Benefits of Scheduled Maintenance and The Service Plus Program
Scheduled maintenance to avoid down time is important to an operation because it proactively identifies issues, minimizes the risk of uncontrolled down time and avoids costly repairs. Depending on the operation, a trained manufacturers technician can complete maintenance in less than one day without shutting down the entire operation.
Here is a recent example of how a customer utilized schedule maintenance to prevent costly repairs and extended uncontrolled down time. This particular customer purchased a Service Plus Plan last year and already utilized one visit. On the next visit, we trained his maintenance team on rebuilding a 5005 press cage and shaft assembly as well as some maintenance on a press gearbox and thrust housing. We anticipated this would take five business days and some of the services require his plant to be shut down. To insure he had enough product for his customers, he planned ahead to fulfill his customers needs until the project was done.
By keeping good records and a day log he was able to plan this downtime by reviewing and analyzing the number of hours that were on his first press when he had problems with the gearbox. He knew this press is right around the same age and finds that it is less costly to shut down and be proactive with his maintenance rather than to run until it breaks. If you choose to run equipment until it breaks, it is likely to break at the most inopportune time causing several problems. When something breaks unexpectedly, it potentially causes mass hysteria from the customer all the way down the ladder to the operator. The customers are trying to feed animals and the operator is trying to reach a quota. It is no good for anyone involved.
The customer also used a Service Plus Plan visit so his technicians are learning how to maintain and operate the equipment from the manufacturers technician. By utilizing these services, the customer has turned scheduled downtime into a positive learning experience.
Scheduled maintenance can have other positive impacts as well. For instance, the operators and managers learned from our teaching and the work we did substantially impacted the oil residuals improving them by 1.5%. How long do you wait before doing maintenance?
