Every company has assets that assist in the business’s smooth functioning. But these assets often require maintenance to ensure they run for prolonged periods. Avoiding these maintenance requirements often leads to a complete breakdown of the said assets. And we all know that repairing small issues is less expensive than purchasing new assets.
To avoid these high future costs, companies must implement a frequent preventative maintenance inspection schedule. Let’s dive in to understand the meaning and importance of proactive maintenance.
What is proactive maintenance?
Proactive maintenance is a preventive maintenance strategy focused on identifying and correcting the root issues in assets to avoid future breakdowns.
For example, a manufacturing unit might have machines with faulty engines. Repairing these engines early on ensures you avoid the cost of purchasing new machines. Moreover, avoiding these small issues can also drastically affect overall production.
Remember that proactive maintenance differs highly from reactive maintenance as the latter focuses on fixing equipment after they break. Preventative maintenance instead focuses on routine maintenance to identify issues before they become drastic.
Many businesses have started installing a Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) for real-time updates on the root causes of equipment failure. You only need a few experts to successfully handle the software and give updates.
Benefits of a proactive maintenance strategy
Now that we know the meaning of proactive maintenance let’s move to the benefits of implementing the same:
1. Help reduce downtime
Your productivity levels get affected drastically if a machine breaks down. The increased downtime due to equipment or system malfunction hinders all time-based targets. Research has shown that the hourly downtime cost drastically increased after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now if your business plans on remaining profitable in the long run, then adapting a proactive maintenance strategy becomes crucial. It ensures you correct faults early on to avoid any sort of delays in production due to machine breakdowns.
2. Minimal repair costs
Do you know that unexpected repairs often cost way more than the ones you identify through routine checkups?
These unexpected repairs are highly expensive, in most scenarios, double than what they should be. Let’s break down the costs for your improved understanding.
Firstly, the technician comes to assess the problem and charges you to tell what’s wrong with the asset simply. Secondly, the damaged components require replacement parts. The company then needs to purchase these parts for the necessary repairs. Lastly, the actual cost of conducting the entire replacement process ensures the asset starts functioning properly.
A proactive maintenance strategy in place ensures you avoid all the unnecessary costs that come with unforeseen repairs. After all, it’s better to be safe than suffer additional charges, right?
3. Reduced labor costs
A reactive approach often requires a large team of technicians to assess and correct the issues. It remains highly expensive even if you charge them on an hourly basis. Oftentimes, the technical staff remains expensive as it consists of different specialists.
On the other hand, a proactive maintenance strategy only demands a few technicians. They focus on timely monitoring the assets and identify errors, if any.
4. Real-time monitoring prevents severe issues
Installing a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) help extract real-time maintenance data. The system also gives information on the utilization of the equipment.
Having this data often helps in scaling down energy consumption when the asset isn’t being used. Therefore, it also prevents unnecessary wastage and gives an added cost advantage.
Conclusion
Now we know how proactive maintenance gives an added cost advantage and simplifies the entire process. Remember that you don’t have to eliminate your reactive approach entirely.
You can simply use reactive and proactive approaches simultaneously. Extract out the benefits of both for easy business functioning.
