The technical aspect of industrial maintenance simply means maintaining a functional level of safety for employees, providing services and materials, repairing, servicing, and replacing necessary industrial devices, tools, machinery, construction infrastructure, and other supporting utilities in industrial, commercial, and residential applications. In other words, industrial maintenance is really the care and upkeep of things that are part of a production environment. This also goes for non-orporated commercial businesses such as repair shops and services. Industrial maintenance includes all those activities that deal with mechanical processes and operations like manufacturing, material handling, assembly, disassembling, testing, packaging, transport, and inspection processes and systems. Some of the industrial maintenance activities that need to be monitored include electrical, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing, chemical processing, heavy and power construction, automatic control systems, industrial machinery, and automotive repair and maintenance.
How to do Industrial Maintenance?
In the past, industrial maintenance meant hiring separate employees for performing all these works. However, now everything is automated because of the advent of computerization. All the necessary information can be gathered, analyzed, and maintained in a computer system that can then be accessed by any machine in the warehouse. This also helped decrease downtime for all employees and decreased the workload on those assigned to perform industrial maintenance. Because of this, the workloads of manufacturing staff, who previously had to personally oversee and repair each and every equipment and machine in the factory, can now be reduced. As a result, there would be more time available to handle the other manufacturing processes.
Industrial maintenance does not only involve repairing or refurbishing machines or items, but it also involves preventive measures to ensure the continuous operation and reliability of manufacturing processes. For instance, a manufacturer should always have mechanics or technicians checking the condition of machineries and equipment used in their manufacturing process. This will help prevent jamming of machineries, which leads to catastrophic accidents that may even lead to the facility’s collapse. On the other hand, it is important for factories to conduct routine inspections for any signs of wear and tear of machineries used in making products. This could help save production time and money, as well as reduce repair expenses later on.
