Your Guide to Predictive Maintenance

An equipment breakdown usually happens at the most inopportune time: when there are deadlines to be met or jobs to be finished. By putting together a maintenance schedule that predicts the lifespan of machinery parts and maximum usage for equipment, your maintenance staff can stay ahead of breakdowns and the expensive frustration that accompanies them. Setting up a holistic preventative maintenance program isn’t difficult, it just requires some inventory and a little research.

Inventory Everything

Whether it’s a complicated piece of machinery with multiple parts or it’s a garden hose, write it down, along with its approximate age, the parts that are replaceable and the cost of those parts. “There are many software systems that will help you track that,” says Ronald Kalley, Director of Administrative Services for State Farm Insurance Companies in Bloomington, Ill. “The tools and techniques are becoming much more sophisticated.”

If you’re dealing with landscaping, Don De Fever, president of Jensen Landscape Services in San Jose, Calif., recommends assessing each job separately and taking notes. “Each tree, each flower bed, each irrigation system—we survey all of those components so that we have a benchmark for the future,” he says.

Set priorities 

Kalley says you need to ask yourself and your workers what you’re trying to accomplish when all is said and done. “Ask yourself if there are things you don’t want to work on until they break—maybe they break so infrequently, that it’s not worth putting the effort into it earlier,” he says. “On the other hand, maybe there are items that it’s critical that they never break—identify which ones those are.” There may also be pieces of equipment, Kalley says, that you want to have two of—one to use and one for a backup.

Set baselines for the future

Kalley says his staff sets baselines based on industry standards for items like vibrations in the air conditioning system or looking at how much particulate matter is accumulating in the oil of the pump in the chilling unit. “Once you’ve set a baseline, you’ll know when you need to take that piece of equipment offline and do some work to it,” Kalley says.

De Fever says by getting a baseline or benchmark for various components maintenance staff can then project improvements in terms of resource management. “For us, this will lower pesticide and fertilizer costs, allowing the least impact on the environment and controlling costs for the company.”

Know when to repair

Check with the manufacturer and the operations manuals on recommendations for repairs. Using equipment that isn’t recommended by these sources can void a warranty.

Document all work done to a machine. “You need to be documenting the history of work to a machine, not only for compliance, but also to be sure you’re meeting warranty requirements, safety codes, and ‘lemon law’ requirements,” says Kalley. “If you need proof down the road that you’ve done these things, you want the documentation handy.”

Follow Up

By using a computer system, you can not only track repairs, but schedule them so that you’ll be reminded later. However, one of the best systems for predictive maintenance is simply having the workers do routine check-ups. “We have a technician who walks through the space each day doing log readings and monthly checks for leakage,” says Kalley. “That’s still one of the best ways to predict and prevent breakage."