What Is a Machine Maintenance Checklist?

A machine maintenance Checklist for machines is the process of keeping mechanical assets functioning with the least amount of downtime. Manufacturers of the asset and other subject matter experts, such as consultants, have created an itemized list of discrete maintenance activities. Regularly planned servicing, routine checkups, and both scheduled and emergency repairs are examples. It also entails the repair or adjustment of worn, broken, or misaligned elements. Machine maintenance can be performed either before or after a failure occurs. A maintenance program’s foundation is built on checklists. It assists businesses in meeting production deadlines, reducing costly downtime, and reducing the risk of worker accidents and injuries. You may see Accident reports.

Roles to Give Access to Computerized Maintenance Management System

These roles may not come to mind right away but each of them holds a certain degree of importance in being able to manage your machinery. Giving them access will not only entrust the duty to more responsible employees but also give them an awareness of the use of a Checklist. You can check out the available machine maintenance audit checklist provided in this article to see it is structured and get a clearer picture before you proceed to write your own checklist. Keep on reading to know who these roles are deserving to gain access to the computerized maintenance management system.

Operations: Plant managers, line supervisors, and machine operators deal with the equipment on a daily basis and are familiar with what is and is not typical. Operators are given primary responsibility for taking care of their Equipment, including cleaning, inspection, and basic repair, under a total productive maintenance strategy. This has five primary advantages: it gives operators more ownership of their equipment, increases their understanding of it, ensures that it is adequately cleaned and oiled, identifies faults before they become failures, and frees up maintenance workers to do higher-level jobs.Inventory managers: Your inventory managers and tool crib operators need a simple way to keep track of rotating inventory and assets. There’s no need to overcomplicate things by establishing a pricey inventory monitoring system, and most computerized maintenance management system software packages include inventory management or rotating assets capability out of the box. Everyone has a solid image of the tools and components available and where to locate them if you include this information in your computerized maintenance management system. You may see the Inventory checklist.Health and safety: Health and safety, as well as the elimination of workplace safety issues, are important foundations of overall productive maintenance plan. This function is aided by a computerized maintenance management system, which allows you to track the location and condition of safety equipment as well as inspection rounds.Reliability engineers: One of the side consequences of all these employees entering data into the computerized maintenance management system is a large amount of data. Engineers that specialize in reliability can crunch this data and interpret the maintenance metrics, transforming all of the information you supplied into valuable business insights. You receive a more in-depth perspective of your business by including a wider range of Data from several departments.

How to Make a Machine Maintenance Checklist

Coming up with a basic machine Maintenance Checklist will be tricky if you are new to the task. But this article will guide you through it. Keeping any machine in good working order requires a yearly tuneup before severe issues arise. Avoid putting your staff in firefighting gear and having to deal with unpleasant client calls. Make regular maintenance and repair schedules for your devices instead. This will help you extend the life of your equipment, cut expenses, and minimize unnecessary downtime. You don’t have to follow the provided machine maintenance schedule checklist format. Keep reading through to start making a company-appropriate daily machine maintenance checklist.

Step 1: Keep the Machine Clean

Wipe off the sheet metal, empty the chip pan, and apply a thin coating of clean oil to exposed metal surfaces at the conclusion of each shift. Also, blowing everything off with an air hose will push chips and dirt under the passage covers and into the bearing seals. Instead, use the machine’s cutting fluid supply, teeing off the main coolant line with a short garden hose and spray nozzle if the machine doesn’t have one already.

Step 2: Lube the Machine

More than just maintaining the turret, spindle, and the way oil reservoirs are filled is part of an effective lubrication strategy. These fluids should be replenished when needed, but it’s also critical to keep track of their amounts on a regular basis. Following the machine builder’s recommendations for oil change frequency, increasing it only under excessive usage, and purchasing only high-quality fluids should all be part of your preventative maintenance strategy. After that, place them in a suitable space and secure the lids correctly. Reduced oil usage can lead to a blocked lubrication line, which can lead to future problems with competence wear and component accuracy if not treated soon.

Step 3: Remove Oil from the Machine

When it comes to oil, can you predict where it goes once it’s done its job? Used lubrication travels downhill from bearing and way surfaces and ends up as tramp oil in the sump, contaminating the cutting fluid and providing great breeding habitat for germs. The end consequence is dermatitis, dry skin, foul odors, and short tool life. The most straightforward option is an oil skimmer, a piece of low-cost, simple-to-install equipment that removes tramp oil automatically and constantly, considerably extending the life and performance of any cutting fluid.

Step 4: Cutting Fluid Monitoring Machine

Whether you use pure oils, synthetics, or emulsion cutting fluids in your shop, they must all be kept clean and maintained. The ultimate result of increased tool life and productivity is higher part quality and longer-lasting machine tools. Clean sumps at least once every several months, preferably more frequently with cast irons and other fine-chipping materials. Using a refractometer, check the concentration of water-based fluids once a week. Use a high-quality bactericide to keep noxious odors at bay. Send cutting fluid to the recycler when it’s no longer usable. Don’t risk facing heavy penalties from environmental regulators. Inspect and change your filters on a monthly basis, or more frequently in dirty conditions, according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.

Types of Machine Maintenance

There are various types of machine maintenance that you should be aware of. Each has advantages and disadvantages, with the exception of reactive maintenance, which is entirely disadvantageous and may be mixed and combined with assets to build a balanced maintenance schedule. Be wary of these types of machine maintenance in order to know which is crucial to avoid and which are preventable through initiative and quick actions.

