What is preventive maintenance?
When we talk about preventive maintenance, we refer to the maintenance that focuses on guaranteeing the proper functioning and condition of the work machinery, through a plan that prevents breakdowns from occurring.
It is the task of systematically reviewing and inspecting (carried out by hours of operation or by periods of time) the equipment used in the work process, whether mechanical, electrical or computerized, with the aim of avoiding failures due to their use, wear or passage of time.
Differences between preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance
As we mentioned before, preventive maintenance aims to prevent equipment breakdowns through routine checks. It must be carried out on equipment whose malfunction generates an impact on the production chain, affecting the product or service that is carried out and the continuity of the business.
In contrast, corrective maintenance is carried out when the failure of the equipment has already occurred and focuses on solving the problem. It must be solved to re-incorporate the equipment into the productive cycle of the organization.
There is a link between preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance. The more you invest in preventive maintenance, the less you should invest in corrective maintenance.
Who is responsible for performing preventive maintenance?
All maintenance, especially preventive, must be carried out by qualified personnel to carry out the inspection. Many times, the qualified personnel can be the same personnel of your organization for simple maintenance, such as checking the degree of lubrication of machinery. Other times, where maintenance is more delicate, you will have to ask an external provider for help.
You will find the maintenance times and the minimum tasks that must be carried out on each piece of equipment in the corresponding manufacturing manual. The maintenance indicated by the manufacturers is the beginning, then you can establish stricter maintenance and also control other aspects of the equipment.
How to control them?
You can run inspections for preventative maintenance using our software, Full Audits, to identify opportunities for improvement. You can assign responsibilities and deadlines to solve the faults found in the equipment.
We invite you to try a free demo so you can work integrating your entire team, saving time and consolidating information on a single platform.
Steps to perform preventive maintenance in your organization
- Objective planning: The improvement that maintenance should provide must be quantified.
- Budget: We will have to establish the cost of maintenance. It must be calculated from the estimated number of new components to the labor that will be needed to carry out the maintenance of all the equipment.
- Previous maintenance: We must keep in mind the documents that verify the maintenance carried out previously. They must include the date on which they were carried out, the person responsible for the task and what was carried out in each team. If this is the first maintenance to be performed, this step should be skipped.
- Consult the technical manuals: Before carrying out maintenance, the factory technical manual of each machinery must be carefully reviewed in order to follow the steps recommended by the manufacturer.
- Selection of the maintenance type: There are three types of preventive maintenance that we can carry out in our organization:
- Scheduled maintenance: it is carried out every certain number of operating hours of the equipment.
- Predictive maintenance: it is carried out at the end of the contemplated stage of maximum use of the equipment.
- Opportunity maintenance: it is carried out when the equipment is not being used, thus avoiding cuts in the production system.
6. Selection of the person in charge: The person in charge of carrying out the chosen maintenance should be considered, it is recommended that it always be the same so that they are familiar with the equipment. 7. Follow-up: We must have a guide to carry out the follow-up and be able to have the dates and those responsible for each maintenance recorded.
Advantages of performing preventive maintenance
The main advantages of having a preventive maintenance plan in your organization are:
- Decrease in the frequency of failures;
- Avoid the most serious and costly breakdowns.
- Reduced equipment downtime;
- Higher productivity;
- Improve job security;
- Increased useful life of the equipment;
- Reduction of the maintenance budget.
Now that you know all the benefits and steps of maintenance, we invite you to visit our library of preventive, predictive and corrective maintenance checklists, so you can start your checklist to guarantee the operability of your organization.