All companies in all industries perform maintenance. The scope of maintenance tasks varies depending on company type and size. It could be, for example, a supply, production, or facility management company.
A maintenance strategy ensures optimal planning, execution, and follow-up on maintenance. The maintenance strategy you choose plays a crucial role in how and when maintenance takes place.
Regardless of which maintenance strategy you choose, a maintenance program will structure and ensure that your company operates optimally, avoiding downtime. The system also creates an overview and helps you combine different strategies while collecting data and history on your maintenance.
Which advantages does a Maintenance Strategy offer?
A maintenance strategy is unavoidable, but the question is which strategies are chosen for your specific company?
Consider your company’s needs and the resources available before establishing a strategy.
When implemented correctly, all strategies come with a range of general benefits:
- Extension of equipment lifespan
- Fewer breakdowns
- Increased workplace safety
- Operational savings
- Better planning and resource allocation
Extension of Equipment Lifespan: With routine inspections as well as cleaning and replacing worn parts, you can keep machines in optimal condition longer, thus avoiding critical breakdowns.
Fewer Breakdowns: An effective maintenance strategy can identify potential problems before they develop into serious defects. This minimizes the risk of unexpected downtime.
Increased Workplace Safty: Correct maintenance of machines and equipment increases reliability and safety, thereby reducing the risk of accidents and injuries in the workplace.
Operational Savings: Although maintenance requires an investment in both time and resources, it leads to significant cost savings in the long run by preventing major operational stoppages and expensive repairs.
Better Planning and Resource Allocation: Effective planning reduces operational disruptions and optimizes workforce efficiency. This includes scheduling maintenance activities outside of peak periods and ensuring necessary spare parts and tools are available.
What are the 4 typical Maintenance Strategies?
There are many approaches to maintenance, but we typically see four recurring strategies in maintenance:
- Corrective Maintenance
- Preventive Maintenance
- Condition Based Maintenance
- Predictive Maintenance
It can be advantageous to use one or more maintenance strategies to work with the most comprehensive plan. By integrating the four maintenance strategies in INEXTIA, you achieve comprehensive and effective maintenance management that ensures optimal performance and reliability of your equipment and facilities.
What is Corrective Maintenance?
Corrective maintenance is performed after a defect, damage, or breakdown has occurred in a machine or a piece of equipment. This approach involves repairing or replacing defective parts to restore its normal function.
Corrective Maintenance is also known as Reactive Maintenance
The prioritization of corrective maintenance as a strategy depends on what the breakdown will mean for operations. For low-critical equipment, corrective maintenance may have the lowest costs and be resource-saving. For critical equipment, this strategy can be a safety risk and have much higher long-term costs.
What are the advantages of Corrective Maintenance?
Corrective maintenance is the strategy that requires the least planning since maintenance is only performed when a defect occurs. It can be more cost-effective as it frees up resources that can be used for other tasks. To avoid higher costs with corrective maintenance, it is important to manage your spare parts inventory well. This way, downtime can be kept short as you can handle the repair immediately.
How do you learn from Corrective Maintenance?
When corrective maintenance occurs, a one-time job can be created in the maintenance system. A description of the defect is added to the job and attached to the component. With the INEXTIA app or Mobile Layout , you can attach pictures of the defect and set an end date depending on how critical the defect is.
By using one-time jobs to record your corrective maintenance, you create a data history for the component that can, over time, show if you are experiencing many defects and therefore need to establish some planned maintenance for it. This history can then be used in the future, for example, for preventive maintenance.
See how you use jobs in INEXTIA for Corrective Maintenance:
What is Preventive Maintenance?
Preventive maintenance is performed by scheduling maintenance so that it has the least impact on operations. This can be planned with either a calendar or a counter frequency — or a combination of both.
Maintenance involves regular lubrication, cleaning, repairs, replacement of spare parts, inspections, and overhauls of machines and equipment to minimize the risk of breakdowns.
What are the advantages of Preventive Maintenance?
Preventive maintenance keeps machines running longer by servicing them regularly, which reduces the risk of breakdowns and delays. It provides better control and planning of your maintenance activities and supports maintenance since it is predetermined, eliminating additional planning or waiting time. Furthermore, it contributes to a safer workplace by minimizing the risk of accidents caused by defective machines.
How to plan your Preventive Maintenance routines
With a maintenance system, you can create an overview of maintenance tasks. Planning preventive maintenance in INEXTIA is done with a frequency that can be defined using a calendar frequency, a counter frequency, or a combination of both.
Calendar Frequency is a regular recurring period, such as daily, weekly, monthly, annually, etc., which is set up for the specific equipment or facility in INEXTIA.
Counter Frequency is machine-based, where a counter defines the frequency of maintenance on the equipment or facility in INEXTIA. It can be determined by running time in operating hours, operations, meters, etc.
A combination can also be used, such as defining “once a year or every 5000 hours”. This way, a maintenance job is created based on whichever frequency occurs first.
Learn more about how to work with job frequencies in INEXTIA:
What is Condition Based Maintenance?
Condition based maintenance is performed based on minimum and maximum indicators. These indicators can include temperature, vibration, sound frequencies, etc., which can demonstrate the condition of the machine. Therefore, companies often need to collect real-time data from their machines.
