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Like you, every asset owner wants the mounting asset maintenance costs to decline. Worst of all, most of them have already tried an exhaustive set of methods. Each time they failed.
So, what is it that they couldn’t do and you can?/p>
You can be more simplistic in you approach. The solution belongs in revisiting the basics.
The basics of asset maintenance – “Maintain your assets in time to escape untimely maintenance needs.” The key lying in devising a methodology which can ensure that your assets are timely maintained and also warns you against something unwarranted. From here, stems the concept of preventive and predictive maintenance.
Preventive maintenance refers to routine maintenance of your assets at periodic intervals. This kind of maintenance is usually suggested by the manufacturer of the equipment to lessen its chance of failure. The intervals are based on machine working environment, climate, type of lubricants/consumables, mean time between failures, and studies over long periods. Since the maintenance schedule factor in so many vital parameters, asset owners are suggested to follow it as directed.
The easiest example to quote is that of a car which usually needs to be serviced every 10,000 kilometres. The schedule is pre-decided by the car manufacturer based on the distance it has travelled and various other things in the backdrop. The purpose is to ensure that the car is in order and gives optimum mileage. More you stick by the schedule, lesser are the chances of underperformance or failure. Plus, in most cases your car shall be saved from heavy maintenance costs at once.
Now that we have covered how routine measurement of asset parameters can save you from unwanted maintenance costs, let us explore another way of cost control- predictive maintenance.
This is a tool that can predict a potential damage to your asset and trigger maintenance activity while there is still time. Doing this saves the asset from a major overhaul and saves the asset-owner a million bucks.
The best way to achieve this is through a regular asset health check-up.
An asset health check up can be compared with the regular health check visits that we make to the path labs. These visits measure our vital parameters, check if they fall within range and notify us of symptoms and diseases as detected. Similarly, an asset health check-up is essential to keep the asset in a good condition and keep the owner informed about any deviations and impending asset-troubles.
Let us explain this with an example.
The engine oil pressure for industrial equipments is noted daily during a health check-up. If it falls within a specified range, there is nothing to worry about and no alert is issued. However, in case it continuously goes out of range, it indicates a compromise in quality. A regular dip can thus warn the owner to get the asset checked before the condition further deteriorates and lead to sky-high maintenance cost.
Scenario 1: On a particular day, the health check-up detects low oil pressure. You take remedial measures and the asset is good to go. The issue repeats in the following week and you correct it again. It occurs again within a few days and you check it once more. Shortly after, your engine gives up you are left with no choice than to incur heavy expenditure to make good the damage.
Scenario 2: When the oil pressure goes down repeatedly, the predictive maintenance tool alerts you about the poor health of the component and prompts you to look deeper into the issue. As a result, you find the root cause and get the issue rectified in time, thus saving yourself from the replacement/repair cost.
So just by paying attention to the warning signs that your assets issue before they finally give up, you can spend much less on maintenance and improve your top line.
Having learned the importance of both kinds of maintenance, if you think that it can be managed on your own, take my words- ‘doing it with spreadsheets is impossible.’ Though you can capture the parameters on excel, let me assure you that mining the data over the long run and using it to analyze and predict asset trends is just not practical without a proper solution.
Tappet Box, an infra-asset-management solution, can keep your assets in good shape while keeping their maintenance at its lowest. Designed to suit the Indian asset-industry dynamics and equipped with a thorough health check module and predictive maintenance alerts, it has emerged as the best way to escape unwanted maintenance cost and improve RoE.
To know more, call us at 919212311151