PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE STYLES AND TECHNIQUES: THE FUTURE OF MAINTENANCE IN MANUFACTURING

By: Scott Bahr

Everyone knows that in the world of manufacturing, there is a universally dreaded word: downtime. When a plant or facility experiences downtime, productivity suffers (or, worst case, stops altogether). Former smooth-flowing operations are disrupted, maintenance staff are forced to stop what they were doing to fix the issue, and depending on how long this takes, crucial deadlines can be missed. This leads to not only a loss of revenue but, perhaps worse, a tainted reputation for your company.

We all want to avoid these hiccups, which is why the manufacturing world is beginning to move away from the more traditional maintenance methods we’ve been relying on for decades (where you wait for a breakage or malfunction to occur and then fix it after the fact). So, where are we heading?

We are moving away from reactive approaches and heading toward preventive maintenance. The preventive approach does just as its name suggests by regularly inspecting equipment to catch any minor problems and immediately fixing them before any larger issues have time to develop. Ideally, a company’s equipment will then make it from one planned service to the next without experiencing any serious equipment or system failures.

HOW DOES PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE WORK?

Predictive maintenance leverages current and emerging technology, taking maintenance to the next level by reducing or eliminating unplanned downtime and unexpected failures and extending and maximizing the service life of components instead of prematurely replacing them. This is all done with the aid of networks of sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) applications

For example, there are currently many companies working with artificial intelligence, where they’ll find networks and sensors to predict the remaining service life and then be able to maximize it. So you’re not only eliminating that failure point early, but you’re waiting until the last possible second before pulling it out of service.

As part of their preventive maintenance strategy, companies also tend to rely on manufacturer data on a part’s repairs and breakdowns—information that, in theory, helps facilities managers to schedule maintenance before a failure. Think of it like reading up on a car whose manual says it operates best when having the oil changed at a certain amount of miles. Preventive maintenance schedules that oil change to occur right before the due date, ensuring you never run into problems. The same idea applies on a much grander scale in the world of manufacturing.

PREDICTIVE + PREVENTIVE = PROACTIVE

We have written before on the various types of maintenance approaches. As far as preventive maintenance is concerned, that approach specifically aims to keep parts in good repair yet does not go the step further that predictive maintenance does by actually factoring in data and intel regarding the state of a component or process.

While similar, there are clearly differences, and in an ideal world, predictive and preventive approaches would come together, acting in sync to influence the ultimate, proactive maintenance strategy. Proactive maintenance is typically characterized as maintenance that incorporates analytics to identify and alert a company to trends that might lead to a failure.

AN EXAMPLE OF PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE

Just to give you more of a picture of what predictive maintenance looks like in the real world, an excellent example is from one of our preferred vendors, ULMA Conveyor Components. ULMA’s Monitored Conveyor Roller system provides wireless monitoring, data collection, and graphical interpretation of the real-time condition of the rollers in the installed system, allowing for trouble conditions to be identified and acted on long before a failure would occur. This protects the valuable investment in belting the mine makes in the conveyor system, improving availability and reliability.

For more information about Bit Service and to learn how we can help you in your journey to maximize efficiency and productivity, contact us today.