Performance maintenance involves organizations or teams carrying out maintenance work on their assets based on performance. Preventive maintenance (PM) is a proactive maintenance strategy. It aims to keep equipment and assets in good working condition through regular maintenance work.
PM functions on the principle that routine maintenance activities can help to identify and address minor problems before they develop into major ones. This will help to prevent breakdowns and reduce unplanned equipment downtime. This approach helps to preserve assets, maintain uptime, and save maintenance costs on expensive fixes.
Predictive maintenance (PdM) is another form of planned maintenance. PdM further isolates maintenance efforts to the most necessary periods by predicting when assets are about to fail. Instead of carrying out specific preventive maintenance tasks all the time, teams can save money by reserving these tasks for when assets need them the most.
Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is closely linked to predictive maintenance. CBM doesn’t necessarily use the predictive algorithms and formulas of PdM. However, it also seeks to streamline preventive maintenance and focus on the most necessary maintenance activities by observing asset conditions.
Condition-based maintenance works according to asset performance. Teams schedule and perform maintenance based on specified parameters and thresholds. For example, if the baseline temperature at which an asset performs optimally is 30 degrees Celsius, a temperature reading of 40 degrees indicates that the asset is performing abnormally. The team should carry out proactive maintenance tasks to prevent a breakdown.
“Ensuring that maintenance teams are doing the right tasks is the first essential step in any effort to control rising maintenance costs. High-performing organizations need to go further, however, by ensuring that tasks are done by the right people and in the most efficient way.”
McKinsey
Using a Work Order Management System to Optimize Performance Maintenance
When implementing a performance maintenance plan, teams need the right tools to optimize their processes. Work order software should be high on the list of priorities for a team seeking a successful maintenance program.
While managing work orders is vital for the process, work order management software can do a lot more. Contrary to typical assumptions, the best facility management systems, especially computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), offer functionality for various powerful tasks.
Today's best work order systems aim to help users streamline their workflows and optimize their maintenance operations with the following valuable features.
Work Order Tracking
While this might seem like an obvious functionality, work order management systems can offer different ways of managing work orders. The best maintenance work order software provides templates and checklists, allowing users and managers to track maintenance work orders throughout their lifecycles.
This means the entire process of creating, assigning, and executing work orders is streamlined. Managers can prioritize actions, update work orders, and share real-time data and instructions with maintenance technicians, who can share updates as they work.
In addition, CMMS systems with chat functionality and work order commenting encourage collaboration between team members, increasing the likelihood of success of maintenance tasks.
Asset Tracking
Crucial to performance maintenance is asset tracking. Because this form of preventive maintenance depends on how assets are performing, maintenance teams need reliable ways to track their equipment performance.
Work order tracking systems can also be helpful here. A CMMS software, with a robust asset tracking module, can help teams monitor not just the physical location of their asset in a facility but also their asset performance and know when exactly to schedule maintenance work.
Historical Data Storage
In addition to present performance, a good performance maintenance approach requires a robust asset history on hand. This history should include both performance and maintenance history. Having this information handy helps teams avoid both under and over-maintenance. It also helps teams identify when regular maintenance work is insufficient, and assets require a more thorough root cause analysis.
With the right CMMS, a team can simplify their asset history storage using QR codes and barcodes. MaintainX, for example, allows teams to create these codes and attach them to assets. Users can then scan these codes to access useful asset information.
Reporting and Analysis to Improve Metrics and KPIs
Metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) offer maintenance departments a data-driven approach to measuring how well their maintenance activities are doing. For example, a team that sees its Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) this month increase in value from last month can tell that its maintenance approach is productive.
Teams should opt for work order software solutions that provide reporting and analysis features. MaintainX CMMS, for example, contains reporting dashboards that track metrics and analyze data to generate actionable insights. With these insights, maintenance teams can further optimize their maintenance processes, focusing on the aspects that work and retooling the ones that don’t.
Inventory Management
Robust inventory management is crucial for the success of any performance maintenance program. When maintenance workers lack the necessary spare parts and tools to perform a maintenance task, machines stay in downtime for much longer. Work order programs can help teams with real-time monitoring of their inventory levels.
Especially with mobile CMMS software, staff can log new entries and removals from inventory directly from the shop floor using smartphones. QR codes and barcodes also allow workers to update inventory by scanning. In addition, some software, like cloud-based MaintainX, can automate specific inventory management protocols.
The software allows users to set up automated low-quantity alerts and purchase orders triggered by inventory items falling under specified limits.
The purchase orders feature also integrates with third-party vendors. This allows MaintainX users to send purchase orders to providers within their organization who are connected to the MaintainX mobile app and to those outside the MaintainX system using their email addresses.
Performance Maintaintenance with MaintainX
Take your asset performance maintenance to the next level with MaintainX. MaintainX is a Computerized Maintenance Management System that provides robust functionality for facility asset management, asset tracking, and work order management to streamline your performance maintenance.
Take advantage of MaintainX’s work order module and mobile device notifications to manage maintenance requests, create maintenance schedules in advance, and ensure maintenance technicians never miss an assigned task again.
MaintainX’s parts inventory module, combined with work order tracking, lets you know what parts teams use in which work requests and work orders and maintains a complete audit trail of your spare parts and inventory.
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Lekan Olanrewaju
Lekan Olanrewaju is a content writer at MaintainX with years of experience in media and content creation. He has held positions at various media organizations, working with and leading teams at print magazines, digital publications, and television productions.
