Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) maintenance tips are not always the best solution to maintain your equipment. Some manufacturers tend to overreact with maintenance routines to guarantee their machines to pass warranty period or to sell more spare parts that are sometimes more profitable than the machine itself. I recall my car manufacturer advises in the manual to replace the engine oil filling cap every time I replace the engine oil!
On the other hand, ignoring the OEM check list completely is not the solution! Then what should we do to maintain our equipments?
If you have a new type of equipment or if you are just starting to create your maintenance routine, it’s advisable to use your OEM recommendation as a start, check your list; eliminate the illogic and unnecessary operations. Study your equipment maintenance manual; add operations that you see the OEM may have missed. Re-engineer some operations to be condition based instead of time based. Now you have your primary maintenance routine.
Second step is simply after running your machine and after several maintenance activities, you may face some failures, record them, study, and add the counter measures in your maintenance routine. That could be an additional operation in your PM list, or a condition monitoring solution, etc…. In the mean time, you have to monitor the gain or value added of each operation in your primary maintenance routine, you may find some operations that have no value added to the equipment condition as it never generates a corrective action. These types of operations should be eliminated from your maintenance routine.
By this time, you will have an optimum maintenance routine that is adapted to your equipment under your operating conditions and environment. This is by continuously eliminating and adding different operations in your maintenance routines according to your recent operating conditions.
There is no one perfect maintenance routine that suits your equipment all the time. Your equipment ages, new maintenance technologies arise, and operating conditions differ. Unless you continuously improve, regulate, and enhance your maintenance routines, you will have no perfect one
On the other hand, ignoring the OEM check list completely is not the solution! Then what should we do to maintain our equipments?
If you have a new type of equipment or if you are just starting to create your maintenance routine, it’s advisable to use your OEM recommendation as a start, check your list; eliminate the illogic and unnecessary operations. Study your equipment maintenance manual; add operations that you see the OEM may have missed. Re-engineer some operations to be condition based instead of time based. Now you have your primary maintenance routine.
Second step is simply after running your machine and after several maintenance activities, you may face some failures, record them, study, and add the counter measures in your maintenance routine. That could be an additional operation in your PM list, or a condition monitoring solution, etc…. In the mean time, you have to monitor the gain or value added of each operation in your primary maintenance routine, you may find some operations that have no value added to the equipment condition as it never generates a corrective action. These types of operations should be eliminated from your maintenance routine.
By this time, you will have an optimum maintenance routine that is adapted to your equipment under your operating conditions and environment. This is by continuously eliminating and adding different operations in your maintenance routines according to your recent operating conditions.
There is no one perfect maintenance routine that suits your equipment all the time. Your equipment ages, new maintenance technologies arise, and operating conditions differ. Unless you continuously improve, regulate, and enhance your maintenance routines, you will have no perfect one
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