A maintenance management process entails controlling and supervising many functions of a plant’s maintenance operations. It involves maintaining the company’s assets and resources within controlled time and cost limits to ensure maximum efficiency of the manufacturing process.

Today, maintenance management has gone from the traditional handwritten and tedious process to a computerized maintenance management system, otherwise known as CMMS. It is a tool that plans, tracks, measures and utilizes all forms of a maintenance program in a single central system.

However, maintenance management is not just a software program. It involves a combination of the software, best practices, and trained personnel that all focus on achieving the same goal of increasing the plant’s productivity.

What is the role of a maintenance manager?

When we talk about maintenance management, it means planning and scheduling maintenance activities in the right way at the right time. A significant part of a maintenance manager job description involves planning and scheduling maintenance on the equipment for which he/she is responsible.

The equipment maintenance may be routine checks, significant equipment overhaul or even statutory and mandatory inspections on all the plant’s machinery. It could be in the form of planned maintenance, predictive or preventive maintenance or even corrective maintenance in cases of unplanned breakdowns.

All that involves a system of work requesting, creating work orders and reporting. In addition to that, a maintenance manager will also keep maintenance records not only to ensure that the job gets expedited but also for statistical and equipment history records.

While manually managing a company’s assets is a tedious process, a CMMS simplifies the work by providing an efficient way of tracking, planning and scheduling maintenance activities.

What are the objectives of maintenance management?

All types of maintenance management have the same objective, and that is analyzing production and identifying the best practises or processes within a plant’s operation. For instance, analyzing reports from a CMMS helps you to ensure break downs and failure are at the bare minimum, schedule work well and reduce or control costs. Here are the main objectives of a maintenance management program.

Control costs

Maintenance management tools avail the necessary information to a manager to help them properly allocate funds for the maintenance program.

For example, if it is spare parts management for maintenance, the maintenance manager is tasked with buying a cheaper part that is less durable or an expensive part that will last long.

Schedule maintenance work

Maintenance management tools give the manager an understanding of the entire maintenance process to help them schedule maintenance tasks based on priority levels.

For example, suppose the maintenance manager needs to meet the timely delivery of a product. In that case, he/she might prioritize the maintenance of the forklift to ensure the product moves around the warehouse into the delivery truck without interruption.

Minimize downtime

An excellent maintenance management program helps mitigate the loss of productive time because of a failure to schedule a planned maintenance program. By planning and scheduling maintenance activities at the right time, there is a reduced number of downtime during the equipment operational hours which means increased efficiency.

Improve Equipment

Maintenance management enhances the existing equipment through technical modifications, extensions or new low-cost items. Planned maintenance ensures time to time inspections of the equipment and replacing or repairing the parts before it breaks down

That ensures that the equipment stays at its best condition, which increases production.

Extend Asset Life

Companies invest heavily in machinery or equipment. Maintenance management ensures that the equipment is always in good condition. Regular inspection and maintenance extend the life of machinery and other components by reducing wear and tear.

Unravel maintenance trends

For instance, using a CMMS, you can discover information on why a piece of equipment seems to be underperforming. Looking at historical data can help a maintenance manager get an in-depth knowledge of what goes on during everyday operations.

Such information helps ensure an asset is running as smoothly and as well as it should.

Conclusion

Maintenance management is crucial in ensuring the success of your maintenance program through monitoring quality assurance, maintaining operational efficiency and keeping equipment running in optimum order.