In our line of work, reducing bottlenecks is the name of the game. We know how important it is for successful plants to produce as much output as possible in the shortest amount of time. With this goal in mind, it can be difficult to sacrifice additional run time to keep up with maintenance tasks.
However, the consequences of postponing maintenance can be harsh and will eventually lead to even more bottlenecks in your process down the road. When equipment breaks down and employees don’t have all the tools they need to perform their jobs effectively, you may have to deal with decreased output and lost revenue. According to research from Aberdeen, every hour of unplanned equipment downtime costs manufacturers $260,000 on average. With just a few adjustments to your maintenance scheduling process, these bottlenecks (and the high costs associated with them) can be avoided.
Survey the Plant
Before you can deduce the best process for your maintenance activities, we suggest getting started by compiling a detailed survey of every asset within your plant. This process will help ensure all the equipment used for production is accounted for. Once you have your full list, identify the maintenance actions needed for each individual item. If you need help determining the recommended frequency and time spent on maintenance for a particular part, be sure to consult the manufacturer’s instructions. With a complete catalog of tasks to work from, your maintenance team will then be able to anticipate all the plant’s upcoming needs. At the same time, your operations team can begin to reconcile their daily or weekly output with the corresponding maintenance requirements.
Prioritize Activities
After your survey of assets and related maintenance tasks is completed, your maintenance team can get to work planning a strategic approach. In every plant, some resources will be more integral than others, so it can be helpful to prioritize each asset based on how critical they are to the production process. The most vital equipment may be necessary for long periods during the production cycle, but it also must be well-maintained to function effectively. The maintenance for these high-priority assets will require more thoughtful planning. On the other hand, less-critical pieces of equipment can be arranged into the rest of the maintenance schedule as needed and won’t require as much detailed attention.
Create an Optimized Plan
With every maintenance activity prioritized, you can begin fitting each action into your ongoing production schedule. Aim to start by scheduling the highest-priority tasks first, and look for times when those pieces of equipment will not be in use to minimize the disruption to the plant’s workflow. If there will still be maintenance outages needed, plan for these in advance to give production planners time to prepare and work around them.
Taking these steps toward a more optimized maintenance schedule is a huge improvement over continual outages for reactive maintenance. It may seem counterintuitive to plan downtime when equipment isn’t technically broken, but when you can’t anticipate which pieces of equipment will be down and when, it often causes substantial waste and more missed opportunities for revenue.
It’s also especially helpful to schedule maintenance using an advanced planning and scheduling tool, such as VirtECS. This tool allows you to plug different blocks of time for maintenance into your schedule and see how it will affect your total output in real time. VirtECS completes all these calculations to find the most optimal schedule in just minutes. VirtECS can also communicate the finalized schedule to every employee who needs it, from maintenance experts to engineers on the plant floor, to keep processes flowing smoothly. Find out more benefits of implementing VirtECS at your plant here.
