PRESENTED BY: MAINTAINX

Reducing Failure and Saving Money

Implementing Preventive Maintenance At Your Company

Equipment failures cannot be eliminated—they will happen.

However, smart preventive maintenance systems can reduce premature asset breakdowns, keep employees safe, and thousands and even millions in costs.

Studies estimate businesses spend 80 percent of their technicians’ time working on reactive maintenance issues rather than on performing preventive procedures. Review the history of any operational maintenance program, and you will begin to notice a pattern: Small, preventable oversights often cause big problems.

Obviously, not every maintenance error is high stakes. However, even low-stakes errors can translate into unnecessary financial loss, decreased productivity, and frustration.

This guide will provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to implement preventive maintenance within your organization.

Studies suggest companies can save an average of 12 to 18 percent in costs by investing in preventive maintenance (PM). And facilities that are entirely reliant on reactive maintenance can save even more. In other words, every dollar spent on preventive maintenance will save nearly five dollars on expenses.

Yet, more than half of U.S. companies still exclusively practice reactive maintenance as leadership often assumes that:

a) Reactive maintenance is more cost-effective than preventive maintenance, and

b) They don’t have time for it.

Both assumptions are incorrect. Here you will learn how preventive maintenance saves money, decreases downtime, and enhances industry safety across the board. You also will learn to create a preventive maintenance plan, determine which type of PM system is right for you, and evaluate computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS).

01 WHAT IS PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE?

02 PREVENTIVE VS REACTIVE MAINTENANCE

03 PROS AND CONS OF PM

04 WHO BENEFITS FROM PM?

05 KEY STATS ON PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

06 STORY BEHIND PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

07 TYPES OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

08 CREATING A PM CHECKLIST

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01

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Generally speaking, maintenance is the state of maintaining something. The object being maintained can be a truck, a laptop, or even a garden. The goal of preventive maintenance is to maximize the useful life of any particular asset.

Case in point: If you neglect to change the oil in your vehicle every 5,000 miles, it probably won’t last very long. Breaking down on the side of the highway isn’t just inconvenient—it’s dangerous. Performing maintenance routinely is crucial to the life of the asset. World-class companies shouldn’t treat their assets as teenagers treat their cars: replacing 200 fleet vehicles five years earlier than necessary isn’t just inconvenient, it’s expensive and dangerous!

However, companies don’t always avoid costly mistakes. In fact, many large organizations have a surprising lack of structure concerning asset management and, as a result, struggle to adopt preventive maintenance programs. Our goal is to help change this inertia.

Here’s the official preventive maintenance definition:

Preventive Maintenance (PM) is planned maintenance that prolongs the lifespan of company assets, equipment, and infrastructure. Also known as preventative maintenance, PM includes adjustments, cleaning, lubrication, repairs, and replacements.

Preventive maintenance means fixing small problems before they become big ones! Organizations obtain maximum asset value by slowing down excess depreciation, deterioration, and malfunctions.

WHAT IS PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE?

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No matter the industry, preventive maintenance always has three components. It is:

1. Systematic2. Performed routinely3. Aimed at reducing or

minimizing failures

These characteristics should define the scope of all PM tasks. The goal of preventative maintenance is always to minimize failures by detecting and fixing them before they lead to costly downtime. Downtime is the amount of time a system, machine, or piece of equipment is inoperable.

Think of it as proactive maintenance. If you don’t perform it routinely and on time, it won’t be preventive––it will be reactive.

Condition monitoring is a critical component of any successful preventive maintenance program. This is what makes PM different from other types of maintenance (more on this coming soon). For example, bearings with an expected lifespan need to be replaced after operating for a specific number of hours.

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AINTEN

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PREVENTIVE VS REACTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Unlike preventive maintenance, reactive maintenance means waiting for breakdowns rather than doing anything to prevent them. Often called the “run to failure method,” this maintenance system lacks maintenance procedure reminders to fend off equipment failures. A reactive maintenance worker may never inspect an asset until it breaks down or may just happen to notice a particular part’s malfunction.

