5 Most Common Maintenance Issues & How to Overcome Them

For business growth Maintenance is one of the major pillars. You can save a lot of money if maintenance expenses are controlled but it will affect your organization's bottom line if maintenance expenses are not controlled. This is where the role of the maintenance manager begins! They need to understand the situation and take action on an immediate basis.

Below described the maintenance management issues and process to overcome with it.

Here Are the Five Most Common Issues of Maintenance Management

Also Read: What Are the Important Functions of Preventive Maintenance?

1. Unexpected Breakdown

When an organization does not utilize any kind of software, they simply run their machines until they fail. Imagine a scenario where an organization wants to complete a work order today & needs to be sent urgently but suddenly machines stop working due to an unexpected breakdown.

As a result, delivery is not done on time, and customer disappointment also occurred, which can also lead to customer loss. That is why it is essential to keep your equipment condition maintained.

Solution

To avoid unexpected breakdown managers are recommended to utilize a preventive maintenance strategy it is effective in preventing sudden equipment failure.

shall be used on all assets as it increased the performance and equipment life as well.

2. Downtime

Downtime is not always bad; it can be done to improve the performance of equipment or to set adjustment or for calibration management.

Downtime can be categorized into 2 categories one is planned downtime and another is unplanned downtime. In both conditions, machines do not work but unplanned downtime is dangerous for business. It can interrupt daily activities and operations and impacts productivity. However, planned downtime does not impact productivity as it is planned for non-working hours or on holidays.

Solution

There should be proper planning to make planned downtime successful. You would not want that during performing maintenance it is found that inventory is not available. That will be a total wastage of time and resources everything shall be properly scheduled after checking inventory availability.

When maintenance is given regularly to the equipment it decreases unplanned downtime. Thus, scheduled maintenance is essential to minimize unplanned downtime. Inventory tracking is also important for maintenance.

3. Maintenance Expenses

One of the biggest constraint maintenance managers feels is budget allocation. It is a real challenge that is one of the reasons they cannot try other maintenance plans. Maintenance operation expenses are balanced by deducting expenses on other areas.

However, maintenance managers need to understand how long these assets will work efficiently, managers also required to know that each asset is providing value as per the maintenance.

Solution

A proper balance needs to be maintained MRO (maintenance repair and operation) parts shall be there so that maintenance tasks are done easily. However, it should not be in too much quantity so that they don't get wasted because their parts can be expensive.

With the CMMS software, maintenance managers can keep track of each asset's performance. Moreover, this software provides data and numbers which are helpful to managers in the decision-making process. CMMS lets the manager know when an asset needs maintenance as it schedules maintenance for each asset.

Also Read: How to Optimize Operational Costs Through Breakdown Maintenance?

You can set alerts and notifications as per the working schedule of each asset. Furthermore, the manager will know which asset is taking more maintenance than required. Once you identify unproductive assets you will in a position to reduce maintenance expenses.

4. Maintenance Not Formalized

Sometimes the issue occurred in machines and equipment which takes more maintenance time than usual and the reason behind, maintenance work is done but no history is kept of maintenance or no paperwork is done.

It affects when the same machine is bought back for maintenance work. It is more time-consuming.

Solution

It should be a strict rule that for performing maintenance paperwork shall be done in the right way and no maintenance would be done without proper paperwork.

The best option would be utilizing software with that you will able to fetch each asset maintenance history that also helps in solving the problem quickly. Assets history is helpful for managers which are new in the organization.

If issues are coming again and again then it might be indicating a serious problem. With a history log, managers can understand the issue and solve the problem accordingly.

5. Audit

If assets do not match with the audit performed then it might affect the reputation of the organization. Moreover, you need to take care of maintenance records everything shall be in order.

An auditor will match the maintenance papers with the condition of each asset. The audit is a long procedure and it is time-consuming as well.

Assets are physically verified with condition inspection is also done. Most of the time organizations are not prepared for audits and as a result, their reputation suffers.

Solution

Organizations must stay prepared with the CMMS software. It can help in auditing as it keeps track of each asset, especially for maintenance. When these assets are tracked it simplifies the asset verification process.

Moreover, the condition of each asset is checked with the software. If the auditor ever wishes to check maintenance history, the software will provide the information securely stored and keep it accessible for easy access.

Any inspector would be able to check the correct data along with these documents, thanks to maintenance management software.

Conclusion

These were the major issues regarding maintenance. All of these issues can be easily avoided with asset management software.

There are lots of organization who have these types of issues but they don't have the budget or thinks that it will be expensive.

But this software service can be purchased at an economical price and more importantly it creates a positive impact on your organization's bottom line.

As it moves the process from manual to automatic. Moreover, it provides insights with the reports and statistics which are helpful in business growth.

Also Read: How CMMS Helps in Maintenance Tracking and Budgeting?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is CMMS Software?‍

CMMS stands for the computerized maintenance management system. It enhances the process of maintenance management, basically, it emphasizes maintenance. CMMS helps in boosting the performance of each asset and increases asset life & decreases downtime.

According to the blog,  “The Global Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Software market size was 787.2 million USD in 2018 and it will be 1514 million USD in 2025, with a CAGR of 9.79% from 2018 to 2025.”

2. What is the importance of inventory for maintenance?‍

MRO (Maintenance repair operation) or some special part of the machine can be called inventory. Inventory is important for maintenance purpose for example a part need to be changed but that part (inventory) is not available in the stock. So, time and resources are wasted now again the whole procedure will be repeated when inventory is available.

3. After implementing CMMS what improvement can be seen?‍

1. Better & informative decision making
2. Increased asset performance
3. Employee productivity
4. Boost in the bottom line
5. Reduced maintenance cost
After implementing CMMS these improvements can be seen.