Improving an industrial preventive maintenance process can be a daunting task. Existing PM processes have often developed continuously over many years.
The current preventive maintenance process may therefore be hard to organize and analyze.
Where does one start to improving an existing PM process?
The PM tasks are often divided by department in any given plant. There may be a PM “list” for Instrumentation, one for operations, one for mechanical maintenance, lubrication, electrical maintenance, etc.
Figure 1. Existing PM’s are often done by each department in a plant, independent from each other.
In improving industrial preventive maintenance it is important to start by looking at what the equipment need, not how much time each department have, or what each department want to do.
For example; if we list the inspections and PM needed for an AC Motor, it may look something like this:
Motor AC PM
On-The-Run Inspection: Air Intake. Temperature. Noise, Vibration. Bolts. Base. Foundation. Electrical. Detailed Cleaning.
On-The-Run PM: If the bearings are supposed to be greased, grease them.
Off-Line Shutdown Inspections/ PM: Clean Motor if needed, if motor is critical do a winding test (e.g. Baker)
Once WHAT needs to be done is documented, each PM needs to be assign to the job function or department, for example:
Operations: Air Intake. Temperature. Noise, Vibration. Bolts. Base. Foundation. Electrical. Detailed Cleaning, lubrication – using vibration pen and temperature gun
Vibration: Vibration analysis
E/I: Winding test and clean motor when down.
If the industrial preventive maintenance process is set up correctly, your updated PM avoids overlap in tasks and will be more cost effective:
Figure 2. Updated, cost effective PM process
For more information on IDCON’s Industrial Preventive Maintenance consulting and Training.