According to the Schneider Electric report, “Predictive Maintenance Strategy for Building Operations: A Better Approach,” 55 percent of U.S. companies practice reactive maintenance exclusively. Many companies find themselves so overwhelmed with reactive maintenance that they can’t find the time to add preventive maintenance operations into their schedules. Reactive maintenance isn’t cost-effective because the inconsistent nature of asset downtime often results in unplanned expenses. Unfortunately, many executives overlook a common problem with running to failure: operations departments don’t just lose money on faulty equipment. They waste capital on unanticipated expenses associated with lost productivity, overtime labor, and spare parts and storage purchasing.

Choosing the Maintenance Type to Perform

However, preventive maintenance should not be performed on every asset. The costs of performing PM should always be less than the cost of failure. For example, say the cost of downtime for a particular asset is $500, and its PM cost is $800. In this instance, PM would be a waste of time and money. The company could save $300 by running to failure.

PREVENTIVE VS REACTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Conversely, preventive maintenance on specific assets will translate to financial savings. Take hotels, for example. Check under the mattress in your next hotel room, and you may discover hidden PM instructions. Did you know hotel staff turn mattresses each week to extend their lifespans? Surprisingly, this small preventive maintenance procedure results in millions of dollars in savings for hotels worldwide each year.

Organizations that adopt an overall preventive maintenance philosophy save more money than those that don’t. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the cost of unplanned downtime for industrial manufacturers may be more than $50 billion per year. What is the number one cause of downtime? Aging equipment, according to the “Plant Engineering 2016 Maintenance Study.” Operator error and lack of time were the other top reasons listed by maintenance personnel.

Click here to learn more about Preventive Maintenance vs. Reactive Maintenance.

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PROS AND CONS OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Pros

1. Enhanced Safety

The more often we check assets, the less likely dangerous problems will occur. Businesses that follow preventive maintenance schedules reduce the risk of unexpected breakdowns, health hazards, and liability lawsuits. .

2. Longer Equipment Lifespan

Preventive maintenance schedules ensure all business assets are running according to manufacturer and consumer guidelines. As poorly performing parts are updated, assets remain productive and perform steadily. Such maintenance reduces the frequency of capital expenditures to purchase new equipment.

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3. Increased Productivity

Poor maintenance strategies can reduce an organization’s production capacity by a whopping 20 percent. Modern preventive maintenance solutions allow operational managers to digitize essential equipment details, assign recurring work orders, and review asset history from the convenience of their smartphones.

Likewise, maintenance personnel can receive mobile task alerts, add photographs of equipment for clarity, and sign-off on task completion in real-time. Both streamlined PM systems and reduced downtime contribute to greater team efficiency, productivity, and focus.

Let’s look closer at the advantages and disadvantages of both maintenance methods.

Several factors need to be considered when evaluating preventive maintenance vs. reactive maintenance programs. Again, one method isn’t better than the other for every asset.

5. Less Energy Consumption

Poorly maintained electrical assets often consume more energy than those operating optimally. PM addresses energy-robbing issues, resulting in smaller utility bills. The more energy your business saves, the higher your profits will be.

Cons

1. Budgetary Constraints

Traditionally, the cost of implementing advanced digital maintenance solutions has been out of reach for smaller businesses. From high-priced software solutions to allocating work-hours to perform maintenance tasks, PM is often considered a luxury. However, don’t give up on CMMS completely: in recent years, a handful of providers have made CMMS more affordable.

4. Reduced Costs

Companies that adopt PM experience fewer breakdowns, translating to greater output. According to Jones Lang LaSalle’s “Determining the Value of Preventive Maintenance,” a telecommunications company experienced a 545% ROI when implementing a preventive maintenance plan.

Unsurprisingly, reactive maintenance downtime contributes to costly repairs. Using equipment to the point of failure can cost 10X more than performing periodic maintenance, which is performed based on time intervals.

Much of the time, internal employees can quickly accomplish these repairs. Other times, organizations need to wait for outsourced professionals to get the job done. Companies that adopt PM experience fewer breakdowns, which translates to greater output. According to Jones Lang LaSalle’s “Determining the Value of Preventive Maintenance,” a telecommunications company experienced a 545% ROI when implementing a preventive maintenance plan.

