por The evolution of industrial maintenance it began to be more significant as a result of the First World War, a stage in which the machinery had to work at its maximum capacity and without interruptions. Previously, labor was the one that carried out almost 90% of the work, compared to the 10% that was estimated to be done by the first machines.
Industrial maintenance originates at the same time that machines began to be implemented for the production of goods and services, at the beginning of the 19th century. As a characteristic common to all its development phases, there is a need to make it increasingly specialized.
Industrial maintenance is that set of measures of a technical organizational nature, which may or may not be previously elaborated, whose purpose is to sustain the functionality of the equipment and guarantee an optimal state of the machines over time.
Among the objectives of industrial maintenance can be mentioned: preserve the working capacity of the machines, reduce unforeseen stops, contribute to increasing productivity, keep the means of production in perfect condition with a minimum cost.
Through industrial maintenance plans, the aim is to increase the level of use of production capacities, preserve or restore equipment and facilities so that they fulfill their productive function, achieve maximum efficiency of machines with minimum wear and tear, and achieve maximum of its useful life.
Industrial maintenance tasks are not exclusive to equipment and machinery, but to all fixed or mobile installations, industrial, commercial or specific service buildings, that is, any type of productive asset.
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Stages from its origin to the present
First generation: from the Industrial Revolution to 1950
It corresponds to total corrective maintenance, in which it is expected that a breakdown occurs to proceed with the respective repair. This phase is usually identified before the year 1950 and is the longest stage since it begins with the industrial revolution. Maintenance costs used to be quite high and downtime to fix problems was long.
With the implementation of mass production, as a result of the First World War, the factories began to establish minimum production programs and the need arose to form a team that concentrated on maintaining the machines on the production lines and reducing shortest stop time possible.
Parallel to the production area, the maintenance area arises, which was focused on repairing corrective or emergency failures. In addition, prevention tasks were assigned to avoid failures.
Corrective maintenance was characterized by high labor costs and high opportunity costs, since the availability of the spare part had to be immediate in order to address any damage that was registered.
Among the most obvious disadvantages are the affectation of quality due to the progressive wear of the equipment, the risk of not having spare parts available, which meant high costs, downtime due to sudden failures, and the risk that other problems could be generated in parallel. .
Second generation: from 1950 to 1970
Preventive maintenance work was already systematized by the advent of World War II. And a few years later, the American Society for Quality Control emerged, which helped carry out the statistical study of work, also improving the quality of the products obtained.
The second generation focuses on the Preventive Maintenance of breakdowns, for which cyclical and repetitive work is carried out with a determined frequency to achieve said objective. This phase extends until the end of the 70s.
In it, preventive substitutions begin to be made, since the relationship between the life time of the equipment and its probability of failure is discovered.
Preventive maintenance has several modalities: it can be a process to be carried out periodically, generally with a time interval of 6 to 12 months. It can also be programmed according to manufacturers’ specifications or by engineering standards.
Another modality may have the intention of implementing improvements in the process and although it does not have an established frequency, it involves a redesign to optimize the process. Finally, there is autonomous maintenance, carried out by the operator with simple or routine activities.
Third generation: from 1980 to 1990
On-condition maintenance is implemented, that is, maintenance that depends on the monitoring of parameters based on which work will be carried out to replace or recondition the machines.
This work is made possible thanks to the availability of reliable electronic inspection and control equipment, which makes it possible to know the real state of the equipment through periodic measurements.
It is the time of Predictive Maintenance, which consisted of the early detection of incipient symptoms of future problems. Cause-effect studies are usually carried out to find out the origin of the failures. A differentiating element at this stage is that the production areas begin to get involved in detecting problems.
One of the great advantages of predictive maintenance is the possibility of tracking and recording failures, so it will be easier to schedule future repairs and fewer interventions by maintenance personnel will be recorded.
Fourth generation: from 1990 to the present day
The beginnings of this phase are usually identified in the 1990s when American companies had already incorporated into their dynamics the concept of Total Quality that Japanese industries had been promoting since the 1960s. Total Quality Management (TQM for its acronym in English ) sought to create awareness of quality in all processes of the organization and in the people who worked in it.
The fourth generation corresponds to the total productive maintenance which is inspired by that philosophy of Japanese origin that seeks excellence or said in a sentence: obtain the maximum with acceptable quality, at the least possible cost, permanently and with an integral sense. For this, small maintenance tasks such as adjustment, inspection, replacement of parts are carried out, and continuous interaction with the maintenance manager is maintained.
The program focused on the human factor of the entire company, which is assigned preventive maintenance tasks to maximize the effectiveness of the assets. It involves three principles: always keep the facilities in good condition, focus on increasing productivity and involve all the staff.
This is the phase of continuous improvement systems and is characterized by the implementation of groups for improvement and monitoring of actions. Maintenance is now considered a benefit, rather than a necessary evil, and is assumed as a commitment by all departments of the organization.
The objective is to achieve the total effectiveness of the equipment that implies economic efficiency through availability, maximum performance and quality products.
Additionally, three other tools are usually implemented: Risk engineering, which involves determining consequences of failures that are acceptable or not; reliability analysis, which refers to identifying feasible and profitable preventive tasks; improving maintainability, which consists in reducing maintenance times and costs.
At this stage, important changes have been presented in the legislation on Safety and Hygiene at Work, as well as more environmentally friendly practices are required. For this reason, purification devices, extraction plants, noise attenuation, detection equipment, control and alarms began to be implemented.
Today, experts in the field estimate that maintenance costs will suffer a progressive increase that will lead industries to generate more reliable and easy-to-maintain products.
Importance of maintenance
Industrial maintenance went from being a necessary evil to a benefit in which various departments of an organization are committed and involved. This is basically because the true importance of the effective management of failures or problems of equipment and facilities, which may affect any of the stages of production of goods or services, has been recognized.
It should be noted that the importance of industrial maintenance lies in the following:
– Prevents accidents at work and increases safety for people.
– Reduces losses due to production stops.
– Decreases the severity of failures that cannot be avoided.
– Prevents irreparable damage to equipment or facilities.
– Ensures acceptable equipment performance.
– It allows to document the maintenance processes necessary for each machine.
– Extends the useful life of equipment or goods.
– Preserves productive assets in safe and pre-established operating conditions.
– Improves the quality of the activity.
– Allows the adequate elaboration of the budget, adjusted to the needs of the company.
References
Muñoz Abella, M. (2003) Industrial maintenance. Madrid: Carlos III University of Madrid. Mechanical Engineering Area.
Mora Gutierrez, A. (2009). Maintenance: planning, execution and control. Mexico: Alfaomega Publishing Group.
Industrial maintenance. (nd). Recovered from ecured.cu
Nieto, S. History of maintenance. (2009, May 27). Recovered from mantenimientoindustriales2009.blogspot
Villada, “Maintenance as a competitive strategy”, Rev. Fac. Ing. Univ. Antioquia, no. 17, p. 7-13, 1998.
The Evolution of Industrial Maintenance: Blog: ATS. (2019, July 26). Recovered from advancedtech.com