Equipment Maintenance: The Ultimate Guide

What is Equipment Maintenance?

Equipment maintenance is preserving the operational reliability and functionality of various assets within a business, including mechanical machinery, tools, vehicles, and technological systems. It can be classified into various types: preventive, predictive, and corrective. At its core, it minimizes downtime, optimizes asset performance, and extends the lifespan of valuable business assets.

Equipment should be inspected and maintained regularly to ensure their quality and safety. The frequency of maintaining equipment depends on various factors, such as the following:

• Manufacturer’s recommendations

• Usage

• Equipment age

• Type

• Previous issues

• Customer expectations

Benefits

Equipment maintenance plays a crucial role in the following areas:

• Risk Mitigation: While it may seem like an additional expense, maintaining equipment is crucial to avoid potential risks and hazards. Regular maintenance can identify and address potential issues, reducing the risk of accidents, breakdowns, and costly fees.

• Compliance with Regulations: Many industries are subject to regulations and standards regarding equipment maintenance and safety. By adhering to these regulations through regular maintenance practices, businesses can better keep workers and clients safe, as well as avoid penalties, fines, or legal issues,

• Safety Assurance: Well-maintained equipment functions reliably and safely, instilling confidence in both employees and customers. They can rest assured that the equipment poses no imminent threat.

Importance in Different Industries

Equipment maintenance is very important for many indsutries, especially those wherein employees regularly work with various assets, such as the following:

Manufacturing

In manufacturing, for example, equipment downtime can lead to production delays and significant financial losses. Equipment downtime in the manufacturing industry averages to around $2 million wasted, and included here are lost productivity, improperly used or unusable parts, and lost sales. The lack of equipment maintenance also leads to safety risks that can affect not just workers, but clients or end users as well.

Construction

Similar to the manufacturing industry, the construction industry also heavily relies on equipment. Proper equipment maintenance ensures safe use of forklifts, excavators, and the like, which also directly affects worker safety. Efficient and timely maintenance also helps prevents unexpected downtime and project delays, ensuring that construction timelines are met and operational costs are controlled.

Food Processing

In the food industry, equipment maintenance is directly related to the health of consumers, as improperly maintened machinery can affect food quality. Proper maintenance helps in preventing contamination through malfunctioning equipment or debris from worn parts, as equipment cleaning is also part of equipment maintenance. Properly maintained equipment also helps protect brand reputation by preventing product contamination and recalls.

Automotive

Vehicles need regular maintenance, as well as the equipment needed to do so. Regular maintenance ensures vehicles and automotive equipment operate safely, preventing breakdowns that could lead to accidents. Proactive preventive equipment maintenance, in particular, lowers repair costs and downtime, protecting investments in fleets or manufacturing machinery.

Healthcare

Equipment maintenance is an essential part of saving lives and ensuring overall good health. Proper maintenance minimizes the risk of equipment malfunction that could lead to misdiagnosis, treatment errors, or harm to patients. It also ensures that medical devices perform reliably and consistently, supporting quality care delivery. Cleaning, disinfecting, and sterilization during equipment maintenance help prevent infections in clinical settings.

Different Equipment Maintenance Certifications

While equipment maintenance is important, it’s essential to remember that only certified workers and organizations can perform it. This is to ensure that the maintenance to be done is compliant with local and international standards. Furthermore, some industries may have specific regulations or standards that require certain levels of expertise or training for maintaining equipment.

Examples of well-known acknowledged maintenance certifications include the following:

• Certified Maintenance and Reliability Technician (CMRT) by SMRP: This certification focuses on asset management practices, predictive maintenance, troubleshooting, and corrective maintenance. This aims to authenticate the skills and expertise of maintenance professionals across diverse maintenance domains.

• Master Certified Electronics Technician (CET) certification by ETA International: This certification is aimed at technicians with several years of experience in electronics. It showcases the technician’s proficiency in electronics and demonstrates their expertise in the field.

• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) HVAC Certification: The EPA HVAC Certification, required by Section 608 of The US Clean Air Act, is essential for technicians who maintain, service, repair, or dispose of refrigerant equipment. This certification ensures that technicians are knowledgeable about environmental regulations and safe handling practices of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems.

• Certified Biomedical Equipment Technician (CBET) Certification: The CBET certification by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) is designed for professionals working in the healthcare industry. It focuses on the maintenance and repair of medical equipment.

Strategies for Maintaining Equipment

Aside from preventative, predictive, and corrective maintenance, there are other strategies businesses can utilize to maintain their equipment. These include:

• Proactive Maintenance: This strategy uses analytics to manage failure and prevent the same failure from occurring again. Proactive maintenance is based on Predictive Maintenance and Condition-Based Maintenance and uses Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) to predict when an asset might fail.

• Routine Maintenance: This strategy or type of maintenance includes cleaning, lubricating, and performing visual inspections while the equipment is in service. These activities are less stressful to budget and schedule and can help prevent equipment failure.

• Condition-Based Maintenance: This type of predictive maintenance involves monitoring the equipment’s condition in real time to detect any anomalies or deviations from normal operating conditions. For example, sensors can be placed on a machine to measure temperature, vibration, and other variables that could indicate potential failure.

• Time-Based Maintenance: This strategy involves performing maintenance tasks at predetermined intervals based on the equipment’s age or usage, regardless of its actual condition. In industries like manufacturing and construction, this could mean replacing a piece of equipment every year or after a certain number of hours.

• Reliability-Centered Maintenance: This strategy focuses on determining the most critical equipment and implementing maintenance strategies that are tailored to that equipment. It is a proactive approach that aims to minimize downtime and maximize productivity.

• Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): This strategy involves a collaborative approach between maintenance and production teams to improve equipment performance and reduce downtime. It includes techniques such as laser alignment, vibration analysis, and thermography.

• Design Out Maintenance: This strategy involves improving equipment design and manufacturing processes to reduce the need for maintenance. It also involves implementing predictive maintenance technologies, such as sensors and monitoring systems.

7 Best Practices for Effective Implementation

The best practices for the maintenance of equipment include a combination of strategies and approaches. Here are seven key points to keep in mind:

7 Best Practices for EffectiveEquipment Maintenance

1. 1. Gather Baseline Information: Start by collecting essential data about your equipment to establish a maintenance baseline. For example, record the age of each piece of equipment, its maintenance history, manufacturer’s recommendations, and any known issues or recurring problems.

   2. Select an Appropriate Maintenance Strategy: Before beginning equipment maintenance, choose a maintenance strategy tailored to your equipment’s criticality, complexity, and business objectives. The strategy you choose will help you define the frequency, scope, and type of maintenance tasks to perform.

   3. Establish Maintenance Schedules: Maintenance schedules refer to the planned intervals at which maintenance activities will occur, such as regular inspections, cleaning, lubrication, and repair or replacement of parts. When creating a maintenance schedule, you have to consider the impact of downtime and cost.

   4. Use Maintenance Checklists and Service Logs: With a maintenance checklist and equipment service or audit log, you can ensure that all necessary tasks are completed during each maintenance session. This also helps to standardize the process and ensure consistency in the quality of work.

   5. Uitlize Service Tags: Keep track of equipment in use with tags to notify if they are safe, fit for use, or in need maintenance. Best to use a digital asset tracking system with asset tags so all workers can stay updated on which equipment needs maintenance, part replacement, or other actions.

   6. Automate the Process with Digital Tools: Utilize maintenance management software to streamline workflows, automate task assignments, and provide real-time updates. This can save you time and resources while improving the accuracy and efficiency of your maintenance processes.

   7. Implement Equipment Monitoring Systems: Using equipment monitoring systems helps businesses track real-time performance metrics. Sensors, software, and IoT devices offer insights into equipment health and performance. You can use equipment tracking software by SafetyCulture, which has powerful monitoring capabilities for the equipment’s performance metrics in real time.