Maintworld 1/2019

ASSET MANAGEMEMT
when required and it brings several cost
savings by:
• minimizing the time, the equipment
is being maintained,
• minimizing production hours lost
to maintenance and
• minimizing cost for spare parts
and supplies.
However, many of the condition-monitoring
techniques still remain expensive
and require additional workforce.
4. Reliability-Centered
Maintenance
The reliability-centered maintenance
approach is a corporate-level maintenance
strategy aiming at optimizing the
maintenance program of a company or
facility by maintaining the function of
the system and recognizing the failure
that affects the function of the system.
The result of a successful RCM program
is the definition and implementation of
a specific maintenance strategy on the
most critical assets of the facility. Costeffective
maintenance techniques can be
thus identified and later on adopted to
improve the reliability of the facility as a
whole.
And even though RCM (reliabilitycentered
maintenance) does not really
consider additional costs of ownership,
implementing it undoubtedly increases
equipment availability, and reduces
maintenance and resource costs.
5. Prescriptive Maintenance
Prescriptive analytics are at the heart
of prescriptive maintenance, which is
for now the last level in the evolution of
all known maintenance routines. Compared
to predictive practices, instead
of only predicting a failure, predictive
maintenance is “prescribing” an outcome-focused
behaviour for operations
and maintenance based on the prescriptive
analytics. It is important to mention
that this type of maintenance is still in
its infancy but many ingenious business
owners are considering its potential to
become the next big thing in reliability
and maintenance best practice.
However, even for organizations with
well-established predictive maintenance
routines, the leap towards prescriptive
programs may still be difficult mainly
because of the cost for new hardware
and software and workforce, regulations
on specific machines, the company’s
culture and the management’s long-held
beliefs.
Which maintenance strategy to choose?
Here is a brief overview of all above-mentioned maintenance strategies:
Strategy Summary Setup cost Advantages
Reactive
Preventive
Predictive
RCM
Prescriptive
Repair after a breakdown
or failure has occurred
Maintenance is
scheduled in advance
Maintenance based on
equipment condition
Investigate failure mode and failure
consequences to determine the best
strategy
Prescribe machines a certain operational
and maintenance behavior based on
detailed analytics
Even though predictive and prescriptive
approaches have a huge potential and are
rather the strategies corresponding the most
to today’s digitalization trends, preventive
maintenance remains the mostly spread
maintenance program. This is mainly due to
its largely appreciated advantages as:
REDUCED PRODUCTION DOWNTIME
When the problem occurs, it can be quickly
resolved because the worker knows what
to do and what spare part to replace, which
will reduce the time needed to detect the
problem.
REDUCED BREAKDOWNS
With preventive maintenance, the equipment
will be regularly maintained within
the given deadlines so that it is in the best
conditions.
COST SAVINGS
Preventive maintenance reduces the frequency
of breakdowns, which means
reduced production stops and more financial
benefits.
IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY
Reduced equipment downtime results in
increased plant’s productivity and machine
availability.
ELIMINATE AMBIGUITY IN MAINTENANCE
TASKS
Preventive maintenance reduces the risk of
unnecessary repairs and creates a system
to use the right tool for the right task.
EXTENDED EQUIPMENT LIFE
Preventive maintenance improves equipment
performance and increases product
quality because machines are well maintained,
and equipment is performing well.
Low
Average
High
High
High
The best strategy for
low-priority equipment
Best strategy to implement without
any required expertise.
Timely based condition monitoring
provides many insights into asset’s
behaviour
Provides the most effective
scheduled maintenance
Substantial cost savings and highly
effective scheduled maintenance.
IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE AND
REPUTATION
A successful preventive maintenance program
contributes to reliable delivery time,
good production quality and thus improves
the reputation of the company.
REDUCED ENERGY WASTE
Preventive maintenance lowers the cost of
energy because well-maintained equipment
generally requires less electricity or fuel to
operate.
IMPROVED FACILITY SECURITY
Equipment breakdowns can have disastrous
consequences. Properly maintained
equipment will improve the safety of workers,
as well as of those working around the
equipment, so that well-maintained equipment
create a safer work environment.
The most important thing to remember
when looking for the right maintenance
strategy is the problem that you have to
solve. This will help you find and implement
the right solution and finally sustain
winning results.
Predictive and prescriptive maintenance
strategies have a powerful potential, but
their implementation might be difficult if
you don’t have an established successful
preventive maintenance program yet. After
all, there is no wrong or right approach
to maintenance; you simply must choose
what’s feasible for your company in order
to achieve the best possible results.
50 maintworld 1/2019