The preparation and implementation of a preventive maintenance plan reduces the number of unexpected production stoppages due to breakdowns or malfunctions, and thus improves the productivity of industrial companies.
Learn more in this article about:
- what preventive maintenance is
- what steps to take to create effective maintenance plans
- what tools will allow you to do this
Follow the guide to best manage your maintenance and schedule your tasks!
What is preventive maintenance?
The term “preventive maintenance” refers to all technical operations scheduled to anticipate equipment malfunctions. It is based on the following criteria :
- regulatory provisions which impose periodic inspections on certain machines or infrastructures to meet these standards;
- manufacturers’ recommendations, which are important to be able to apply the guarantee or quality assurance in the event of a breakdown;
- observations during use, on the technical behaviour of equipment (via reports) and on feedback from users.
Prerequisites for preventive maintenance plans
Before setting up a maintenance plan, it is important to respect certain pre-requisites.
Determine the scope of intervention
First of all, it is necessary to specify the scope(s) of intervention, in particular to distinguish the systems or subsystems concerned. To do this, three approaches must be favoured: taking an interest in the regulatory provisions, taking into account what the machine manufacturer recommends, and studying the past behaviour of equipment, both technically and through feedback from users.
Selecting the maintenance levels to be applied
There are generally three levels of maintenance: systematic, condition-based and predictive.
The first is to determine a regular maintenance plan, with the replacement of parts according to a schedule based on their foreseeable lifespan.
The second is based on monitoring equipment and observing certain parameters which, if they reach a certain value, trigger a maintenance operation.
The third, also called predictive maintenance, is based, according to AFNOR (Association Française de NORmalisation, French Standardization Association), “on forecasts extrapolated from the analysis and evaluation of significant parameters of the deterioration of an asset” (NF EN 13306 X 60-319). This makes it possible to define for each piece of equipment the maintenance operations that apply, the monitoring parameters, the reference values and alarm thresholds, the monitoring or replacement frequency, the types of intervening parties and the material resources to be implemented.
Read also: Maintenance levels: 5 corrective and preventive levels to know
5 steps to follow to develop effective preventive maintenance plans
Here are the 5 general steps to follow to develop effective maintenance plans:
- define the preventive operations to be carried out, according to what the manufacturer recommends, the regulations and the behaviour of the equipment;
- define the systematic maintenance operations: periodicity, material and human resources, operating process, chronology…
- define the conditional and predictive maintenance operations: parameters, alarm thresholds, data acquisition mode, periodicity…
- to draw up a preventive maintenance file gathering all the information, action plans and interventions carried out;
- determine the optimal workload.
In order to apply all these principles, it is essential to have the appropriate tools.
The CMMS, an essential tool for preventive maintenance
A CMMS software is an indispensable tool for setting up a quality preventive maintenance plan.
Choosing the best CMMS solution
There are many CMMS software packages available. However, “conventional” solutions are generally expensive and time-consuming to install and use. They require a significant investment both in terms of purchase and training costs for future users.
Read also: CMMS: our guide to best adopt your new tool
In recent years, next-gen solutions such as Mobility Work have emerged. This type of platform improves daily maintenance routines thanks to an ergonomic user-centric interface, mobile use, calendars and alarms, simplified document management, etc.
Teams organise their working day thanks to the calendar of their maintenance management platform.
Preparing a maintenance plan on a CMMS 4.0 application
To create a scheduled maintenance plan, you must :
- Select the type of event to be created (weekly, monthly, yearly);
- choose the periodicity;
- choose the number of repetitions;
- select the equipment(s) to which this planning will apply;
- select the operators who will carry out the maintenance operations;
- add keywords, in order to optimize the analysis of the maintenance plan and to provide information to the users;
- determine the deadline;
- determine the expected machine downtime;
- determine the expected time of intervention, in order to warn production managers of the potential machine downtime;
- add documentation, which will be available for review at each operation.
The conditions of efficiency of industrial maintenance plans
For an industrial maintenance plan to be efficient, three main conditions must be met.
Technical and monitoring elements
On the one hand, it is also important that the technical documentation provided by the manufacturer is easily accessible to all operators likely to work on a machine, which happens to be really easy when using a next-gen CMMS solution. Indeed, all document formats can be downloaded into the application and remain available from any connected mobile device (smartphone, tablet, …).
On the other hand, surveillance means must be set up: sensors, vibration sensors, cameras, etc. With CMMS 4.0, it is possible to connect these with the application to facilitate the analysis of the data they provide. In addition, a QR code can be installed on each piece of equipment to allow very quick identification.
Fluid communication
It is essential that communication between the various people involved is sufficiently fluid, particularly between technicians, maintenance managers and the manufacturer’s teams.
Thanks to Mobility Work’s social network-inspired community and integrated messaging, this requirement is easy to meet. A community can thus be created and configured for each maintenance plan, allowing very fluid communication between all the employees involved in this plan.
A favorable organizational context
The existence of a favourable organizational context is fundamental. Each maintenance plan must always be up to date, and the company’s organisation, including precise procedures and a sufficient degree of formalism, must facilitate its execution.
To achieve this, the adhesion of all teams to the CMMS tool used is crucial. Having a tool that is intuitive and as easy to use as everyday applications can considerably help to win this support and foster the full involvement of teams.
It is therefore clear that the implementation of effective industrial maintenance plans depends on many parameters. In addition to the essential prerequisites, it is important to respect certain steps, but also to use a next-genand adapted CMMS tool that will enable all the conditions favorable to the effectiveness of preventive maintenance to be met.
