Equipment is an important resource which is constantly used for adding value to products. So, it must be kept at the best operating condition. Otherwise there will be excessive down time and also interruption of production if it is used in a mass production line. Poor working of equipment s will lead to quality related problems. Hence it is an absolute necessity to maintain the equipment in good operating conditions with economical costs. Hence, we need an integrated approach to minimize the cost of maintenance. Maintenance is any action that restores failed units to an operational condition or retains non failed units in an operational state or an activity carried out for any equipment or asset to ensure its reliability to perform its functions. The objectives of maintenance are to maintain equipments and facilities in such conditions that:
• They give trouble free service and output at rated capacity.
• Safety is ensured.
• Down time is minimized.
• The cost of operations and maintenance is minimized.
The maintenance function plays a supporting role to effective operations. It ensures that the equipment is able to maintain quality standards, as well as the quantitative and cost standards of outputs.
Maintenance activity can be classified into four types;
• Break down Maintenance
• Preventive Maintenance
• Predictive Maintenance
• Proactive Maintenance
Breakdown maintenance is totally reactive maintenance is only activated on breakdowns. The goal of corrective or breakdown maintenance is,
• To restore the faulty equipment to a healthy operating state as promptly as possible,
• To do this in as cost effective manner
Preventive maintenance (PM) is the periodical inspection and service activities which are aimed to detect potential failures and perform minor adjustment in repairs which will prevent major operating problems in future.
Predictive maintenance depends on the ability to measure asset health and extrapolate this information in order to predict the moment that the assets will fail to fulfill the function. It is condition based approach to maintenance.
Proactive maintenance concentrates on its monitoring and correction of root causes to equipment failures. This strategy is designed to extend the useful age of the equipment to reach the wear-out stage by adaptation to high level of operating precision.
