Proactive Maintenance
Boosting Business Value; Ensuring Operational Excellence

Proactive Maintenance

Equipment operation is, at its core, a business activity, and proactive maintenance is an investment in that activity.

Unlike reactive, or break-fix maintenance, proactive maintenance involves vigilant asset management and a dedicated strategy that plans not only for component replacement on a recommended schedule (e.g. preventive maintenance) but also equipment analysis to identify root failure origins—excessive vibrations, part contamination, and other issues—and take action to avoid impending part and machinery failures (predictive maintenance).

At PCA, we are always amazed at how easily financial decision makers persuade themselves to ignore the benefits of proactive maintenance, putting short-term profit over long-term economic health. They adopt a “production at any cost” mentality and override sound operating practices, either to meet tight supply chains and/or deadlines or to squeeze more productivity, and therefore profit, than is good for the equipment and its health.

This is unfortunate, because the bottom-line benefit from proactive maintenance is undeniable. PCA’s engagement with an industrial plant in New York illustrates this assertion.

When proactive maintenance is performed correctly and effectively, every dollar spent on it becomes a “future” bank deposit, in the form of return on investment. Anything less is operating on borrowed time.

Boosting Efficiency with Maintenance Optimization

Here, the operation’s maintenance and storeroom programs were being run by a third-party (3P) contractor that was unable to meet the desired efficiency goals. PCA developed an assessment and recommendations the 3P contractor rejected, but plant management wanted to implement.

Management released the 3P contractor and hired PCA. The maintenance optimization effort resulted in a significant increase in maintenance productivity (as well as substantial savings in inventory overhead due to storeroom optimization).

Post optimization by PCA, corporate auditors determined the facility was one of the best-run operations they had ever seen.