PROS AND CONS OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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4. Tricky to Organize

As previously mentioned, developing a PM program without an organizational system can be challenging. With hundreds, let alone thousands of assets to maintain, no management team can rely on memory or whiteboards alone. Binders busting at the seams with paper checklists make it difficult to find what you need when you need it.

In summary, the pros of implementing a preventive maintenance program will, in the long term, more than likely offset any of the cons. However, before implementing, be aware that there will be significant upfront time and costs required.

2. More Resources Required

With more procedures to complete throughout the year, your organization may need more personnel, more parts, and more monthly capital. Depending on the complexity of your organization, you may have to prioritize PM for essential assets only.

3. Time Consuming

Companies that switch to preventive maintenance strategies can feel like they’re doing more work. Taking the time to inspect complicated assets involving several parts can be tedious. Even businesses without complex machinery may, initially, feel resistant to taking on more routine tasks.

“TRADITIONAL CMMS

SOLUTIONS CAN FEEL

OVERWHELMING WITH

A DIZZYING ARRAY OF

STEPS”.

PROS AN

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WHO STANDS TO BENEFIT FROM PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Regardless of what industry your business is in, your maintenance team

will benefit from preventive maintenance plans. Regularly checking on the

health of assets across your organization and identifying points of failure

can drastically reduce breakdowns over time.

The following common industries and use cases indicate how preventive

maintenance is crucial:

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE?

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Although it may seem obvious, scheduling regular

tasks--like replacing bathroom floor tiles or damaged

shingles on a roof--can save thousands of dollars

compared to waiting for leaks to appear.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

COMMON USE CASES

WH

O BEN

EFITS FROM

PM

It’s a fact: vehicles break down. However, ensuring a

program is in place to check oil levels, fans belts, and

other breakpoints reduces breakdowns and downtime.

FLEET MANAGEMENT

Ensuring assets are properly maintained can reduce or

eliminate production delays caused by complicated

manufacturing equipment.

MANUFACTURING

Preventive maintenance can allow for more accurate

budgeting and fewer unexpected capital outlays for both

governments and schools with strict budgets. Small

expenses today can prevent large ones tomorrow.

GOVERNMENT AND SCHOOLS

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KEY STATS SUPPORTING PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Although preventive maintenance may seem

like a relatively new trend in the maintenance

industry, preventive maintenance has been

around for a while, and substantial research

exists on its merits.

PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE STATISTICS

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Still, you may wonder if the success one

industry experiences with PM will

transfer to your own. As such, it’s best to

pay attention to the more pragmatic

gains:

● Preventative maintenance is the top priority for 80 percent of maintenance personnel (2018 Maintenance Survey)

● Businesses spend as much as 80 percent of their time reacting to maintenance issues rather than preventing them. (Accelix)

● Eighty-two percent of businesses experienced at least one unplanned downtime within three years, with each one costing an average of $250K per hour (ServiceMax)

● The cost of Unplanned downtime to industrial manufacturers is estimated to be over $50 billion per year (WSJ)

● Seventy percent of businesses don’t know when their equipment needs maintenance. (ServiceMax)

● Aging equipment is the #1 reason for unplanned downtime, as reported by 50% of maintenance personnel (2016 Maintenance Study)

Preventive Maintenance Stats

STATS SUPPORTIN

G PM

● Businesses save up to 12-18 percent when they invest in preventative maintenance instead of corrective maintenance. (EERE)

● Poor maintenance strategies can reduce an organization’s production capacity by 20 percent. (PTC)

● Using equipment to the point of failure costs 10x more than a regular maintenance program (Buildings)

As you can see, investing in the right maintenance program almost always increases productivity and reduces costs in the long run.

Preventive Maintenance Stats (continued)

STATS SUPPORTIN

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HISTORY OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Where It All Began

During WWII, the concept of productivity took on renewed importance for manufacturers around the world. Though buyers enjoyed more purchasing power than ever before, many factory workers were deployed for wartime duty.

The inverse relationship between product demand and available labor catalyzed an unprecedented level of mechanical productivity, innovation, and invention. Manufacturing facilities around the world began relying on complex machines to accomplish what humans had previously performed.

