Preventive maintenance management is essential when planning the maintenance of a company’s equipment, as it avoids major downtime in production and, consequently, waste of money. In addition, it is an essential item when it comes to safety and conservation of these essential tools in a factory.

In summary, the process aims to avoid machine failures and breakages during operation. It is a set of applied actions that seek to avoid the costs of purchasing new equipment. In addition, preventive maintenance helps to optimize expenses with corrective maintenance on equipment.

However, it does not recover equipment from failures, but rather prevents it from occurring during operation, also avoiding risks and wear on equipment. Thus, maintenance is carried out through periodic reviews of the parts and components of the operation.

According to the NBR-5462, maintenance is performed at predetermined intervals and corresponds to three types: corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance. What differentiates one from the other is the type of strategy adopted to keep the equipment available and safe.

The difference between preventive and predictive maintenance

Always keeping preventive and predictive maintenance up to date is a constant challenge for managers. In fact, a standstill equipment represents many costs of replacing parts, in addition to the loss of time with the interruption of production.

On the one hand, corrective maintenance consists of the immediate resolution of a problem caused by equipment, often unscheduled, which can cause enormous damage to the business. Corrective maintenance management is what ensures that unforeseen high costs are avoided.

On the other hand, preventive maintenance has the role of monitoring and controlling possible failures that occur in the performance of machines and equipment. This type of action is always planned and carried out periodically, within an operating schedule stipulated in the management of corrective maintenance. Generally, the manufacturer advises on the appropriate time for each equipment supervision to be done. This strategy is carried out regardless of whether the damages are presented or not.

Predictive maintenance is very similar to preventive maintenance. The difference is in the process of systematic inspection and compliance with the change in performance conditions and equipment parameters. That is, the action takes into account the analysis of the operation of the machines and equipment, without being scheduled in any schedule. When the monitoring professional identifies any performance problem, the planned corrective prevention is performed.

Types of preventive maintenance

There are many types of maintenance, however, with well-designed preventive maintenance management, two categories are regularly used: time-based preventive maintenance and usage-based preventive maintenance.

Time-based preventive maintenance

This type of maintenance consists of repairing or replacing parts of a machine or equipment based on a fixed interval of time. Regardless of whether the machine is working or not, the exchange is carried out, aiming to guarantee the safety and the proper functioning of the equipment without jeopardizing the production and the work flow in case of stoppage.

Preventive use-based maintenance

Usage-based preventive maintenance is performed after a specified number of hours of use, production cycles or mileage. For example, every 200 cycles or 15 thousand hours of use, maintenance is performed as a way to also avoid an unexpected stop in production to perform corrective maintenance on an emergency basis.

Or, in a more practical way in our day-to-day, the factory recommends that a car is revised every 10,000 kilometers, regardless of whether it has flaws or not, for example.

How to carry out maintenance management effectively

Even with the efficiency of the maintenance processes in correcting any problem in the equipment or machines as quickly as possible, there is a need for more efficiency in keeping everything running smoothly. Companies that do not work with good maintenance management, end up only putting out fires, worrying only when the equipment or the machine is already damaged.

This causes an even greater cost, in addition to delays in the production process. Therefore, numerous tools have emerged that contribute to the best maintenance results. As we have already mentioned, it is essential that preventive maintenance management be carried out, so that everything is properly planned.

This avoids unnecessary or urgent downtime for parts replacement or maintenance. This planning also avoids unforeseen events and wasted time. But what is the best way to manage effectively? Check out the tips we’ve separated below.

Define the best type of maintenance to be performed

First of all, it is very important that a diagnosis related to the structure and needs of a company is prepared to choose the best type of maintenance to be applied. Generally, the most used options are predictive or preventive maintenance. In addition, there may also be a plan in which the two types are carried out together.

The diagnosis can be made with the help of a service provider company specialized in this type of analysis. Business managers and owners should also participate, ensuring that the best alternatives are defined based on the context of the company.

Perform due control of maintenance costs

Managing maintenance costs is essential for any organization, especially in such a competitive market, in which managers seek more efficiency in production with ever lower expenses. Budget optimization is a differential that guarantees lower product prices.

Therefore, it is essential that maintenance be able to measure its costs through the management of preventive maintenance. In fact, maintenance plays a fundamental role in raising all costs through programmed planning, outsourced labor records and control of basic operating expenses, such as parts and own labor.

