How can you optimize machinery performance with minimal downtime?

Planning for service and maintenance activities should be a priority during the design phase of the project. Failing to take service and maintenance activities into account can lead to a piece of equipment that is unserviceable and thus will fail early. This may seem secondary to the main design effort, but it is absolutely essential to the success of the design. Therefore, always include service personnel in design reviews to ensure that service activities are analyzed early and if problems with servicing are found, can be fixed before construction.

Firstly, carrying out planned preventive maintenance is very important in optimizing machine performance and secondly proper condition monitoring i.e regular checks for vibration, high temperature etc.

Planning routine maintenance tasks should be carried out in a periodical manner according to the guidelines of the machines. This can improve the longevity of the machine and unexpected accidents that can cause issues in manufacturing. Various task cards or job cards should be maintained and recorded and kept in folder to maintain a history of the tasks done. Therefore, it is important to have maintenance engineers and their team in discussions to the health of our equipment sand the related budgets.

1)Schedule a proper maintenance schedule for each machinery/equipment in the plant. 2)Ensure that additional spare parts are available in the inventory, if any part fails. 3)Follow 5S principles while arranging the tools and spare parts required for maintaining the machine. 4)Make sure that the maintenance team is well trained to handle the breakdowns/damages

Monitor, with online vibration and bearing temperature analysis and ongoing monitoring of trends as well as lubrication analysis on predetermined schedules.

In my experience, by implementing comprehensive preventative & predictive maintenance programs, utilizing advanced diagnostic tools, providing training to work force, company can minimize equipment downtime and maximize efficiency of the facility.

The machinery innovation can be achieved through various tasks associated with like reducing changeover times. The changeover time i.e when the machine is not running and when we arrange the tools and setup for the new holding fixtures for a new part to be manufactured. Normally, these take 45 minutes to 1 hour. So, inspired from Japanese engineer Shigeo Shinjo and his lean innovative method known as Single-minute-exchange-of -die (SMED). With SMED overall equipment efficiency is also achieved since the machine changeover is reduced to under 9 minutes. Therefore, its minimal downtime with significant throughput efficiency. Then we can innovate tooling fixture assemblies that can do 10 to 20 parts in 1operation for increasing productivity.

Following the DMAIC(Define Measure Analyze Improve Check) and PDCA(Plan Do Check Act) principles will play a vital role in optimizing machinery performance with minimal downtime.

Here's a list of factors that need to be considered while optimizing the machinery performance with minimal downtime. The factors are as follows: 1) Manpower allocation 2) Inventory 3) Capital Expenditure 4) Training and educating the manpower