When Maintenance Does More Harm Than Good

Various published studies over the years have shown that many failures are directly attributable to human errors in maintenance. Eliminating maintenance would eliminate these errors, but of course you’d be in a much worse situation by taking that approach.

The solution is to identify the maintenance errors at your facility and train them out of existence. You could begin with some basics, just to get things rolling:

• Wipe the grease fitting clean before greasing the motor.
• Don’t mix greases; confirm the correct lubricant beforehand.
• In a bolted connection, replace locking hardware rather than re-use it.
• If vibration readings are high, determine why. Simply tightening the mounting bolts will usually exacerbate the problem.
• Replace equipment covers completely, taking care not to damage gaskets. Tighten screws or bolts in a standard torqueing pattern to prevent bending the cover.

Rather than wait for equipment failures to happen so you can analyze them, carefully analyze the execution of the maintenance practices. This will require physically going with a maintenance person to observe the process.