When to Use Breakdown Maintenance? An Actionable Tips

 

Breakdown maintenance, also known as corrective or reactive maintenance, is performed after equipment or assets have failed. This approach means, "If it's not broken, don't fix it." While it might seem counterintuitive to wait for a failure to occur before addressing it, there are certain situations and types of equipment for which this strategy might be the best course of action. However, as with any Maintenance Strategy, knowing when to use it is the key to maximizing its benefits.

1. When the Cost of Failure is Low?

Breakdown maintenance is suitable for equipment or assets where failure does not result in significant production downtime, safety hazards, or high repair costs. These might include non-essential or secondary equipment or equipment with redundant units in place so that if one unit fails, another can take over with little to no impact on the overall operation.

2. When the Equipment is Not Critical to Operations

If a piece of equipment is not critical to operations and its failure will not significantly affect your production process or service delivery, breakdown maintenance can be an effective strategy; This could be equipment used infrequently or equipment that doesn't directly contribute to your main line of business.

3. When Predictive or Preventive Maintenance is Not Justified

Some equipment might be too simple or too inexpensive to warrant the cost of preventive or Predictive Maintenance. If the cost of maintaining the equipment regularly is greater than the cost to replace or repair it after failure, then a breakdown maintenance approach may be justified.

4. When Equipment Failure is Unpredictable

Despite advances in predictive maintenance technologies, there are situations where equipment failures are random and cannot be easily predicted. A breakdown maintenance approach might be the most practical and cost-effective strategy for these types of assets.

How to Effectively Implement Breakdown Maintenance?

Even when using a breakdown maintenance strategy, planning and preparation are essential.

1.    Identify Equipment: Not all equipment suits a Breakdown Maintenance approach. You need to identify which assets can be effectively managed with this strategy. These are usually non-critical assets or those where the cost of failure is low.

2.    Have a Rapid Response Plan: When equipment fails, you should have a plan to fix it as quickly as possible to minimize downtime; This includes having spare parts available and technicians ready to address the failure.

3.    Use a CMMS: A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) can help manage breakdown maintenance effectively. It can aid in tracking equipment failures, managing spare parts inventory, and scheduling technicians.

4.    Review and Analyze Failures: Even though the strategy involves repairing after failure, you should still review and analyze these failures. Understanding why failures occur can help improve equipment design and operation and sometimes lead to more effective preventive strategies.

5.    Complement with Other Strategies: Breakdown maintenance should not be your only maintenance strategy. It should complement preventive and predictive maintenance for critical and expensive assets.

In conclusion, while breakdown maintenance is often viewed as less desirable than preventive or predictive maintenance, there are situations where it can be the most cost-effective and practical strategy. The key is understanding when to use it and having the right systems to manage it effectively. By adopting a CMMS, companies can implement and manage a breakdown maintenance strategy that helps reduce costs and increase equipment lifespan. With the right approach, breakdown maintenance can be an effective part of your overall maintenance strategy.

Best Practices for Breakdown Maintenance

1.    Assess the Suitability: Understand the nature of your assets and assess which ones can be handled through breakdown maintenance without causing significant disruption or cost.

2.    Allocate Resources: Ensure you have adequate resources to deal with failures when they occur; This could involve training your staff to handle different types of breakdowns or ensuring you have spare parts readily available.

3.    Quick Response Time: The effectiveness of breakdown maintenance relies heavily on the speed of your response. Aim to fix issues as soon as they occur to minimize downtime.

4.    Use CMMS: Utilize a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) to track your assets and their maintenance history; This can help you to plan for future breakdowns effectively and to ensure a faster response time.

5.    Regular Analysis: Regularly analyze your breakdowns to identify patterns or recurring issues; This could help to identify if a different maintenance strategy might be more appropriate for certain assets.

Advantages of Breakdown Maintenance

1.    Lower Short-Term Costs: Lower short-term costs are involved since maintenance is only performed when necessary.

2.    Reduced Staffing Needs: Because maintenance is not pre-scheduled, there may be less need for full-time maintenance staff.

3.    Simplicity: The approach is straightforward - if something breaks, it gets fixed. There's no need for complex scheduling or predictive analyses.

Disadvantages of Breakdown Maintenance

1.    Higher Long-Term Costs: While breakdown maintenance can have lower short-term costs, the costs of regular repairs and replacements can add up over time.

2.    Increased Downtime: This strategy can lead to increased downtime, as there is no attempt to prevent failure. When an asset fails, it could halt production until it is repaired or replaced.

3.    Potential for More Severe Failures: With breakdown maintenance, small issues that could have been caught and addressed with preventive maintenance can escalate into more serious problems.

4.    Lack of Planning: As maintenance is only carried out after a failure, this reactive approach means there can be a lack of effective planning. In turn, this can lead to longer downtime and higher costs.

5.    Safety Risks: If crucial equipment fails unexpectedly, it can create safety risks for maintenance workers and other staff.

Remember, the goal is not to solely rely on breakdown maintenance but to use it strategically, along with other maintenance strategies like preventive and predictive maintenance, to optimize your asset management and increase overall productivity.