The Importance of Industrial Plant Maintenance

Projections show that the global inspection, repair, and maintenance market will reach a value of $72.46 billion by 2029.

Many organizations rely heavily on equipment and machinery to stay operational. When things go wrong with these, it can cause some serious problems. Plant maintenance is essential to stay productive and minimize downtime.

For a rundown on why industrial plant maintenance is important, keep reading.

What Is Industrial Maintenance?

Industrial maintenance covers things like repairs, services, and industrial cleaning. This can apply to any of the following:

  • Machinery
  • Equipment
  • Building infrastructure
  • Supporting utilities

This ensures equipment stays in a good, safe state. In many situations maintenance may be done to meet certain regulations. There are two main maintenance strategies you can use: preventative and reactive maintenance.

Preventative Maintenance

Preventative maintenance is any action taken to reduce the risk of future problems. Companies will typically have this on a schedule to ensure it’s done at regular intervals.

Depending on the type, this could be daily, annually, or anywhere in between. Successful plant management requires regular maintenance in all areas.

You can organize various plans with professional maintenance services such as Andromeda Systems. Head over to androsysinc.com to view their services.

Predictive maintenance is similar but the equipment is monitored and data gathered. This data can help predict when part of a machine will fail, allowing you to take action beforehand. It makes use of AI and IIoT to monitor/analyze data and even trigger maintenance tasks.

Proactive maintenance is like predictive maintenance but it tackles the root cause of problems. A typical example would be assessing the best way to load equipment without any issues.

Prescriptive maintenance goes a step beyond predictive maintenance. It monitors equipment, then recommends solutions to a problem. This means it doesn’t just tell you that something is going to fail, but it also suggests what you can do to resolve the fault.

Detective maintenance tests that assets are functioning correctly and determines the cause of failure when they stop working. An example of this would be testing a fire alarm to make sure it’s functioning.

Run-to-failure maintenance is where a company deliberately runs a piece of equipment until it breaks down. Typically this is only done on the following:

  • Assets with disposable parts
  • Non-critical assets
  • Assets that don’t tend to fail under normal conditions

Preventative maintenance helps keep failures to a minimum, keeping productivity up.

Reactive Maintenance

Reactive maintenance gets an asset back into operation after a failure. This is broken down into corrective and breakdown maintenance.

Corrective maintenance is done when a machine isn’t working right. The end goal is to help improve its performance.

Breakdown maintenance comes after something has broken down and is no longer working. This type causes downtime, so is generally one to avoid if possible.

Do You Need Industrial Plant Maintenance?

Almost any industry can benefit from plant maintenance. An industrial setting that uses a lot of machinery needs this type of service most of all. Proper maintenance will reduce costs, downtime, and the risk of failures.

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