In the late 1950s, U.S. airlines were at a crossroads. As the number of commercial flyers steadily increased, so did airplane maintenance requirements. Consequently, the industry’s skyrocketing maintenance costs precipitated a combined investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and airline representatives. The task force produced a series of preventive maintenance guidelines for both airlines and aircraft manufacturers for establishing maintenance schedules.

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maintenance procedures for several major aircraft, including the Boeing 747. The massive plane required 66,000 labor hours of significant structural inspections before a major heavy inspection at 20,000 operating hours. In 1974, the U.S. Department of Defense commissioned United Airlines to write a report on maintenance processes used in the civil aviation industry. In 1978, maintenance experts Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap published “Reliability Centered Maintenance.” This report triggered a cataclysmic shift in the world of operations.

For the rest of the century, nearly every industry around the world borrowed from the report’s holistic

maintenance framework. Simultaneously, the chemical, transportation, and energy sectors became increasingly aware of the benefits of preventive maintenance on employee safety. Across the Atlantic, European operational leaders began to implement industrial maintenance norms.

Additionally, the technological era ushered in drastic changes in purchasing, communications, production, and quality. Ultimately, all of these developments led to creating the world’s first official technician training programs.

The maintenance industry had finally arrived!

ver the years, recommendations evolved to include

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TYPES OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Preventive maintenance (PM) tasks are completed to anticipate, prevent, and prolong the process of equipment breakdown. Maintenance teams should perform these precautionary tasks on all equipment parts and components with age-related failure patterns.

Preventive maintenance falls into four primary categories. No one type of preventive maintenance is better than the other. Stick with manual and manufacturer recommendations to determine the type of PM your equipment needs. We’ve included several simplified examples below:

Periodic Maintenance

Also known as time-based maintenance, periodic maintenance is performed at scheduled intervals (i.e., annually, quarterly, monthly, or weekly). Managers should read equipment manuals to determine recommended maintenance schedules. Most manufacturers indicate how often to inspect assets and the average life of each part.

Example: Every 6 months, I need to change my car’s oil.

Meter-Based

Also called performance-based PM, this type of preventive maintenance requires action based on equipment usage metrics. Any equipment that requires usage-based maintenance will come with a meter/counter to count hours running, production milestones, etc.

Example: Every 5,000 miles, I need to change my car’s oil.

TYPES OF PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

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Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance (PdM) is an advanced form of preventive maintenance aimed at reducing the number of necessary planned tasks. PdM analyzes data to determine when specific maintenance conditions have been met. Companies gather data from experts, equipment readers, past experiences, and IoT before identifying optimal PM requirements. The more data you have, the more financially well-informed decisions you can make.

Example: Between June and August, I change my car’s oil every 3,000 miles because I go off-roading, and my vehicle picks-up more dust. During the rest of the year, I change my oil every 5,000 miles.

Prescriptive Maintenance

Similar to predictive maintenance, this newer type of maintenance also makes decisions based on data. However, prescriptive maintenance (RxM) provides operations managers with machine- learning software.

The smart software collects and analyzes equipment conditions before suggesting the specific recommendations designed to reduce operational risks. The technology is driven by “prescriptive analytics” and is designed to hypothesize potential outcomes. Soon, we expect to see incredible developments that put RxM within reach of even the smallest maintenance teams.

Example: My engine broke down due to a dusty filter after off-roading in the hot summer months. However, another owner of the same vehicle, with similar hobbies, reported similar issues via Artificial Intelligence (AI). The person found they could get away with changing the car’s oil every 4,000 miles, as opposed to every 3,000 miles like I had been doing as a form of predictive maintenance.

This graph shows cost versus downtime to find the optimal solution.

Predictive maintenance is the sweet spot between traditional preventive maintenance and reactive maintenance. Companies wanting to invest in equipment data collection, analysis, and decision-making should pursue predictive maintenance. However, a combination of periodic and meter-based maintenance will get the job done just fine for most teams.

The primary differences between traditional PM programs and predictive PM programs are:

● Predictive maintenance is more complex, as it involves using data from experts, equipment readers, past experiences, and IoT.

