General machine maintenance
When scheduling a production machine for general maintenance, three key factors must be considered for an effective plan. They include machine reliability, availability, and production output. Machine reliability refers to production consistency measured in daily production and the ease of the production process. On the other hand, machine availability refers to the active time a machine is available for the production process. Lastly, machine maintenance should be scheduled so that the production output is not significantly affected. This paper, therefore, explains and suggests the appropriate way of distributing the machine allocated maintenance hours that would enhance machine reliability, availability, and production output.
In a production company that operates 24/7 with a maximum of ten hours per week allocated for preventive maintenance, maintenance should be planned in such a way that does not interfere with the production process. As such, only the idle time of the machine should be used for machine inspection. The maintenance department could use this time by spending ten hours a day of the week inspecting machines while correcting the probable weak points that could lead to machine breakdown. However, this plan gives sound production output since maintenance only takes one day making the machines available the rest of the week. On that particular day of maintenance, the company laborers and workers would be idle the whole day. Again, the company could spend the ten hours twice a week, which means that two days even distributed throughout the week must be set. The program increases downtime and lessens the active machine availability as the production process is stopped twice a week for maintenance. On the other hand, the staff and human resources will be more engaged than in the first case, hence moderate production output. Lastly, the company would still opt to spend one hour twenty-six minutes (10/7) each day for machine maintenance. The program would increase machine idle time, which in turn reduces its active hours’ availability. This is due to the disturbance for cleaning, shut down, and startup every time maintenance is done. Compared with the two procedures described above, this plan avails less active time of the machine, which is reflected in the low production output (Sun & Geng, 2019). Therefore, I would opt for the second program that involves stopping the production twice a week because it grants moderate machine availability but utilizes the company labor as required. Additionally, this program is more preferable because it gives desirable production output.
Preventive maintenance
Although preventive machine maintenance is similar to predictive maintenance, the latter incorporates sensors that point to care. For example, it may show low lubricating oil or loose nuts that need to be adjusted, among other warnings. Due to sensors, predictive maintenance in a company requires huge initial capital, highly trained personnel to comprehend the maintenances warnings. In terms of capital, much company money would be spent buying the sensors and training the staff. Moreover, the company must recruit employees with experience and knowledge, which further increases company spending. Other predictive maintenance would need display hardware such as screens to show the condition and the position of the fault that needs to be addressed (Sun & Geng, 2019). In conclusion, the choice of maintenance adopted in a company should be cheap and easy to install
Reference
Sun, X., & Geng, X. N. (2019). Single-machine scheduling with deteriorating effects and machine maintenance. International Journal of Production Research, 57(10), 3186-3199.