Maintenance Management Explained

“Maintenance is the foundation of Reliability”

According to a survey by Plant Engineering in 2021, 53% of companies spend more than 30 hours a week on maintenance, and facilities on average outsource more than 20% of maintenance operations. This shows that every company around the world takes maintenance management very seriously. To understand exactly what this maintenance management is, let us take a look at the insights into its meaning, need, objectives, types and future aspirations!

What is Maintenance Management? 

The systematic organizing, scheduling, managing, and monitoring of all tasks associated with the servicing, repair, and maintenance of physical assets within a facility is known as maintenance management. This comprises the structures, tools, machinery, and other infrastructure components required for the facility to run efficiently.

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Maintenance management encompasses a wide array of tasks aimed at preserving and optimizing the physical infrastructure and systems within a facility, ultimately contributing to its efficiency, safety, and functionality. Maintenance management has grown in importance significantly over the last few years evolving from a manual paper-based system to advanced computerized maintenance management system software (CMMS). 

Types of Maintenance Management

Let us take a look at some of the commonly used  maintenance management methods that organizations adapt to ensure an efficient and robust maintenance strategy:

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• Preventive Maintenance: This type of maintenance is like taking your car for regular checkups. Just as on-time maintenance will help keep your car healthy, preventive maintenance will help the facility in staying ahead of the problems that might arise by simply keeping a check on them. With consistent repairs and troubleshooting, preventive maintenance helps in ensuring that the assets provide the most optimal performance whilst also not breaking down and having a long lifespan.

• Predictive Maintenance: By predicting when equipment or systems are likely to fail, predictive maintenance makes use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and predictive analytics software. This enables prompt maintenance or replacement of equipment before a breakdown occurs. With predictive maintenance, maintenance tasks are scheduled just in time, optimizing resources and minimizing downtime. With predictive maintenance, organizations can address problems before they lead to costly breakdowns. As a result, equipment reliability and availability are enhanced, assets live longer, maintenance costs are reduced, and overall operational efficiency is improved.

• Reactive maintenance: Just as the white blood cells send antibodies to fight when a virus enters a human body and works to revive the body into healthy conditions, similarly, reactive maintenance takes place when an equipment has already broken down and focuses on bringing the asset back to its operational state. This type of maintenance is typically aimed at low-priority equipment, which does not significantly affect the facility’s operations.  

Benefits of  effective Maintenance Management 

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• Increased asset life: The entire principle behind maintaining the asset in  the first place, is to reduce the wear and tear and ensure that the depreciation incurred on the asset can be reduced, through routine maintenance, and ultimately, increase the work lifecycle of the asset. As the asset is an important element that is needed in a specific environment to undertake a specific function, it is inherent that you invest in it, by guaranteeing that it can work for the maximum amount of time with an appropriate level of efficiency.

• Reduced downtime: Downtime refers to the period during which assets are unavailable for use due to maintenance, repairs or failures. Through maintenance management, this downtime can be avoided and productivity can be maximized, alongside reducing costs and enhancing operational efficiency. Through various maintenance measures, organizations are able to address potential issues before they escalate into major failures, thereby minimizing the need for costly repairs and financial losses related to unplanned downtime.

• Data driven decision making: Maintenance management systems collect and analyze data, to generate insights that play a significant role in the decision making process of the facility managers. The insights generated from the data helps in the identification of various performance trends of assets, failures and their sources, and also allow for the understanding of where improvements can take place.  This creates a safe environment where facility managers can take decisions which are both credible and actionable.

• Sustainability:  Alas, this is the most significant goal of every maintenance management process. To keep on supporting the assets even when they are in their final stages and ensuring that the specific actors used in such management processes are sustainable in nature, is the way through maintenance management is making a name for itself in the market. Operational efficiency, reduced energy wastage, and minimal emissions, maintenance management helps in making a positive social impact towards a more comfortable future!

• Safe work environment: All of these assets, while working in symphony with each other, helps in creating a conducive environment. Hence, it is important to identify such inconsistencies in these assets that contribute to making a secure and inclusive workspace for the employees. Thus, having well maintained assets establishes not only a safe working condition but also, a productive one!

The Need for a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS)

An organization is a busy place where a lot of things are going on simultaneously. Regardless of the scale, stakeholders need to keep an eye on all the functions that take place, from controlling maintenance costs to ensuring a safe and inclusive work environment. Manual paper-based systems make all this a nightmare for facility personnel.

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The Computerized Maintenance Management System, or CMMS, is a centralized solution designed to facilitate the efficient organization and control of maintenance operations across portfolios. It improves the overall efficiency, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of maintenance processes, ensuring that equipment and facilities are maintained to support seamless operations and seamless collaboration. With comprehensive Asset Management workflows, preventive maintenance alerts, flawless work order management and a mobile application to supervise the above, a CMMS plays a vital role in an effective maintenance strategy.

Summary

What should we take away from this?

• Maintenance management is the process of maintaining the company’s -assets and resources.
• Its main objective is to streamline company processes and protect assets
• There are multiple types of maintenance management, mainly preventive, predictive and reactive maintenance.
• Maintenance management provides facility managers to stay ahead of the curve by providing insights received from data related to failures, downtime and helps in taking informed decisions.
• The inclusion of Maintenance Management Software has been very helpful in improving efficiency, reducing unnecessary costs and reducing downtime.

Want to know more about how maintenance management is shaping the technological landscape and improving producing and efficiency? Get in touch with us!