How predictive maintenance techniques outperform any preventive action

Predictive maintenance techniques can help to fix a problem very well before it happens. This needs to be clear, because plants that perform time-based maintenance generally spend more money per year than those that use predictive maintenance techniques. Blind scheduling of repairs means that you are probably paying for an unnecessary repair of a machine in good condition.

The most common unnecessary repair is where components are replaced after many hours of service. In plants, bearings that are in absolutely good condition are replaced simply because they have been in use for a set period of time; this is a waste of money and maintenance resources that can be solved with the implementation of a predictive maintenance techniques as the vibration analysis, the alignment of machine shafts or oil analysis. There are plants where equipment is stopped and exchanged for spare parts just because a calendar says it's time to do it.

It is not a good idea to make substitutions and subsequent shutdowns without justification. You are tied to maintenance personnel and their impact on production; moreover, an electric motor constantly starting and stopping induces electrical faults. Why run the risk of performing maintenance shutdowns without being certain that the equipment actually needs it?

This is when the time-based maintenance programme becomes a reactive maintenance programme. Now you see even higher costs; you may need to bring in maintenance personnel from other areas; you may need to pay extra time or a premium to a supplier for making an emergency call; and you may need to expedite the shipment of a spare part. There are countless ways for costs to increase in this situation.

By avoiding time-based maintenance and working when the analysis from the application of predictive maintenance techniques indicates it, plants typically save 16 to 20 times the cost of the monitoring programme itself.

Increasingly, a growing number of facilities are improving uptime and productivity while simultaneously reducing maintenance costs; they are doing this by removing the concept of preventive (time-based) maintenance in favour of preventive (just-in-time) maintenance.

Shift towards a programme of predictive maintenance techniques and get management to approve the necessary budget for a routine maintenance programme. condition monitoring should be one of the main objectives of the new industrial maintenance management.

To find out more about predictive maintenance techniques, we invite you to review how misalignment influences the energy consumption of laser equipmentas well as to subscribe to our newsletterThe newsletter will provide you with the best practices to achieve positive results within your plant.