In order for the plan to be managed effectively, it is important to get rid of the countless spreadsheets used so far, and migrate to software that does this management automatically. The systems available on the market are capable of managing investments made at each stage, from scheduling maintenance to purchasing parts and services used.
With this process it is possible to optimize and monitor from the costs of the simplest to the most complex activities, even allowing for future visibility of maintenance expenses.

Analyze maintenance performance

Every good preventive maintenance management has a constant performance analysis. In other words, there is no point in wasting time planning if the effectiveness of the plan is not being guaranteed. Este tipo de análise garante que o plano seja revisado caso algo não esteja funcionando corretamente dentro do cronograma de atividades. But how to make this measurement?

The analysis can be done by extracting data based on the information collected by the technicians who perform the maintenance. The most important indicators are related to the asset’s real costs and the decision-making power that these data can allow.

For the indicators to be implemented, it is necessary to have a system for collecting and dealing with the data. These numbers can be tracked using the maintenance software. With the system, the indicators will be generated automatically and efficiently.

Plan preventive and predictive maintenance

Planning preventive and predictive maintenance is the basis of all effective management, as it reduces and prevents the breakdown of equipment and machines. However, drawing up a plan is a major challenge for professionals working in this area. In this case, as we mentioned earlier, software is very useful and helps to optimize preventive maintenance management.

There is a great difficulty in tracking maintenance data manually, since they are activated after a certain period or use in many critical equipment, making this monitoring difficult. A maintenance system is able to create a service order, based on appropriate triggers for each registered equipment.

Use maintenance process management systems

New technological tools can be essential for good planning. It is not new that there are several software specialized in the management of preventive maintenance. The solutions are focused on improving the operational efficiency of the industry. In fact, they are very effective in control and planning and allow easy integration with other systems such as ERP.

With a system it is possible to:

● Gather data;
● Issue alerts;
● Plan services;
● Create event history;
● Ensure greater stability;
● Higher productivity at the factory;
● Security in accessing information;
● Reduction of administrative and operational costs;
● Faster and more organized processes, also generating improvements in the flow of information. Faster Traduções de faster AdvérbioFrequência mais rápido faster mais depressa faster Sinônimos de faster Advérbio quicker Veja também fast

Control inventory and tools

A good preventive maintenance management has all the control of stock and tools used in the process. In fact, this means that problems can be corrected instantly, avoiding long stops if the tools are not available in stock.

With this control, it is also possible to easily find the location of each part required for maintenance. On the other hand, knowing which parts are available, what quantity is available and where they are located, optimizes time, reduces costs and increases productivity.

Therefore, it is important that a thorough check is made, with records of the date of withdrawal and return of each item used. This control can be done using a term of responsibility signed by each person who uses the tools or removes the parts.

Advantages of preventive maintenance management

Many managers do not understand the importance of a process and the real need for it for the proper functioning of the business or the production of an industry. Therefore, we list the main benefits of having a well planned maintenance management.

Production optimization

A poorly organized maintenance plan can interrupt processes and delay production, causing losses to the business. For this reason, good planning is essential for maintenance to happen with a schedule to stop the equipment. In addition, it is important to define the need for employees working on this process, ensuring that the company loses less money while investing in unnecessary time.

Compliance with laws and regulations

It is very important that the maintenance manager is aware of all laws and regulations that permeate this type of process, because if there is inspection during maintenance and the work does not comply with safety laws, the company may be fined.

Control of expenses

With preventive maintenance management, it is possible to keep under control all expenses generated with the maintenance of machines and equipment. Good planning also ensures that the budget defined for this area is better used, since the maintenance manager can decide on the supplier with the best cost benefit.

Scheduling tasks

An efficient planning works with the scheduling of tasks well defined in the schedule. However, it is necessary to know and understand the relative priority of equipment and machines.

Waste reduction

With a good preventive maintenance plan, it is possible to reduce a lot of waste in a factory, such as labor, time and materials. If the activities are not planned through the implementation of systematic procedures, there will certainly be a lot of waste of maintenance time. In addition, production will also not need to be stopped at a time that is in full swing, simply to perform maintenance that may not have been necessary at that time.

Now that you know the benefits and the importance of conducting preventive maintenance management effectively, how about starting to plan for your company? Get in touch with Nalbatech and find out how we can help you!