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Invest in Predictive Maintenance
Maintenance is present in all industrial processes. It should not be understood as something negative but rather as a way to continuously optimize production.
The goal of any maintenance effort is to improve productivity, but there are different ways to conduct this essential industrial process. These approaches differ in their names as commonly used and in the cost they represent to a company.
Let’s quickly revisit each one:
Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance can be divided into unplanned (or unpredictable) and planned (or predictable).
Unplanned corrective maintenance is the costliest because it occurs after equipment has already presented a Failure. As the name suggests, its purpose is only to correct a problem.
A serious issue, in the worst-case scenario, can shut down the entire production line until it is corrected. In other words, unplanned corrective maintenance is performed in urgent situations.
Planned corrective maintenance is part of a predefined inspection plan. It may involve replacing a spare part or allowing the equipment to operate until its limit, but all without stopping production.
Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance is based on establishing well-defined time intervals for inspection and correction of equipment.
Its focus is prevention. When properly organized, it prevents repeated unplanned corrective maintenance.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance, as the name indicates, predicts possible Failures in equipment.
It requires precision in analyzing the Operation of the equipment. Ideally, it does not alter the plant’s structure, as it primarily generates diagnostics.
After identifying possible failures, planned corrective maintenance is performed.
Nascif considers predictive maintenance to be the most effective. In emergencies, equipment must be repaired as quickly as possible, even if that means unplanned corrective maintenance.
But the ideal scenario is to avoid emergencies entirely. And that is only possible if the condition of the equipment is constantly analyzed.
Predictive maintenance detects upcoming problems and helps manage planned and targeted corrective actions.
Remember: Cost Reduction Is Not Always the Answer
Nascif highlights that the end of World War II, in the mid-1940s, marked the beginning of awareness about the importance of maintenance management in industry.
This initial recognition continued into the 1960s and was accompanied by an increase in maintenance costs.
It was precisely this increase that guided many business owners to invest more in preventive maintenance to reduce losses caused by equipment damage.
It is natural for companies to want to cut costs wherever possible, right?
However, such reductions must not be made without proper Planning, nor based solely on short-term savings.
Eliminating a more complete maintenance management plan may seem cheaper at first. But it leads to a higher frequency of unplanned corrective maintenance, the most expensive type. In other words, the cost becomes much higher in the medium and long term.
Integrate Management Areas
When executed intelligently, maintenance becomes a competitive advantage because it is interconnected with all stages of the production chain, whose efficiency improves when everything operates perfectly.
For this to happen, maintenance must be treated as a strategic function.
And any strategy works best when all steps in the process are well integrated. Therefore, it is essential to ensure good communication between all stages involved to achieve maintenance management focused on results.
Here’s how to improve it:
Analyze
One approach Nascif believes enhances maintenance is FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analysis).
FMEA ranks potential technical failures in both the design phase and during operation. The company’s maintenance Staff must focus primarily on the process phase, when equipment is already installed and operating.
He also highlights FMECA (Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis).
The difference is the addition of Criticality Analysis in FMECA, meaning the evaluation categorizes failure modes based on their probability of occurrence.
Remember the “Invisible” Failures
Nascif also calls attention to the concept of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance). The objective of TPM is to increase overall operational performance, which requires a cultural shift within the company.
TPM is supported by five pillars, which must strengthen the Availability and Reliability of Assets:
- Efficiency
- Self-Repair
- Planning
- Training
- Life Cycle
It is important to note that all these points depend on personnel training. Improvement must be structural (related to equipment) and human (skills development within the maintenance team).
Therefore, the ideal approach is to combine careful maintenance planning with Staff training. This combination elevates production to the “zero breakdown” standard, meaning operation without Failures or interruptions.
Visible equipment failures and breakdowns are caused by a set of “invisible” failures, such as debris, leaks, deformations, etc. Preventing these invisible failures eliminates the risk of major operational problems.
Value the Team
Certainly, maintenance management software can improve all these processes, but that does not mean human capital can be neglected.
Nascif emphasizes that valuing the most talented engineers on the team is essential. The base of operators must also receive training to handle all basic maintenance and production operations.
It is also crucial to ensure that all departments in the plant understand the main functions of each area and how they interconnect.
This avoids the confusion that Nascif considers common in many industrial environments, where teams overlap and end up reducing production efficiency.
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