Why can a Maintenance Management System Software solve recurring problems in managing the maintenance of industrial assets?

In the multi-faceted industrial world there are highly variable and common issues, which have a greater or lesser impact on production efficiency and profit margins.

One of the most constant concerns is the deterioration of machinery and production plants, which over time can decrease their performance. This can be a matter of age, technical obsolescence, or both.

In addition to decreasing in the value of the plant and its production capacity, this deterioration also increases the cost of maintenance, in particular costs related to corrective work or failure.

Knowing the impact of these factors on the cost of maintenance raises the question of whether to repair or completely replace the plant. The first task is to calculate these costs precisely by dividing them into two types:

• Direct costs: quantified from contracts in existence with the suppliers providing maintenance services.
• Indirect costs: quantified from machine downtime caused by faults and its impact on earnings.

Based on the cost of maintenance and the degree of asset obsolescence, it is possible to estimate multiple options such as the introduction of alternative production machinery in case of failure, the replacement of machinery or the use of whatever unplanned maintenance is necessary to reinstate production.

In this context, maintenance management software such as Akeron Maintenance Management System, with its rationalization of structured and shared information, can be advantageous for several reasons:

• Timeliness of action: thanks to the possibility of analyzing the data preventively, it enables problem solving in the shortest time possible.
• Cost analysis: based on an overview of suppliers, the management of contracts and the recording of maintenance interventions, it is possible to assess whether the costs of replacing an asset are justified.
• Corrective actions: analysis of the information recorded allows assessment of the cost of preventative maintenance compared with failure and evaluation of the introduction of any additional production lines to reduce downtime.
• Cause analysis: means actions aimed at reducing the gravity of events and repair times can be assessed, for example, by estimating the time needed to procure replacement parts compared with keeping the relevant spares in the warehouse.

These actions, vital for the survival of a company in an increasingly competitive market, can be performed thanks to Akeron Maintenance Management System, a software dedicated to maintenance which can code, survey, register, analyze and attribute cost to a large number of assets in an organized and intuitive manner.