The Role of Preventative Maintenance for Industrial Equipment: Types, Benefits and Getting Started

The equipment you buy is essential in keeping your warehouse running efficiently. To help these machines function at their best capacity, you need to implement preventative maintenance strategies.

This article explores the role of preventative maintenance for industrial equipment and how to effectively use it to enhance your equipment’s life span and performance and ultimately reduce costs.

The Role of Preventative Maintenance for Industrial Equipment

Preventative maintenance plays an important role in helping to improve our overall operations in five key ways.

1. It Extends Equipment Life Span

Regular maintenance can help prolong your equipment’s life span. With a maintenance plan in place, you can keep your equipment in optimal condition. You may also be able to predict challenges and make the necessary adjustments, which can reduce the need for premature equipment replacement.

2. It Saves You Money

If a faulty machine goes undetected, you may create flawed products that fail to meet standard requirements and, as a result, get scrapped. In addition, a defective machine may also work slower and need operators to stay longer hours to fulfill their tasks, resulting in you paying extra wages. With improper maintenance practices, you may also be unable to claim warranty coverage. These are just a few significant ways in which preventative maintenance can save you money.

3. It Improves Safety

Equipment failures in the manufacturing industry cause many accidents every year. These events could be caused by a fork attached improperly, fuel levels being too low or even tires that don’t have the right pressure. With effective equipment preventative maintenance, you can service your machines before any issues arise. With older equipment, you can create a plan that predicts when the machine might have challenges and how to overcome these issues, so you can keep your staff and warehouse safe.

4. It Reduces Downtime

When a machine malfunctions, it can halt your entire operation. This downtime can result in workers not working and machines not operating. With a preventative maintenance strategy, you can reduce the number of equipment failures that cause operational disruptions and eliminate or minimize unexpected downtime.

5. It Increases Efficiency

You can operate more efficiently when your machinery’s life span is increased, your warehouse is safe and you experience minimal downtime.

Types of Preventative Maintenance

There are different preventative maintenance strategies. Understanding each can help you determine which plan best suits your needs. 

Time-Based Maintenance

You may already be familiar with time-based maintenance. This strategy involves scheduling maintenance for your equipment at regular, predetermined intervals. For example, you could:

• Check tire pressure and brakes every week
• Lubricate mass chassis and mast components every two months
• Inspect and clean the radiator every four months

These intervals are based on the equipment’s estimated life span, and this approach can help improve their life span and prevent breakdowns.

Usage-Based Maintenance

Usage-based maintenance focuses on servicing your equipment according to how many hours you’ve used it. For instance, for your forklift preventative maintenance, you can schedule a forklift oil change every 200 hours. Unlike time-based maintenance, this approach focuses on the actual wear and tear of the equipment.

Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance focuses on continuously assessing your equipment’s health. You collect data about the machine’s usage using advanced analytical tools and processes like machine learning. With this data, you can effectively predict the potential future state of your equipment. This strategy also involves identifying challenges and addressing them as they occur. 

Prescriptive Maintenance

Similar to predictive maintenance, prescriptive maintenance uses data to predict future equipment challenges. The difference is that with the prescriptive approach, you also receive recommendations that may help reduce risks. 

What If You Skip Preventative Maintenance?

We’ve clarified the role that preventative maintenance plays in our daily operations. Now, what would happen if you decided not to implement this approach?

• Unscheduled downtime: When you’re not proactively servicing your machines, they may suddenly stop working one day. This will result in operations halting until the equipment is fixed or replaced.
• Machines won’t perform at their optimum: For example, with preventative maintenance, you may change oils every few months. Without it, your equipment may no longer perform at its best.
• Worn out forklift tires: If you don’t check tire treads regularly, the tires could go flat or blow out while you’re using the lifts.
• Safety device challenges: With preventative maintenance, safety devices like airbags and belts are routinely inspected. Without this, the drivers may be at risk if they get into accidents.

Tips on Implementing an Effective Preventative Maintenance Strategy

Every company is unique. The challenges that you face may be different from some of your competitors’ issues. Because of this, it’s essential to create a preventative maintenance plan that will address your specific needs. Here are x tips to help you get started.

1. Understand Your Equipment

It’s important to understand the maintenance needs of each piece of equipment you own. One of the simplest ways to do this is to go through the manuals. Manufacturers often give recommendations on how to keep the machine working properly, and if you have a question you need clarification on, you can always reach out to them.

2. Create a Maintenance Schedule

Creating a maintenance schedule ensures that all your equipment gets serviced according to factory specifications. For minor inspections, you can make a daily or weekly checklist. Conversely, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or yearly maintenance may be more relevant for detailed services and replacements.

3. Educate Your Team

Preventative maintenance is a team effort. Your staff needs to play their role in keeping accurate records, using the equipment correctly and reporting any challenges they notice early on.

4. Ask for Help

When it comes to preventative maintenance, there is no one-size-fits-all plan. Newer equipment may be serviced less than older equipment, while some machines may work better in stormy weather conditions and others in hot weather climates. These little differences mean that oil changes, filter checks and other components may need to occur at different times. That’s why it’s essential to work with a dedicated team of trained technicians who can lend their expertise to your unique situation.

You can also reach out to professionals if you:

• Notice a recurring problem
• Need specialized tools for a specific task
• Need to change a particular part but are struggling to find it
• Don’t understand what is wrong with your machine
• Are unsure about how to maintain a forklift

Alta Offers Forklift Preventative Maintenance for Your Needs

Alta Material Handling offers reliable forklift maintenance solutions to suit your needs. Our dedicated team of highly trained, certified and skilled experts provide you with forklift maintenance solutions.

We have detailed maintenance plans designed to help technicians minimize unplanned downtime by identifying minor challenges because they become significant issues.

Contact us today online to schedule your appointment, or reach out to one of our locations by phone to speak to one of our consultants and learn more about the specific preventative maintenance strategies that can be right for you and your needs.