How to Minimise Unplanned Downtime with Preventive Maintenance

By Duncan McLeod
15 March 2021

Keeping plants up and running at maximum efficiency and with minimum unplanned downtime is the goal of every maintenance team. Achieving those levels of uptime requires maintaining assets in such a way that it allows you to catch a problem before it takes down your operation. The question is how best to do that.

Historically, most plants have operated with a reactive maintenance strategy – running to failure and then fixing the equipment when it breaks down. That can be very costly in downtime, wasted product, shorter equipment life cycles, and increased equipment replacement and labor costs.

Many plants still use some level of reactive maintenance. But industrial equipment has become more automated, and troubleshooting and diagnostic tools have become more available, accurate, and affordable. Today, more and more industrial plants have started taking a preventative approach to maintenance. The immediate goal is to find and fix problems before there’s a breakdown. The long-term goal is to reduce unplanned outages and extend asset life.

Here are our tips on how you can reduce unplanned downtime with preventative maintenance:

Undertake a health check

To start, one simple and effective step is starting a machinery health assessment. In particular, equipment obsolescence poses a significant risk to operations. An assessment of health encompasses a review of your alarms, logs, equipment and any concerns related to your system. The output of this assessment should identify common issues such as power supply failures and ground faults that, if unaddressed, can often lead to bigger problems later. A health assessment helps to create a prioritized list of recommended preventative maintenance actions, so you know where to start and what’s most important.

Calculate the dollar cost of downtime

Not calculating the true cost of downtime is one of the biggest errors that maintenance managers make. Five minutes here and there adds up. True downtime costs include loss in staff productivity, loss in production of actual goods, number of man hours devoted to rescheduling, the unexpected costs of repairing equipment, time spent satisfying customers and damage to reputation. Downtime should always be calculated into a dollar figure. This paired with a preventative mindset is vital, because it will help focus and legitimise your prevention activities to your stakeholders.

Install sensors to move towards preventative maintenance

In an increasingly data-driven world, manufacturers are looking to low-cost sensors to detect, prevent and reduce downtime within your facility. Sensors can detect inputs like vibration, temperature, heat and light – conditions that are likely to cause equipment damage or failures. They then send data back to a central point to alert production managers if anything is amiss, prompting operators to change the conditions to avoid equipment damage, and thereby helping to stop downtime before it happens. 

Train your personnel

Equipment failures and lack of proper maintenance are not the only causes of lost productivity. The people in charge of operating and maintaining your Control System play an essential role. And, in today’s environment of consistently striving to do more with less, workforce reductions and turnover are putting even more pressure on remaining resources while creating knowledge and efficiency gaps that can lead to increases in human error. If you truly want to get the most out of your equipment, then you need to invest in properly training your site personnel. This should not be a one-time event but rather a dynamic approach to periodic training and refresher courses. A good training program has dual benefits. It can reduce costly human errors and also empower your team to improve the collective efficiency and productivity of your operation.