Downtime in industrial manufacturing creates significant risks, especially when it occurs unexpectedly. Every minute of equipment inactivity leads to production delays, dissatisfied clients, and financial losses.
According to a recent report by Forbes, the average manufacturer experiences 800 hours of equipment downtime annually. When translated into financial terms, the revenue losses for a company due to unplanned downtime are overwhelmingly high.
Thankfully, there are tools available today that can reduce this risk. In this article, we focus on 5 fundamental steps that can help you, the manufacturer, substantially reduce machinery and equipment downtime.
1. Invest in Preventive Maintenance
The golden rule for avoiding downtime is to implement a comprehensive preventive maintenance process. This allows issues to be identified and resolved before they escalate into serious problems that require equipment to go out of service.
Preventative Maintenance, however, comes with its own set of challenges and requires planning and optimal collaboration among your employees. For instance, scheduled maintenance tasks should be carried out during hours that minimize disruption to production.
And when a staff member completes a task, they need to record it and notify the relevant parties, ensuring everyone who needs to know is informed so the process moves forward smoothly, and on schedule.
2. Calculate the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (O.E.E.)
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or O.E.E., measures availability, performance, and quality to provide a comprehensive view of equipment efficiency.
Meanwhile, it helps you monitor downtime and understand its root causes. Having the right data on equipment performance and related incidents at the tip of your fingers will make it much easier to take proactive measures and prevent future issues. Because, the facts will tell you exactly what went wrong!
3. Optimize Spare Parts Management
Imagine being struck with an unexpected and severe equipment failure. Now picture this: the spare part required for the repair isn’t readily available. Equipment downtime instantly escalates as you’ll need to wait for the part to arrive.
Therefore, it’s crucial to monitor your stock continuously and ensure that essential supplies are always on hand.
4. Train your staff
Equipment issues are not always due to machine failure from inadequate maintenance or wear and tear. Often, they stem from human error.
An employee may be operating the equipment incorrectly. That’s why the maintenance, production or facility managers are responsible for ensuring all employees are properly trained to minimize errors.
Staff training, however, requires certain conditions to be truly effective:
A one-off training session is often not enough. If mistakes are observed, it’s essential to provide staff with additional training.
Training content must be clear and accessible to all team members.
Assess the knowledge gained by asking staff to take a test.
5. Invest in Technology
By now, you’re probably wondering “How can I achieve all this? I don’t have the time and who will take care of this?”
You’re absolutely right! Setting up the right process from scratch is time-consuming. But not when you leverage the power of technology.
For example, consider the importance of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (O.E.E.), as we discussed earlier. It involves gathering countless data points from several stakeholders.
Even if you manage to collect the necessary data, someone still needs to compare, analyze, and draw conclusions - a process that requires significant time.
Did you know that there are smart systems that assist with data collection and input while automatically estimating the Overall Equipment Effectiveness percentage?
Similarly, technology can be a game-changer in other areas, such as staff training, creating and adhering to a comprehensive preventive maintenance program, and more.
Streamline Maintenance Processes and Reduce Downtime with Tekmon
At Tekmon, we specialize in enhancing frontline teams’ productivity through the rapid digital transformation of processes.
Our platform provides solutions for daily operations, mass notifications, and remote training, tailored for on-the-field employees.
Knowing full well the challenges technical maintenance teams face, we’ve created a comprehensive solution that:
Enhances team collaboration.
Digitizes inspection checklists and eliminates duplicate entries.
Helps you manage spare parts, inventory, and more!
