipment management. However, decades of evidence demonstrate the superior benefits of proactive and predictive approaches.
A reactive approach can also harm your company by trapping you in a cycle of ongoing emergency work, delaying tasks that could have reduced such crises. Furthermore, reactive upkeep is far more costly than proactive care because emergency jobs are complex, whereas proactive tasks are simpler and easier to manage.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness
The gold standard for assessing industrial productivity is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). It determines the proportion of productive production time. An OEE score of 100% indicates that you produce only suitable components with no downtime.
Measuring OEE is an example of proactive/predictive maintenance and one of the best practices. You will get critical insights on enhancing your manufacturing process by measuring OEE and the underlying losses. OEE is the best statistic for finding faults, measuring progress, and optimizing manufacturing equipment productivity.
Proactive Maintenance
Shifting from reactive to proactive maintenance necessitates new ways of thinking, doing, and managing. This sort of transformation will be a lengthy and drawn-out process. In the end, you may never be free of reactive maintenance tasks, but unplanned repairs can be reduced.
When proactive maintenance is designed, implemented, and managed, it will result in optimal asset reliability at optimal cost. The corporation will gain more excellent value from its equipment and budget; upfront expenditures will be lowered, profit margins will be increased, work will be more manageable, and more.
Although maintenance expenditures cannot be eliminated, they can be diverted. You should devote your time, money, and energy to completing proactive tasks since it will reduce reactive work.
Predictive Maintenance
Another maintenance approach is predictive maintenance. It will enable you to better plan corrective actions before the equipment experiences a catastrophic failure. A variety of technology tools can help with this, and the primary goal of each is to measure failure symptoms or faults.
This approach still requires a significant workforce to perform tasks that may seem unnecessary. But, when factors like production uptime and the ability to plan work are considered, this extra effort can pay off in the long term.
According to a case study by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, practicing periodic component replacement in predictive maintenance saves an estimated 12 to 18 percent over reactive maintenance.
How to Shift Away from Reactive Maintenance
Here are a few suggestions to help transition from reactive to proactive or predictive maintenance.
- Enable Machines for Routine Inspections
- Control Ingression of Contamination
- Train for Knowledge and Motivation
- Oil Analysis
Not all programs and initiatives are created equal. The ideal program uses several maintenance modes to ensure that the plant runs. Understanding the different maintenance philosophies and having an excellent grasp of operations, machine criticality, costs, and more will be essential in adopting a balanced approach at your plant.
A reliability-centered laboratory, CRE Philippines, offers diverse programs and solutions that help address your questions about shifting maintenance practices. CRE also prides itself on its Oil Analysis Program with its various Machine Diagnostics and Test Packages.
Sources:
Moving from a reactive to a proactive culture. The University Of Tennessee Knoxville. (2021, May 26). Retrieved from https://rmc.utk.edu/moving-from-a-reactive-to-a-proactive-culture/
OVERALL EQUIPMENT EFFECTIVENESS. OEE. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.oee.com/
Shifting Your Maintenance Strategy: Corrective to Preventive and Beyond. Maven Asset Management. (2021, June 25). Retrieved from https://www.mavenasset.com/shifting-your-maintenance-strategy-corrective-to-preventive-and-beyond/
Wright, J. (n.d.). Making the Transition to Proactive Maintenance. Machinery Lubrication. Retrieved from https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/30446/proactive-maintenance-transition