Correct documentation and maintenance of your assets and buildings is important to ensure business continuity and to avoid undesired quality-loss of assets. Answer these six questions to see if you have the basics in place.
Planned Preventative Maintenance
Planned preventive maintenance (PPM) allows you to substantially reduce reactive maintenance and retain your buildings and assets at the desired level of quality. Planned preventive maintenance is either time-based or condition monitored.
Time-based preventive maintenance is based on a fixed execution frequency of activities that generates a calendar schedule. A time-based maintenance plan for an asset is based on a library with maintenance activities and their preset frequency of execution for that asset. These frequencies can be based on warranties, supplier instructions, legislation, or experience. For example, time-based maintenance would allow you to schedule the yearly inspection of your air-conditioner, along with its filter cleanings three times a year, and its filter replacement six times a year. However, time-based maintenance might be too late, causing reactive maintenance, since the actual condition of the asset is not considered. On the other hand, time-based maintenance might suggest an action too early, especially if the asset is in better condition than expected.
Condition monitored preventive maintenance aims to predict when an asset might fail and prevent it from doing so by performing the right maintenance. Condition monitored maintenance applies to assets that can communicate their actual status in real-time to your maintenance system (IWMS, CAFM, CMMS), where threshold values and preset parameters forecast the type and timing of maintenance. This monitoring allows for just-in-time maintenance that minimizes costs and prevents asset failure and the resulting reactive maintenance. An example of condition monitored maintenance is a preset threshold for your heating installation. When the temperature of the installation exceeds this threshold value, a preventive maintenance activity is generated to avoid failure. A second example is when operating hours exceed a preset value, the next maintenance activity is automatically scheduled at the right time.