Maintenance in a Predictable Way
We have seen before that production efficiency is basically a function of three factors: performance (the number of items produced), quality (of the products manufactured) and availability (of the machinery). If we look at the latter in a little more depth, we can see that availability can be affected by many things: Not only the lack of raw material and operator ineptitude, but also planned maintenance or even unexpected breakdowns can cause a machine to stop working.
Unexpected breakdowns are often the result of neglected or inadequate maintenance.
No matter how modern a machine may be, if maintenance information is not fully available, it will be difficult to keep it running at optimum levels. Even if this important information is recorded on paper, it can easily get lost – in many cases, the manuals, repair histories and records for the machine have to be dug up from a wide variety of places.
While in the case of a small business running one or two machines, this information can easily be remembered by the maintenance manager or effectively managed in a notebook, in a larger plant using several production lines it is virtually impossible without using digital tools.
The risks of not carrying out maintenance because of inadequate information cannot be emphasized enough: In the best case, it may “only” result in machinery running slow, increased production costs, unplanned downtime, but unexpected breakdowns can result in damage to the machinery or even serious personal injury.
DSS Maintenance: maintenance in a predictable way
Industrial digitalization has led to the emergence of various maintenance support systems, including DSS Maintenance, a solution developed jointly by DSS Consulting and Bosch Rexroth.
DSS Maintenance fully supports the monitoring of preventive and, through an optional module, predictive maintenance processes. Machines can be registered at the component level, so that the history of component replacement can be clearly monitored thanks to unique identifiers. Any event can be recorded for both machines and components, which can be traced back over their entire life cycle. Manufacturers’ maintenance recommendations can also be added to the system, so that any maintenance for machines or components can be planned in advance by monitoring running times. The system can be integrated with DSS OptimAPS, the production optimization solution developed by DSS Consulting, so that planned downtimes can be taken into account when optimizing production.
As far as predictive maintenance is concerned, DSS Maintenance can also receive and process data from sensors installed on machines, sending predictive alerts on possible expected failures or out-of-limit operation. The available data also allows unexpected repairs to be planned – for example, servicing can be carried out during the next changeover.
Better planned maintenance minimizes service costs, maximizes machine lifetime, and the higher availability of machinery improves production efficiency, helps optimize capital expenditures and ultimately improves the company’s bottom line.
In addition, DSS Maintenance supports the creation of an integrated, up-to-date maintenance knowledge base: manuals, breakdowns and repair records are available in a single system.
For a brief description of DSS Maintenance, click here.
Could your company benefit from a comprehensive maintenance support system? Why not discuss this over a good cup of coffee?
