Plant Support
Do you need help with industrial equipment maintenance?
Plant support, another name for industrial equipment maintenance, is the process of putting procedures in place to decrease breakdowns, boost uptime, and improve general reliability for the equipment and machinery in a production facility. In other words, industrial equipment maintenance refers to any activities done to keep assets in proper operating order. This includes working with large pieces of equipment that require skilled help for heavy equipment moving and installation.
Manufacturing can be maintained and better planned for when equipment continues to operate at its expected capacity. A maintenance plan lowers maintenance expenses, enhances possible uptime, and ultimately boosts profitability. For this reason, the leading manufacturing businesses insist on routine maintenance and plant support to ensure success.
A good maintenance schedule can pinpoint tasks that should be performed at consistent intervals to avoid breakdowns altogether, thereby saving your business more money.
Whether you require routine maintenance or are dealing with a critical plant shutdown, our expert millwrights can help. We will partner with your maintenance team and document every action, so your team has a clear gauge of the equipment’s health. We can also help you install new equipment if you are planning an upcoming project at your facility. Examples of the work we can provide include;
- Maintenance
- Heavy Equipment Moving
- Turn-key installation
- Belt or conveyor replacement
- Modifying existing equipment
- Plant shutdowns for full industrial equipment maintenance
- Turn-key for electrical, mechanical, gas, and pneumatic support
Common Maintenance Strategies
Depending on your unique needs and the maintenance approach that your company decides to use, maintenance activities are performed to varying degrees and frequencies. Here are three of the most common needs for which our clients seek out our services.
Preventive Maintenance
As the most proactive of industrial equipment maintenance strategies, aimed at eliminating possible failure points before they even arise, preventative maintenance is an ideal solution for most businesses.
With a preventive maintenance (PM) plan, a proactive approach to maintenance duties must be taken based on usage or a calendar-based timetable. One common example to help illustrate this strategy is having your car’s oil changed after a predetermined amount of miles of driving. This is clearly an effective way to extend the life of your vehicle and ensure its ongoing proper performance.
By preventing situations that lead to breakdowns, preventive maintenance tasks can drastically reduce unexpected downtime and save money. Because this lessens the possibility of a catastrophic failure when compared to using a reactive strategy, preventive maintenance costs are much lower. Savings are realized after accounting for safety regulations, lost production, and overall repair expenses.
It is worth noting that there are some possible downsides to a preventive maintenance strategy to consider. For example, schedules that are based on usage or time may cause work to be done unnecessarily, even before they may be needed. The trade-off, as with your vehicle’s oil change, is that you can have much more confidence in the performance of your equipment. You also have to factor in the cost, time, and challenges of heavy equipment moving that your maintenance plan may require.
(RCM) Reliability-Centered Maintenance
One of the most specialized types of proactive industrial equipment maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), places a strong emphasis on being preventative. RCM seeks to avoid failures by determining the optimum course of action, much like a conventional PM strategy. Consider RCM as a strategy that generates maintenance plans that are specifically tailored to each piece of equipment.
RCM considers an asset’s criticality, potential reasons for failure, and necessary corrective measures. As a result, several maintenance approaches may be assigned to equipment within the same facility. You can more effectively distribute resources in this manner where they are needed. In contrast, standard PM establishes relatively strict deadlines for doing maintenance chores.
Compared to reactive or preventative maintenance, RCM needs more information about your assets in order to be effective. Using computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software is a wise technique to gather and evaluate data about your equipment. You can keep track of which equipment types are given various maintenance approaches using a CMMS.
Reactive management is possible, for instance, with non-critical and redundant equipment like light bulbs, but that approach may not help with more critical machinery. Calendar-based PM tasks can be used to allocate consumables with known failure patterns and lifespans, empowering your business with information and confidence that you are making the right decision. When the equipment in question is vital to your operation, this RCM approach may be perfect for your needs.
Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance, as the name implies, focuses on actions that need to be taken once a piece of equipment malfunctions. Reactive maintenance is an industrial equipment maintenance approach that has the benefit of having much lower upfront expenses because nothing is done until it is actually needed. Only when a piece of equipment is already exhibiting indicators of poor performance are these types of reactive maintenance duties performed.
Reactive industrial equipment maintenance has more negative effects than positive ones in the short term, however. The risk of permanent damage from unexpected failure is the price of conducting minimal reactive maintenance. Production losses are the most common outcome of these failures, and in the worst circumstances, essential equipment may even be damaged for extensive periods of time, if not irreparably damaged altogether.
Because of the high risk, it is advisable to only resort to reactive maintenance strategies for assets that are necessary for operations and therefore cannot afford to be taken offline for any period of time until it is absolutely necessary. Even then, a proactive preventative maintenance strategy is best and is therefore highly recommended.
Our Plant Support Services Solutions
Whether you need heavy equipment moving or support with your industrial equipment maintenance, the Murphy team is capable of helping you achieve your goals with confidence.
Finding the right solution for your business will require an evaluation and discussion to determine your goals and objectives in order to create the right strategy for you. Our team can help with that. Give us a call today or schedule an appointment through the link below.
Frequently Asked Questions
Maintaining equipment used for production and manufacturing is vital to the success of any business relying on this machinery to produce products and goods. Ensuring this equipment is working properly is a key part of that plan. Industrial equipment maintenance allows for the proactive maintenance and improvement of vital equipment, helping to extend the life of the equipment, prevent problematic breakdowns, and reduce spoilage while also limiting downtime.
The maintenance cycle of industrial equipment and machinery will depend on the type of equipment and its usage. Manufacturers should have provided guidelines when the equipment was purchased, so sticking to this convention is highly recommended. Regular inspections like monthly, quarterly, or annually are recommended regardless of the equipment. A maintenance schedule helps you address issues before they become major repairs.
The three main types of industrial equipment maintenance are preventive, predictive, and corrective. Preventive maintenance is for regularly scheduled checks, while predictive maintenance uses data to anticipate failures and proactively address them, and corrective maintenance is all about fixing equipment after a failure. Each method is part of the industrial equipment maintenance lifecycle and helps to keep equipment operating in optimal condition.
Maintenance costs vary depending on equipment type, service frequency, and the types of repairs needed. Preventive maintenance is usually cheaper than corrective actions as it prevents major breakdowns, generally saving the expensive costs and time associated with replacing damaged parts. Investing in regular maintenance is an ideal practice to ensure your business long-term cost-saving benefits.
Establishing and following a maintenance program is an excellent idea for any facility using expensive equipment. Start by implementing a preventive maintenance strategy, use computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), and train your employees on equipment care. Review and adjust your maintenance schedule regularly to reflect current usage and operational needs.
Poor maintenance leads to frequent breakdowns, which can disrupt production, reducing output and increasing operational costs. It can also compromise worker safety and shorten equipment life, resulting in higher replacement costs.