By Lindsey Walker

Do you frequently face the pressure of reducing maintenance costs? Do you spend most of your day trying to minimize downtimes? Is your facility facing a tough time reducing repair and maintenance costs? If these issues sound familiar to you, then here are six tips to help you keep your maintenance budget from exceeding your annual profits

1. Simplify procedures

Maintenance procedures tend to grow over time, compelling facility managers to add and alter certain steps. This, in turn, creates the need to modify job instructions while ensuring that maintenance is done just right. Adding detailed steps may create more difficulties for the technical crew instead of simplifying their tasks.

Studies have shown that handling more than seven parts can confuse the human mind due to complexity, so it is important to review all your existing maintenance procedures and simplify them for faster, easier, and precise execution.

2. Prepare in advance for unplanned breakdowns

Create some buffer time every day or at least once a week for executing planned maintenance tasks. Bifurcate maintenance schedules into three categories:

A – Must be done on time

B – Needs to be done sometime soon

C – Great if done

Doing this will prevent maintenance issues from cascading and will help avoid last-minute fire-fighting. Using a CMMS maintenance software is the best way to streamline communication between the maintenance technicians and to keep track of parts inventory.

3. Create a calendar

Creating a maintenance calendar for every month and every quarter, and sharing the same with maintenance staff, will keep critical equipment and vital operations up and running. The calendar should be planned in advance to avoid clashes with periodic maintenance schedules. Make sure that there is an adequate maintenance staff to execute the work listed on your planned calendars.

This will also give you a good idea of replacement parts that will be needed over the coming months. An excellent way to manage this complex task is by using CMMS software that enables you to create a maintenance calendar and make adjustments so that everything gets accomplished on time with negligible disruption.

4. Invest in extended warranties

When purchasing any new equipment or replacement parts, always check for insurance plans, guarantees, and extended warranties. This will enable you to save big on repairs and replacements. However, be sure to check which vital equipment or component needs insurance. Investing in extended warranties for expensive machinery and costly parts will bring down maintenance costs considerably and provide immediate relief to your bottom line.

5. Conduct training sessions for non-maintenance staff

Don’t try to cut corners for completing maintenance work faster. Train your maintenance technicians and non-maintenance crew to stay vigilant and identify potential threats. Conducting periodic training sessions for your staff and workers will keep them updated on handling different machines and installing new hardware components. Educating them on safe and accurate repairs will help you save on hefty replacement costs and also extend the service life of vital equipment.

6. Leverage the efficiency of maintenance management software

Using CMMS software is highly beneficial because it offers a centralized view of mission-critical data and facilitates the timely inspection of equipment and tracking of preventive maintenance schedules. It keeps facility managers well informed about  the safety conditions, equipment performance, and maintenance costs for increased throughput and reduced production downtimes.

With an end-to-end view of maintenance operations and inventory control, it enables facility managers to gear up their efforts toward identifying issues instantly and analyzing them to gain insights on performance and costs.

Scale down your costs with a computerized maintenance management system that is designed to increase uptime and improve productivity.

Lindsey Walker is the marketing manager for NEXGEN Asset Management.