The plant installed a new production machine five years ago. All the recommended maintenance is being performed, but breakdowns still occur. How do you resolve this?
First, conduct failure cause analysis because the problem might not even be maintenance related.
The manufacturer’s maintenance recommendations are based on assumptions of use. For example, the oil change interval for a taxicab is much shorter than for a passenger car. A taxi spends much more time at idle (where fuel drops out of suspension, contaminating the oil) plus it has much more start and stop usage. Contact the manufacturer and see if they can tell you what the usage assumptions were. Maybe you need to decrease your interval.
Second, make sure the maintenance is being done correctly. Look at the major maintenance steps and determine if there could be multiple interpretations of how those are supposed to be performed. Furthermore, make sure you witness those tasks being done to see if they (whatever they are) are done to high standards of performance.