For example, if the temperature exceeds the maximum value, a job is triggered within the maintenance system that indicates the machine’s condition and whether maintenance is needed. It is important to be specific when setting up the indicators, as the strategy will not function optimally otherwise.
Condition Based Maintenance.
What are the advantages of Condition Based maintenance?
Condition-based maintenance is a time-saving maintenance strategy where frequent repairs are avoided because the condition of the machines is monitored in real time. It is about being proactive before defects.
By making condition-based maintenance a routine, more resources are freed up and can be allocated as needed.
Another advantage of condition-based maintenance is that the lifespan of the machines is extended. This results in solving problems just before they occur, preventing minor issues from developing.
How do you set up Condition Based Maintenance?
You can create measurements in a maintenance system that notify you when the limit value has been reached. In INEXTIA, this is set up under our measurements. When using measurement, you select which parameters you want to measure, such as temperature. If the temperature exceeds the set threshold, a job is automatically created in the job list.
What is Predictive Maintenance?
Predictive maintenance is the most advanced maintenance strategy. It uses historical and real-time data from various parts of the operation to identify potential equipment failures and enable repairs before any breakdowns occur.
With the help of sensors and monitoring routines, data is collected to predict when maintenance should next be performed. Typically, the machine does not show any external signs of failure at the maintenance time, but based on the collected data, it is predicted that it will have a real need for maintenance shortly. This plays a significant role in preventing machines from suddenly breaking down while not wasting resources on unnecessary maintenance.
Predictive maintenance
What are the advantages of Predictive Maintenance?
Data analysis provides the advantage of predicting failures before they occur, which means equipment is only shut down just before an imminent failure. This reduces both downtime and costs associated with it.
Predictive maintenance is an efficient maintenance process, especially when you have good control over your spare parts inventory and access to the right tools. Another advantage is that the lifespan of the machines is extended since solving problems before they occur allows for timely repairs, preventing major damage or failures to the equipment.
When is Predictive Maintenance relevant?
Predictive maintenance is particularly relevant for utility industries that contribute to infrastructure and production facilities that operate 24/7. Here, unexpected breakdowns and production stops can have significant consequences, both short and long-term.
By using predictive maintenance, downtime can be planned to be as short as possible by monitoring daily operations.
With INEXTIAs API jobs can be created from your third-party system that analyzes the data and calculates when maintenance should be performed.
When should predictive maintenance be used over Condition Based Maintenance?
There is a significant difference between the two strategies, even though they use the same data history. Condition based maintenance uses set conditions or thresholds to determine when maintenance should be performed, whereas predictive maintenance aims to predict future maintenance needs based on the machine’s condition and performance.
Both strategies depend on data from your maintenance system as it forms the basis for the indicators.
Condition Based Maintenance:
- Can be both data-driven and determined by humans.
- Reacts immediately to problems or defects
- May result in over-servicing of machines.
- Rules are typically static.
Predictive Maintenance:
- Defined by data.
- Predicts future problems and failures.
- Used for just-in-time maintenance.
- Dynamic decision rules.
Summary of the 4 Maintenance Strategies
It can be challenging to keep track of the 4 maintenance strategies, so we have compiled the key points from each strategy.
Corrective Maintenance
- Reactive Approach: Performed after a defect or breakdown has occurred to restore the equipment’s functionality.
- Urgent Repairs: Requires quick interventions to minimize downtime and production loss.
- Unpredictable Costs: Costs can be high and unpredictable, depending on the severity of the defects and future consequences.
- Simple: Requires less planning and resource allocation until a breakdown occurs, making it a straightforward—but potentially risky—strategy.
Preventive Maintenance
- Scheduled Tasks: Regular inspections and maintenance activities are carried out to prevent potential defects.
- Low Planning: Supervision of machines happens on a regular basis, and staffing is already allocated to the maintenance task.
- Predictable Costs: Reduces the risk of major and costly repairs by addressing issues early.
- Improved Equipment Lifespan: Regular maintenance helps to extend the equipment’s lifespan and optimize its performance.
Condition Based Maintenance
- Real-Time Data: Utilizes sensors and monitoring systems to continuously assess the equipment’s condition.
- Full Control: Own set conditions or limits for when maintenance should be performed based on the indicated data.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces maintenance costs by only performing necessary repairs when the need arises.
- Reduced Downtime: Prevents major defects and breakdowns by addressing issues just before they are expected to occur.
Predictive Maintenance
- Proactive Approach: Uses technologies like machine learning and data analysis to predict when future maintenance needs will arise.
- Real-Time Monitoring: Integrates sensors and IoT devices to continuously collect data on the machines’ condition and performance.
- Optimized Downtime: Maintenance is carried out based on data-driven predictions, minimizing unnecessary maintenance and reducing the risk of unexpected breakdowns.
- Optimized Resource Use: Extends the lifespan of equipment and reduces operational costs by performing maintenance exactly when it is needed.
Maintenance strategies are crucial for ensuring reliable, efficient, and safe production operations. By implementing the right strategy, your company can achieve significant savings and extend the lifespan of equipment.
Would you like to learn more about how INEXTIA can help optimize your maintenance?
Contact us today and explore the advantages with our maintenance system.
