Highlights of the 2020 Plant Engineering industrial maintenance study include the following:
- Eighty-eight percent of industrial facilities follow a preventive maintenance strategy; 52% have a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and 51% use a run-to-failure method.
- Forty-six percent of facilities allocate up to 10% of their annual operating costs to maintenance processes; 41% devote more than 10% of this budget to maintenance. The average facility spends 33 hours each week on scheduled maintenance, up from 20 hours over 2020 data.
- Production equipment, rotating equipment (motors, power transmission, etc.) and fluid power systems (air, hydraulic, etc.) are the three areas where facilities dedicate the most maintenance support, followed by material handling equipment and internal electrical distribution systems.
- Eighty-eight percent of facilities outsource some or all maintenance operations; the average facility outsources 23% of their maintenance operations. Leading causes for outsourcing are an existing agreement with a manufacturer or supplier, lack of skills among current staff and lack of time/manpower to dedicate to maintenance.
- Maintenance teams are mostly trained on basic mechanical and electrical/electronic skills, as well as safety. Other types of training include motors, gearboxes, bearings and lubrication.
- The most common technologies facilities use to monitor and/or manage maintenance are CMMS, in-house created spreadsheets/schedules and automated maintenance schedules.
- The leading cause of unscheduled downtime within industrial facilities remains aging equipment, followed by mechanical failure, operator error and lack of proper training. More than half of facilities are planning to upgrade their equipment to decrease unscheduled downtime.
- The top challenge for improving maintenance at industrial facilities is aging equipment. Other obstacles include a lack of understanding of new options and technologies, lack of resources or staff and outdated technology.
- Forty-eight percent of facilities allow the use of connected devices when monitoring production equipment for machine data capture, analysis and improvements across maintenance, engineers and/or operational technology/information technology (OT/IT).
- The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and related technology has helped facilities better understand machine health, improve reliability and better predict and prevent equipment breakdowns.
Courtesy: CFE Media and Technology/Advanced Technology Services
Source: plantengineering.com/articles/the-maintenance-function-like-manufacturing-itself-is-a-rapidly-changing-environment/