Preventive maintenance in manufacturing explained: benefits and methods to get results

In manufacturing, every minute matters. Preventive maintenance (PM) is a proactive way to keep equipment healthy and avoid unplanned downtime by inspecting, cleaning, adjusting, and replacing parts on a schedule.

Instead of firefighting after breakdowns, PM lets you plan ahead, extend asset life, and keep performance consistent across shifts and lines.

Types of maintenance in manufacturing

Manufacturing processes heavily rely on machinery and equipment, and the way these assets are maintained greatly influences overall efficiency. There are three main types of maintenance practices in manufacturing:

1. Reactive Maintenance: This approach involves addressing issues only after equipment failures occur, leading to unplanned downtimes and productivity setbacks.
2. Preventive Maintenance: With preventive maintenance, equipment is regularly maintained on a schedule based on time, usage, or other relevant factors, reducing the likelihood of unexpected breakdowns.
3. Predictive Maintenance: This data-driven approach uses real-time information and preset parameters to predict when maintenance is required, allowing for precise scheduling and reduced downtime.

What is preventive maintenance?

Preventive maintenance (sometimes written as preventative maintenance) is about proactively maintaining equipment before failures occur, thereby preventing costly failures and downtime.

Instead of waiting for machines to break down, preventive maintenance involves timely inspections, adjustments, and repairs to help you get more out of your existing machines and not fight fires trying to repair vital equipment when it breaks.

Three common ways to plan preventive maintenance; calendar, runtime or cycle, and condition based.

Calendar-based preventive maintenance‍

Maintenance tasks are scheduled based on a fixed calendar timeline (days, weeks, months). While this is better than reactive maintenance, it might not always be the most efficient approach.

Trigger: Fixed dates (e.g., monthly)

Best for: Simple, low-criticality assets

Risk if used alone: Over- or under-servicing

Runtime or cycle-based preventive maintenance

Maintenance tasks are scheduled based on equipment usage (hours in use) or counted cycles (units produced, batches made). This approach, also called cycle-based maintenance, ensures that maintenance occurs in response to actual usage or wear, not arbitrary calendar dates. This approach relies on also having a solution that gives you live and accurate production data.

Trigger: Usage counts (units, hours)

Best for: Wear linked to throughput

Risk if used alone: Needs accurate live counts

Condition-based preventive maintenance

Condition-based preventive maintenance uses real-time signals from sensors or alarms (such as vibration, temperature, or pressure) to trigger service only when equipment shows early signs of wear or failure.

Trigger: Sensor thresholds/alarms

Best for: Early fault detection

Risk if used alone: Requires sensor setup & tuning

Factbird's approach

With Factbird you can schedule cycle-based PM directly from live production counts, and escalate repeated condition alarms into preventive tasks.

Here's an example of Calendar time and runtime based preventive maintenance work orders in Factbird:

As you can see, maintaining the condenser and evaporator coils is based on calendar time and the pump seals and joints plan is based on runtime.

Predictive maintenance vs preventive maintenance

Predictive maintenance and preventive maintenance are two distinct maintenance strategies that people often find confusing.

As described above, preventive maintenance involves scheduled routine checks and servicing of equipment based on predetermined time intervals or usage counts.

On the other hand, predictive maintenance detects subtle changes and anomalies, anticipating failures and recommending maintenance actions just in time, further optimizing resource allocation and minimizing disruption.

In short, preventive maintenance is a proactive, time-based strategy, whereas predictive maintenance is directly data-driven.

Benefits and drawbacks of preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is an effective, low-cost, and easy-to-implement process that reduces the chances of premature equipment failure in manufacturing.

Benefits:

1. Less unplanned downtime: By addressing potential issues before they lead to failures, preventive maintenance significantly reduces unplanned downtime for more continuous production.
2. Extended equipment life: Regular maintenance helps extend the useful lifespan of equipment, delaying the need for costly replacements and increasing ROI.
3. Relatively easy implementation: Preventive maintenance can be implemented without complex data analysis and expensive equipment, making it accessible to a wide range of manufacturing setups.
4. Increased profits: Improved efficiency, reduced downtime, and longer equipment lifespans should contribute to higher profits for manufacturers.

Learn how Royal Unibrew improved maintenance processes and increased line output by 14%: Read the case story.

Drawbacks:

1. Failures can still occur: Despite preventive measures, equipment failures can still happen due to unforeseen circumstances, human error, and hidden issues.
2. Unnecessary maintenance: Maintenance might occur too frequently, leading to the wastage of resources.
3. Risk of damage during maintenance: frequent servicing can sometimes harm adjacent parts or introduce new issues.

Operator-driven maintenance

As the manufacturing landscape evolves, so do maintenance practices. One notable trend is the shift towards operator-driven maintenance. Manufacturers are empowering their operators with proper training and tools to handle simple maintenance tasks, such as cleaning, that can be performed based on equipment usage counts. This not only frees up the maintenance team's capacity but also ensures that routine tasks are handled efficiently.

Operator-driven maintenance involves operators taking on tasks triggered by factors like product counts passing through a machine. For instance, an operator might clean a gluing station after a specific duration of operation or lubricate a filling machine after a certain number of products have been produced. This trend enables engineers and technicians to focus on more complex issues that require their specialized skills.

Moreover, there’s a broader trend towards up-skilling operators for preventive maintenance tasks. As preventive maintenance becomes operator-driven, predictive maintenance becomes the domain of engineers and technicians, who analyze data and set parameters for optimal performance.

Practical tips for operator driven maintenance:

• Assign simple PM tasks to operators with digital SOPs/checklists attached to the job.
• Trigger operator tasks by counts (e.g., lube after 40k units) instead of calendar time.
• Capture completion + timestamps for compliance trail automatically.
• Use downtime trends to prove the PM helped (e.g., stoppage X frequency ↓).

How to get started with preventive maintenance

In the competitive realm of manufacturing, every minute counts, and downtime can have a significant impact on your company's productivity and profitability.

Fortunately, implementing preventive maintenance doesn't have to be complicated. Plug-and-play solutions like Factbird's Preventive Maintenance Solutions offer a seamless way to integrate this strategy into your manufacturing process.

Here's an example of how to close the loop with data in Factbird:

1. Spot a recurring stop in downtime analytics or pick the critical asset where unplanned stops hurt the most.
2. Create a cycle-based preventive maintenance job or convert 1-2 jobs from calendar to cycles.
3. Attach a step-by-step operator/tech SOP using Digital Guidance.
4. Validate the effect by tracking changes in downtime frequency, availability, and OEE over 30-60 days.
5. If issues persist, add a sensor alarm or check video at the exact stop timestamp to refine the PM interval.

Would you like to know more? You can watch a guide on how Factbird's Connected Operations app helps teams deliver better maintenance outcomes here:

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The Preventive Maintenance features in Factbird let you focus on cycles (counts) as well as calendar time, making it versatile and powerful plug-and-play solution that harnesses live production data. Unlike traditional CMMS systems that require manual data entry or complex integrations, this approach streamlines the preventive maintenance process.