As advancements in technology are rapidly increasing, so do the reasons for a good maintenance strategy in a smart business model. Choosing the right maintenance plan is crucial for any business to ascertain the cost of failure and ease of monitoring that asset. A good maintenance management strategy not only impacts the efficiency of your operations but also your bottom line.
Many organizations and maintenance managers struggle to find the right maintenance management strategy for their operations. Finding the balance between multiple maintenance plans and implementing them properly is the key to reducing maintenance and controlling costs. There are several maintenance strategies to choose from which we will discuss here, and guide you on how to select the one that best aligns with your business needs.
What is a maintenance strategy?
Maintenance activities are performed for replacing or repairing equipment and systems before or after their failure. A maintenance strategy is a plan implemented to ascertain the order and type of action to be performed for the equipment to function properly. A maintenance management strategy can be scheduled and applied to as many work orders and tasks as needed.
There are two general categories of maintenance:
- Risk-based maintenance
- Reliability centered maintenance
Risk-based maintenance is focused on allocating maintenance resources to assets that carry the most risk if they fail. In this case, risk associated with each asset is accessed and steps are taken to reduce the risk of failure.
Reliability-centered maintenance focuses on maintenance plans to keep a safe minimum level of asset upkeep. It is done to match every asset with the right maintenance strategy, rendering the most cost-effective result.
5 Different Types of Maintenance Strategies
1. Reactive (run-to-failure) maintenance
This is the simplest maintenance management strategy type where the maintenance team does the repair work after an asset has broken down. For example, changing a light bulb or repairing a ceiling fan. This maintenance management plan can only be applied to small assets which will not affect the operations if broken.
2. Preventive (proactive) maintenance
This maintenance planning type is used very commonly by organizations and involves scheduling inspections for assets (machinery or systems) from time to time basis. The purpose of this maintenance plan is to prevent the asset from breaking down and extending its life span.
3. Predictive maintenance
This is a condition-based approach to maintenance where the maintenance managers get warnings about when an equipment failure might occur. It focuses on predicting the future when you will be required to service your equipment. Some examples are vibration analysis, acoustic analysis, etc.
4. Condition based maintenance
This maintenance plan analyzes the actual condition of the asset to predict when an asset might break down or cause failure. CBM is mostly done when certain indicators show a decline in the performance of an asset or an impending failure.
5. Reliability centered maintenance
This maintenance strategy type is a method of breaking down different maintenance plans to identify which one will work the best for each asset or equipment. It is a highly complex method that takes into account all the possible failure outcomes and creates a custom strategy for individual machinery.
How to Choose the Right Maintenance Strategy for Businesses?
Selecting a maintenance plan is not simple as different assets function in different ways. So it is important to handle each component very carefully and with a strategy that suits it.
Here are the steps to choose a maintenance management strategy for your equipment:
Step 1: Cost of equipment failure
One of the costs associated with equipment failure is equipment downtime. The longer the equipment is not functioning, the more it will cost, especially if the equipment is essential for running your operations. Apart from this, repair costs, safety, and environmental impacts must also be considered.
Step 2: Ease of monitoring
There is a cost associated with watching over an asset, which is another element one must look at while choosing a maintenance plan. If watching over the asset would cost more than that of the failure mode it prevents, then it is better not to implement the strategy. When monitoring is costlier, it is better to opt for an effective maintenance tactic that needs less vigilance, such as a preventive maintenance plan.
Step 3: Assess the cost of maintenance strategies
Once you have a clear idea of which asset will incur more cost upon failure or monitoring, it is time to ascertain an effective maintenance tactic for individual assets. Usually, the more observation (monitoring) intensive a strategy is, the more it will cost.
Here are the common strategies ranked from high to low in terms of incurring cost:
- Predictive maintenance (highest cost)
- Conditioned-based maintenance
- Scheduled preventive maintenance
- Run-to-failure maintenance (lowest cost)
Step 4: Choose a maintenance management strategy
With the cost of maintenance and the cost of failure in hand, it is now time to decide on the right maintenance plan for your equipment. As there is no single best maintenance plan for all assets under every situation, several factors such as failure modes, nature of the asset, operational requirement, cost-benefit analysis, company culture, etc. are considered. An asset can have more than one maintenance strategy type depending on the need.
Remember that many industries have some legal requirements to follow on how to manage their assets. If any such law persists, the organization will have to comply with the laws of maintenance.
Step 5: Implement the maintenance plan
Now that the maintenance tactic has been selected, it is time to execute the plan and make the necessary changes. Adopting a new maintenance plan can be a major shift for the maintenance team, which might need some planning.
Regular monitoring, training for the personnel, improvement, and adjustments to the new way of maintenance will be required for the effective execution of the maintenance planning.
Step 6: Monitoring and reviewing performance
Just choosing and implementing the maintenance planning is not sufficient. Organizations need to review the equipment and strategy performance continuously and make necessary adjustments as and when required.
Using a CMMS to enter data about work orders and costs and monitoring the downtime makes the task simpler. Ensure that the maintenance staff is properly trained and constant improvement is done to adapt to the changes in technology or business needs.
Summing Up
Ultimately, there is no single approach to choosing the best maintenance management strategy for an equipment or business. Every strategy must be evaluated based on cost, risk, failure, and the organization's maintenance culture to be implemented. The best strategy would be to go for the maintenance plan that suits the current situation best and will be easy to implement.
