Preventative maintenance is essential for protecting your critical assets in the industrial sector. This approach to maintenance makes emergency equipment failures a thing of the past by catching at-risk areas before they turn into serious problems.
Industrial preventative maintenance is a broad term covering a wide spectrum of maintenance services and will vary depending on the equipment, facility, and preferred approach to maintaining equipment. What can industrial preventative maintenance look like for you? Explore a variety of maintenance approaches.
What is Industrial Preventative Maintenance?
Industrial preventative maintenance refers to scheduled maintenance tasks performed on equipment and machinery in the industrial and manufacturing sectors aimed at preventing equipment failures and eliminating unexpected downtime.
Preventative maintenance relies on a systematic schedule that prioritizes critical assets to reduce downtime during maintenance. Having an industrial preventative maintenance schedule as part of your facility’s workflow will help extend the life of your equipment, improve safety for machine operators, and ensure your machinery stays within regulatory compliance.
Common Industrial Preventative Maintenance Tasks
Industrial preventative maintenance will look different for each piece of equipment depending on the parts and processes involved. Some industrial preventative maintenance tasks may include:
Cleaning: Removing build-up, dirt, debris, and contaminants from machinery to ensure efficient operation.
Lubrication: Greasing or applying other lubricants to moving parts on industrial machinery (i.e., conveyor belt rollers) to reduce friction and improve part longevity.
Inspection and Testing: Evaluating overall equipment performance and condition, analyzing equipment sensors and monitoring systems during operation to assess potential problem areas needing maintenance or repair.
Adjustments and Calibrations: Adjusting equipment settings for optimal performance, tightening bolts, checking fluid levels, realigning parts, and adjusting tension.
Part Replacements: Replacing damaged or worn-out parts (hoses, cylinders, power units, rollers, belts, fittings, etc.) before failure can occur.
Electrical System Checks: Checking electrical connections and wiring for signs of damage. Inspecting all electrical components including conduit boxes and control boxes.
Safety Checks: Inspecting and testing all safety safety switches and features to make sure they are functional and effective to prevent injury and reduce risk.
Four Industrial Preventative Maintenance Methods
Preventative maintenance relies on a schedule to reduce downtime and decrease the chances of failures occurring before maintenance is due. These schedules may look different depending on the facility and the equipment involved. But in general, there are four methods of industrial preventative maintenance that determine how you schedule your maintenance.
Time-Based Maintenance
The goal of Time-Based Maintenance (TBM)—also known as Calendar-Based Maintenance—is to prevent or reduce the risk of industrial machinery failures. TBM schedules maintenance at set intervals, usually daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Some maintenance tasks, such as cleaning industrial equipment, may happen daily, whereas other preventative maintenance tasks only need to be performed a few times a year.
One example of TBM in an industrial setting is conveyor belt maintenance. Wiping down the belt may be standard practice at the end of every day. But other tasks like inspecting for wear and tear, adjusting belt tension, and lubricating moving parts can be scheduled to occur quarterly.
Usage-Based Maintenance
Usage-based maintenance (UBM) bases industrial preventative maintenance on the frequency and intensity of use rather than a time-based schedule. Rather than following a monthly or quarterly schedule, timelines for preventative maintenance are defined based on hours of usage or quantity of products made or moved through the equipment.
UBM is a popular preventative maintenance method for certain material handling equipment such as robotics parts handlers, which may have maintenance scheduled after a set number of assemblies is completed. The timeline may vary depending on order quantity.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance relies on data transmitted from meter readings and equipment sensors to determine when maintenance is required. This is common for maintenance tasks such as refilling fluid levels or determining when parts need replacement.
Most industrial equipment will have some type of gauge or sensor system for monitoring equipment performance. Predictive maintenance involves monitoring and recording data from these elements, assessing for fluctuations or changes in data that may indicate a failure risk or maintenance need.
Condition-based Maintenance
Unlike Corrective Maintenance, which is when maintenance occurs after a failure has occurred, condition-based maintenance (CBM) walks the line between preventative maintenance and emergency maintenance. This approach involves regular equipment inspections to identify signs of impending failure and implement maintenance before the failure can occur.
While not a consistent schedule like the TBM and UBM approaches to preventative maintenance, CBM can help mitigate risks as an additional piece of the industrial preventative maintenance puzzle.
Prepare for the Best with Mathews Mechanical
Your go-to mechanical engineering team is ready to help keep your equipment in peak working condition! While we always offer emergency maintenance for those unexpected failures, our approach to industrial maintenance and mechanical service focuses on prevention first to save our clients time and money. If you’re looking for high-quality industrial service catered to your unique needs and workflows, contact Mathews Mechanical to learn how we can help.
