Planned preventative maintenance in a production setting

A large part of keeping a company’s production running efficiently and profitably is ensuring that all equipment is functioning at peak efficiency. With management focused on long term business goals and production staff on meeting customer deadlines, it is easy to see how maintenance slips down the priority list. Regular equipment checks often go overlooked because attention is directed towards the more pressing issues mentioned above. A breakdown in critical equipment is costly both in the repairs themselves and downtime and delays in a company’s productivity.

No matter how new, every piece of equipment needs regular maintenance to avoid breakdowns and failures and to ensure optimal performance. By creating a schedule of maintenance works, you can ensure that you remain in control not being caught unawares by any serious issues arising unexpectedly. Keeping to a planned preventative maintenance schedule can help you avoid problems with the Health and Safety Regulations and avoid smaller issues from becoming serious safety concerns.

The first point to consider when making a maintenance plan is a clear idea of which are the priority areas of the plant. With that decided you can create an inventory of all relevant equipment. Although a time-consuming exercise, it is a critical one, as it ensures that preventive checks are routinely made on key operational equipment. The next step is to determine the tasks or jobs required to maintain each piece of equipment as well as the frequency with which these tasks should occur. Preventative maintenance programs take time to be created and it is best to schedule the highest priority maintenance before overloading staff with tasks that rank lower on priority. The initial preventive maintenance goals established will direct which assets should be prioritised.

As with any aspect of your business a preventative maintenance plan should be dynamic, responding to changing production requirements. Training staff to work with the plan, and refreshing training regularly can be time consuming, but when the first major breakdown is averted the return on the time invested will become worthwhile. Harrier engineers have been consistent in providing high quality Compressed air systems to clients in many industries for over 30 years. This type of stability can only be guaranteed with a programme of regular servicing, maintenance, and professional inspection of pipework, equipment and components within your compressed air systems. Get in touch to learn how we can support your planned maintenance programme.

Categorised in: Compressors, Maintenance

This post was written by Harrier Pneumatics