Reactive maintenance: Reactive maintenance is when a machine is repaired after it has already failed. It’s commonly referred to as “fighting fires” since it’s unanticipated, unplanned, and typically results in fast, emergency repairs. The disadvantage of reactive maintenance is that it can be more expensive, shorter asset life expectancy, safety issues, inefficient use of time, bad for the backlog, and higher energy costs. Unless your company has thoroughly thought of a solid maintenance strategy, then this type of maintenance would be better addressed. Reactive maintenance, on the other hand, should be saved for components that are affordable, quick to replace, and whose failure does not result in system collateral damage.Run to fail maintenance: Reactive maintenance and run to fail maintenance are extremely similar. It entails running a piece of machinery until it breaks down. Run to fail, on the other hand, is a conscious decision, whereas reactive maintenance is not. A strategy is in place to guarantee that parts and labor are accessible as quickly as feasible to get the asset up and running, or replaced. Up until the asset fails, no maintenance, including preventative maintenance, is conducted on it. However, a strategy is in place before the asset fails, so that it may be repaired without disrupting output.Routine maintenance: Routine maintenance is any job that is performed on a regular and planned basis in order to identify and prevent issues before they cause equipment failure. Regular inspections or service work are examples of common routine maintenance. These might be carried out according to a timetable or depending on consumption. The majority of routine maintenance procedures are quite simple. They usually don’t need any particular maintenance training plan, skills, or equipment. As a result, routine maintenance can be performed by personnel who are not part of the maintenance department, such as machine operators.Corrective maintenance: Corrective maintenance refers to operations that are carried out to correct and fix malfunctioning systems and equipment. Corrective maintenance is used to repair systems that have malfunctioned. Breakdown or reactive maintenance are both terms that can be used to describe corrective maintenance. If a maintenance professional notices a problem during an emergency repair, a routine inspection checklist, or preventive maintenance, the problem might be turned into a corrective maintenance order. After that, the remedial maintenance activity is designed and scheduled for a later date.Preventive maintenance: Preventive Maintenance checklist is any routine machine maintenance aimed at detecting and repairing faults before they cause failure. Time-based preventive maintenance and usage-based preventive maintenance are the two most common forms of preventive maintenance. Tasks planned at a certain time period, such as the final day of the month or every ten days, are known as time-based preventative maintenance. When work is scheduled based on the use of equipment it is known as usage-based preventative maintenance.Condition-based maintenance: Condition-based maintenance is a maintenance technique that assesses an asset’s current state to determine what repair is required. Maintenance should only be done when specific indicators indicate that performance is deteriorating or that breakdown is imminent. Non-invasive measures, visual examination, performance data analysis, and planned testing can all be used to check a machine for these signs. Data on the condition can then be collected at predetermined intervals or constantly as is done when a machine has internal sensors. Both mission-critical and non-mission-critical assets can benefit from condition-based maintenance.Predictive maintenance: Predictive maintenance is a method of detecting abnormalities in your operation and potential problems in equipment and processes using data analysis plans tools and methodologies, so you can remedy them before they fail. Predictive maintenance anticipates issues by combining historical and real-time data from multiple aspects of your business. Predictive maintenance, ideally, allows the maintenance frequency to be as low as feasible in order to avoid unforeseen reactive maintenance while avoiding the expenses associated with performing too much preventative maintenance.Prescriptive maintenance: In industrial facilities, prescriptive maintenance is viewed as the next stage in maintenance management. Its goal is to use machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to give targeted equipment maintenance suggestions that decrease operational risk. Predictive maintenance is the foundation for prescriptive maintenance. Plant engineers may build more effective and simplified maintenance plans using predictive maintenance, which identifies the early indicators of impending part failure. Prescriptive maintenance would assess the likely results of various acts and suggest the optimal course of action. Prescriptive maintenance isn’t currently a reality, but some engineers are looking at it and thinking about how it may help their facility.

FAQs

Why is machine maintenance important?

When a machine fails due to a lack of Maintenance forms, it is unable to create the product that the firm sells, resulting in lost sales. You can reduce the effect of machinery and equipment failure and preserve your bottom line by ensuring that regular machine cleaning and maintenance are carried out. Without machine maintenance, the overall performance of the said machine may not be up to par and could heavily affect the productivity of the company. This is a bad thing since companies will suffer a loss of profit or time to repair a machine that could easily have been cleaned up during a scheduled maintenance.

What is equipment maintenance?

Any technique for keeping a company’s equipment in excellent working order is referred to as Equipment maintenance. It might encompass both normal maintenance and remedial repairs. Depending on the kind, different resources will be necessary to keep everything in perfect functioning order. After each shift, the business inspects its power tools. Their pneumatic jackhammers, for example, are inspected daily for hose fractures, bit wear, and loose screws. This not only extends the life of their products, but it also improves safety by eliminating severe equipment failures. Their tools are also more efficient, allowing them to stay productive.

Who is responsible for machine maintenance?

The maintenance crew can’t be everywhere at once waiting for anything to go wrong. This begs the question: who is truly in charge of detecting the tiny tweaks and enhancements that help your facility function more smoothly? Everyone is the short answer. Total productive maintenance is the concept that everyone should help in maintenance. Total productive maintenance is based on the belief that including the whole workforce in machine maintenance and prioritizing proactive and preventive maintenance would result in fewer breakdowns, a safer workplace, and improved overall performance.

Prep your machines at the conclusion of each shift by wiping them clean, removing dirt, and applying clean oil. Consider just buying high-quality fluids. Maintenance should be Scheduled after a certain amount of hours per machine operation, on average. Make sure you or your company have set specific routine maintenance so you would not have to worry about encountering failures. Check out the available machine maintenance schedule format found on the site.