● Predictive maintenance has higher setup and variable costs and therefore is more expensive upfront.

● Periodic maintenance involves little or no risk, while predictive maintenance involves a higher possibility of initial errors.

● Predictive maintenance reduces the probability of replacing a part prematurely as opposed to periodic maintenance.

Ultimately, preventive maintenance may have more costs upfront but proves to be the most cost-effective solution in the long run.

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CREATING A PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE CHECKLIST

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The preventive maintenance workflow is the cornerstone of every proactive operations organization. A successful workflow provides a roadmap of how and when to maintain assets. Remember though, there is no one “right” way to begin. Some organizations catalog each asset and create individual checklists. Other operational facilities create extensive asset inventories in order to formulate overarching maintenance guidelines for procedures and work orders.

According to Lao Tzu, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Begin organizing your preventive maintenance program today, and you will be that much closer to an emergency-free work environment tomorrow.

Tips to Get You Started

According to the “Plant Engineering 2016 Maintenance Study,” the top three methods to organize maintenance systems are CMMS (62 percent), in-house spreadsheets/schedules (52 percent), and paper records (39 percent). No matter which method you rely on, the thought process is the same: organization in some shape or form is key.

CREATING A PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE CHECKLIST

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Create your preventative maintenance workflow based on the following questions:

● What task should be performed first?● Where is the equipment located? ● Which workers should be assigned?● How often should the task occur? ● What parts or supplies are needed? ● How will we maintain accountability?

While spreadsheets may provide enough organization for smaller organizations, most companies can benefit from a user-friendly digital maintenance solution.

Put simply, it’s 2020! There is no reason for time-strapped maintenance teams to waste weekly hours cross-referencing paper checklists, hunting down email, and combing through Excel files when more efficient solutions are available.

2. Drill Down

In a perfect world, your procedures are so well defined that even someone from payroll could change the forklift bearings by following your checklist in an emergency.

Successful preventive maintenance workflows and scheduled maintenance procedures communicate the WHAT, WHY, and HOW of each task–without overwhelming the reader. If your workflow is disorganized, workers may skip essential steps or ignore tasks entirely, resulting in inconsistencies across your operations.

But how can operational managers maintain simplicity when organizing dozens, if not hundreds, of maintenance steps? We recommend combining general workflows with detailed checklists. Say you are creating a workflow on vehicle maintenance to monitor its operating condition. You might create a master workflow, instructing mechanics to inspect air filters, spark plugs, and brakes to extend the life of your critical assets.

Don’t overwhelm workers by listing every single associated task. Instead, you could create supporting checklists that break down each inspection step by step. This process will reduce workers’ overwhelm, increase accountability, and help everyone to stay more organized.

3. Set Clear Schedules

Next, ensure your workflow includes clear time frames (a start date and end date). If you have separate checklists based on time intervals—daily, weekly, monthly—a robust software program can ensure they automatically appear according to schedule.

Operational managers need to clearly label time-dependent tasks and work orders to prevent teams from linking asset history to recommended maintenance intervals. Once the time is set, teams no longer need to consult user manuals and spreadsheets.

4. Stay Updated

Manufacturers periodically issue updates to recommend new procedures and maintenance intervals as they receive customer feedback. Set a quarterly or biannual reminder to review manufacturing guidelines for all-important assets. Use existing data, asset age, equipment efficiency, and personal experience to further fine-tune existing maintenance checklists.

In addition to evaluating manufacturer recommendations, evaluate and improve your team’s performance. For example, if one technician is completing the same task as another but much faster, determine if the tech is more efficient or is skipping necessary steps.

5. State Your Purpose

Finally, no preventive maintenance system is successful without clearly defined goals for individual assets. Do you want to achieve 99 percent uptime for one machine? How about zero unplanned downtime for two years for another?

Summarize these objectives in the work orders so everyone works toward the same goal. Not only does such transparency support organizational objectives, but it also motivates team members. Workers who feel aligned with company missions take pride in their work.

In conclusion, though not a new concept, preventive maintenance is increasing in popularity as it continues to be the most optimal maintenance planning procedure in terms of both time and cost.

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