By: Shawna Laird, Business Manager
Predictive Maintenance is a flexible program designed to prolong vehicle life and predict failures. It is scheduled based on time, fuel consumption, or usage, costs associated with repairs, and breakdown analyses.
There is a distinction between predictive and preventive maintenance.
PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE is basing the repair activity on the condition of the equipment. Maintenance intervals are set to prevent a failure based on some form of historical data.
PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE is based on a routine event or inspection. Regularly scheduled maintenance is at a pre-set interval; typically set by the equipment manufacturer or government regulations.
The prescription for predictive maintenance needs to be custom tailored to each fleet, each class of equipment, and each year, make, and model. It is best to start with recommended guidelines and enhance them based on variable factors, such as usage, age, and environment.
Symptoms of a fleet in need of a predictive maintenance program can include, but are not limited to, high volume of “come back” visits and the age of the equipment has exceeded its predicted life cycle.
In crafting an effective treatment plan, you need to determine intervals for component replacement. This requires good electronic record keeping and analytic trend analysis. Predictive maintenance involves replacing components shortly before they fail.
Oil sampling is an important element of predictive maintenance for engines, transmissions, hydraulics, and differentials. Oil analysis results show trends that indicate the appropriate intervals for oil changes. Diagnostic output files (such as those available through on-board computers) may present you the opportunity to take prompt action regarding maintenance problems that are not readily apparent. Equipment downtime should be prioritized, scheduled, and conveniently resolved around both technician availability and production.
The most available source of data for diagnosis is found in your own database. In mining the data, keep in mind that you are looking for failures. Some of your existing reports which can be used to begin the search are:
There is no known generic available.
CAUTION: THIS IS A LIFE SAVING MEDICATION. TAKE SEVERAL TIMES DAILY!
Acts like an antioxidant. Used in combating high costs, answering inquiries from upper management, creating billing documents, providing an immediate means for tracking and retrieving maintenance and service histories, helps avoid infectious problems, and is easily tolerated.
This can be used to create a detailed plan for fighting specific ailments. This prescription can be applied at any time. It has been known to make things easier and smoother.
Real time information can extend the life of the vehicle and handles scheduling of checkups in a timely manner.
CAUTION: DO NOT STOP TAKING THIS MEDICINE. Stopping this medicine suddenly may cause serious side effects, such as: higher costs, longer recovery time, road calls, missed performance measures, and unhappy customers.
HOW TO USE THIS MEDICINE: You may schedule the dosage in any combination of the following or choose the one that works best for you, based on the history of previous complaints and ailments.
Dosage: (Usage) Every XXX Miles or every XXX Hours
Dosage: (Consumption) Fuel quantity
Dosage: Predetermine the tasks necessary based on failure statistics
ADDITIONAL DOSAGE INFORMATION:
Dosage: Performance Measures
Dosage: Shop work flow for PM scheduling and repairs found during the PM services
Dosage: Schedule the vehicle during it’s off peak hours and have quality “Dr.s” available to perform the service
As problems are resolved, the number of major failures decreases, turning your maintenance program from reactive to proactive. Predictive (proactive) maintenance creates more reliable equipment requiring fewer personnel to maintain it. You will be able to identify equipment problems, diminish large scale repairs, and create economical scheduling of maintenance. Results also include increased operational uptime, improved equipment reliability, and a reduction in operational and labor costs.
Fleets that take a proactive approach to predictive maintenance recognize that addressing smaller events often prevent larger and more costly events from occurring in the future. Equipment and critical asset life is preserved, maintenance costs are reduced and reliability programs improve.
The FleetPros Blog is written and moderated by the Business Manager with contributions from the membership and Business Services Team.