Preventive maintenance involves regularly performing planned inspections, servicing and repairs to prevent breakdowns and extend the life of equipment.
In short, it’s being proactive rather than reactive.
What does preventive maintenance actually do? It increases the productivity, efficiency and safety of equipment.
With HelloHouston, you can:
• Increase machine availability rate by 20%
• Reduce administrative tasks by 50%, allowing teams to focus on added value
In this article, we will explain what preventive maintenance is and how HelloHouston makes it easier to put into practice thanks to its features and support.
Summary
1. What is preventive maintenance?
Definition
Preventive maintenance includes all routine maintenance to be carried out on equipment, in order to anticipate breakdowns and failures.
In short, it schedules: follow-ups, inspections, adjustments and repairs. And all this, with the aim of ensuring that the equipment is in excellent working order.
Maintenance levels
Preventive maintenance goes well beyond a simple maintenance plan. At HelloHouston, we aim to make this a company culture, involving all stakeholders in the maintenance of production machines.
This requires a skilled workforce.
In France, Afnor standard X 60-010 (1994) governs this proactive approach. In Europe, it is the EN 13306:2001 standard .
These standards define several maintenance levels (1 to 5) to preserve equipment, each requiring specific qualifications. This hierarchy applies to both preventive and corrective maintenance.
Here is a summary table of the 5 maintenance levels:
Maintenance level | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Level 1 |
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Level 2 |
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Level 3 |
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Level 4 |
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Level 5 |
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Initially, the goal of these levels is to involve everyone in the maintenance process but also to free up technicians' time to focus only on truly technical tasks.
The second point is that by involving your operators more in the maintenance of their machines and developing their skills, they will be better prepared to react effectively in the event of a problem.
The objectives of preventive maintenance
Preventative maintenance serves six main purposes:
Avoid unexpected breakdowns,
Increase the efficiency and longevity of equipment
Reduce maintenance costs
Improve equipment reliability
Improve operational efficiency
Facilitates planning and management of operations
What is the difference between preventive and corrective/reactive maintenance?
Before going any further, let's clarify the difference between preventive and corrective maintenance:
• Preventive maintenance: Prevents breakdowns and failures.
• Corrective maintenance: Reacts after an incident, by replacing worn parts or correcting bugs or programming errors.
Preventative anticipates, while corrective repairs after the fact.
2- Types of preventive maintenance
Systematic maintenance
Systematic maintenance is like a regular check-up to guarantee the proper functioning of machines. It is based on a calendar or on the use of the equipment (number of hours of use), regardless of the condition of the equipment.
With HelloHouston, you can schedule automatic reminders to notify you when it's time to check equipment.
Example : Maintenance of air conditioners in an office building every 3 months.
Condition-based maintenance
This method uses data from sensors and monitoring systems to assess the condition of machines and determine when maintenance is necessary. The objective is to intervene only when required, thus preventing breakdowns while optimizing costs and the lifespan of equipment.
Condition-based maintenance can be compared to the oil light in your car.
Example : Maintaining engines in a production plant when the oil level reaches low.
Predictive maintenance
Doing predictive maintenance is like doing meteorology. Instead of anticipating the weather, you anticipate when a machine needs maintenance.
You analyze real-time data sent by sensors installed on the equipment and observe the evolution of the degradation.
We want to be alerted when equipment deteriorates. To do this, we set degradation thresholds that must not be exceeded. Real-time monitoring makes it possible to visualize whether the equipment is deteriorating more or less quickly.
Example : Maintenance of turbines in a power plant when the sensors alert us to abnormal vibrations, an intervention will be triggered.
3- The advantages of preventive maintenance?
Reduction of breakdowns and production stoppages
Preventative maintenance helps detect problems before they cause breakdowns.
Increased equipment lifespan
Regular maintenance helps preserve machine components . This helps extend their lifespan and the reliability of the machines.
Improved worker safety
The risk of failure is minimal thanks to maintenance. It's like elevator safety devices. Checked regularly and well maintained, they offer better protection for your employees.
Optimization of maintenance costs
Poorly maintained equipment often breaks down and may stop working. Preventing these major failures helps minimize repair and replacement costs, as well as indirect costs.
Now that you understand the importance of preventive maintenance, learn how tools like HelloHouston can help you.
4- What tools are used for preventive maintenance?
For effective preventive maintenance, an Excel sheet is not enough. Several documents are required, but they are often difficult for technicians to interpret, making the search for information complex.
Simplify maintenance management with an effective CMMS.
HelloHouston for its preventive maintenance
HelloHouston Interface - Preventative Maintenance
HelloHouston manages preventative maintenance much better than simple Excel. You can add all information about equipment, spare parts and human resources.
The data is hierarchical in a detailed tree structure. Using this information is easy thanks to its many features, including:
Stock management and purchasing : spare parts are traceable (from purchase to use). The status of equipment can also be checked.
Automation of alerts : alerts to know the interventions to be carried out can be automated.
Request and incident management : alerts are sent in the event of a request or incidents. You can easily document and follow up on each problem and request.
Performance Monitoring : HelloHouston allows you to create tracking dashboards to achieve your goals.
Equipment management and monitoring : possibility of monitoring the condition of equipment by consulting the maintenance history.
With HelloHouston, you have an overview of the availability and specialization of your technicians. This facilitates coordination and planning of interventions.
4.2 Data analysis
HelloHouston Dashboard – Preventative Maintenance
Data transmitted by IoT arrives continuously. HelloHouston receives them and sorts them for you. After analysis, you can consult on the maintenance dashboard: the condition of the machines as well as the maintenance costs.
Thanks to KPIs, these analysis reports constitute a real benchmark that will help improve operational efficiency.
5- How to set up a preventive maintenance plan in 5 steps?
Now that we understand what preventive maintenance is, here are the steps to help you implement it in your workshop quickly and easily:
1. Define your goals
Identify what you want to achieve with preventive maintenance.
Do the Pareto of the most critical equipment.
Use the Noiret Abacus to help you get started.
2. Inventory equipment and analyze breakdown history:
List all equipment with its current condition, age and frequency of use.
Analyze breakdowns to identify the frequency of maintenance interventions.
Example :
Pump: inspection of seals every month, replacement of filters every six months.
Motor: lubrication every quarter, check of electrical connections every year.
3. Coordinate priorities and resources based on the production schedule:
Ensure resources (personnel, parts, tools) are available to maintain priority equipment.
Improve communication with the production department.
4. Define KPIs:
Manage your performance to achieve the objectives of the maintenance plan.
Define key performance indicators (KPIs) like MTTR, MTBF, and preventative maintenance rate.
Remember, you can only improve what you measure.
5. Use HelloHouston:
Implement our software to plan, track and analyze maintenance activities.
Make it easier for technicians to access documentation.
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