Preventive Maintenance relating to planning and practices are the major influencing activities of the maintenance department of the manufacturing environment. Some of the examples of preventive programs which is undertaken by the people include,

• Downtime of the equipment which is affected by preventive maintenance.
• Repairing work orders are because of the influence of maintenance programs.
• Purchasing of different inventory for the routine replacement procedures in order to meet the unexpected downtime.

It can be said that Preventive Maintenance should be the first base upon which the maintenance department begins their work. It is very unfortunate that many a time the maintenance program for preventing adverse situation is not taken care of. This results in disaster.

Keys to a Successful Preventive Maintenance Program

• Careful blueprint plan for the preventive maintenance program – It is important to draft the entire program in a proper manner. It will determine the working aspect, along with the usage of resources. Moreover, as per the schedule, the accountability system needs to be checked. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the entire task and consider the resource adequacy available.
• Implementation of the new preventive maintenance program – It is important to check whether the new maintenance program will be beneficial or not. Once you find that it could help in reaping good benefits in the future, one can align with the policy of the company, requiem of industry, regulation, and preferences.
• Assessment and adjustment of the equipment maintenance program – It is necessary to evaluate the maintenance program in order to check the effectiveness in the working. Primary assessment work is considered to be the tool of the work as the maintenance data. The longer the software is put in use, the more data is being accumulated. This rather helps in extensive analysis and reporting work. The data collected helps in making a valuable decision. The real-time data work helps in eliminating the guesswork to a great extent.

Preventive Maintenance is considered to be the primary responsibility of any maintenance manager in the manufacturing environment. Even many of the activities of the department are affected by these programs. However, the success of any manufacturing ability is highly dependent upon the quality in designing, implementations, and proper management of the maintenance system.

Joyce Laroche