It is well-known that your assets will be in good condition and extend their lifespan through routine maintenance and inspections. However, some do a lousy job. The consequences of not taking care of maintenance are in a backlog of repair work that can cause equipment to fail and even accidents in the worst-case scenario. This is expensive and may even prolong downtime for operations. But how can companies be sure to avoid this error?
This is when the importance of a maintenance program is evident. A maintenance plan is a method employed by a business to maintain equipment, machinery, and other equipment used for operations. A maintenance plan can ensure long-term success for the business because it helps improve security, reliability, and efficiency.
What is a Maintenance Plan?
A maintenance plan is a document that lists the tasks needed to ensure a specific group of people or buildings are operating at their highest capacity while continuing to work safely. The list includes scheduled activities such as inspections, preventive maintenance, and minor repairs.
The purpose of creating a maintenance plan is to protect people’s health, safety, and welfare from harm due to dangers around the building.
Roles Played by Maintenance Manager in Creating Maintenance Plan Effective
In earlier times, the maintenance manager was a person who almost had no role in maintaining equipment and plans. In today’s world, this is not true anymore. Nowadays, that individual has a bigger role in creating an effective maintenance plan.
The maintenance Manager job description features several essential roles in maintenance planning. These include: identifying, preventing, and solving problems; implementing preventative maintenance procedures; maintenance planning, maintenance budgeting, and maintenance decision-making; developing maintenance standards for the company.
Identifying problems involves different procedures such as inspections, pre-startup checklists, and maintenance logs. The team also analyses maintenance data to look for patterns that could help them understand where to begin maintenance work.
What Makes a Maintenance Plan Effective
The main reason for writing an effective maintenance plan is that if your business does not have one, then you are putting yourself and your employees in danger. Having a written-down plan can prove good faith if something were to happen to the workplace. For future reference, it will also help people who might not have been around when the incident happened to figure out what caused it.
So what makes a maintenance plan effective? It needs to cover all aspects of its maintenance program to be truly effective. An exhaustive inventory is included in any thorough program, so employees know exactly where things are when they need them.
The plan should be accessible, so everyone is aware of their responsibilities. Those responsible are the employees assigned to maintain specific areas of the company’s site while also being accountable for creating awareness among workers in other departments that may have some responsibility for maintaining some aspects of the business. A maintenance plan needs to include training on certain tasks, including safety procedures when doing repairs and replacements.
An effective plan should cover all the features of your firm’s maintenance policy. The program must have exhaustive inventory of assets that you need to maintain, instructions on correcting any damage done by natural disasters, hazardous materials management guidance, records storage information.
What Benefit Does A CMMS Bring to Maintenance Planning?
Using CMMS helps in the quick and efficient creation of an effective maintenance plan; by providing accurate, detailed information. This allows managers to access information about equipment and its history, which will allow for informed decision-making and planning future projects.
The CMMS software will hold details on equipment, including its priority level. Priority levels will help establish the order in which tasks are carried out. CMMS’s also act as a valuable planning tool for engineers, providing them with an estimate of how long specific tasks will take and thus allowing them to schedule their workload efficiently.
So why use a CMMS system in creating a maintenance plan? CMMS helps streamline the Maintenance plan creation process by providing accurate and detailed information, allowing managers to access information about equipment and its history. CMMS also acts as a valuable tool for engineers as it provides an estimate of how long tasks will take, thus allowing them to schedule their workload efficiently. CMMS can help to create a maintenance plan quickly and efficiently.
Steps to Create a Successful Maintenance Plan
Establish A Schedule
Consider how long it takes to do specific jobs, how often equipment is used, and other factors to determine the best frequency for various types of maintenance work. For example, if an item is used frequently but takes a half-hour to fix each time, it should be done monthly; however, if you use it once per week and it takes ten minutes to do, then set up a schedule for twice per year.
Establish Workers
Carefully plan who will carry out the tasks in your maintenance plan. This should include hourly employees and outside contractors (if applicable). If you plan around peak times or construction projects that require more manpower than usual, make sure you consider this when choosing your workforce.
Plan for Spare Parts
Not only do you need enough parts available, but also they need to be organized with logical information using an adequate spare parts management system.
Put it into action
After you have completed the plan but all of your actions into one document signed by yourself and anyone else involved, this way, everyone will know what their responsibilities are and when they are due to be done.
Keep Records
As time goes on, keep track of how often you do specific tasks. If there is a task that you never perform, think about why it might be taking so long each year or whether or not it needs to be done at all. You can also incorporate the Progress charts below to monitor these results over time.
Final Words
A maintenance plan can bring significant value to the operation when implemented in a planned and well-organized manner. Following the steps listed above, you will be able to develop a solid implementation plan based on best practices for preventive maintenance to increase the reliability of your business and the performance of your equipment.
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