ESTABLISHING OPTIMAL MAINTENANCE PRACTICES IN A TRADITIONAL MANUFACTURING ENVIRONMENT

All machinery and equipment in a manufacturing environment are subject to routine preventive inspection and maintenance procedures that disable the item for a short time. The purpose of these periodic procedures is to perform necessary routine maintenance to ensure that more catastrophic, long-term breakdowns are avoided. These routine procedures are typically performed based on a predetermined schedule that has been derived by hindsight and anecdotal evidence. This paper presents a methodology for maintenance decision-making. It provides the framework and decision-support system for determining the proper maintenance paradigm to be used on any machine, from a reactive system that repairs equipment only when they break, to a preventive maintenance system based on a static schedule, to an intelligent predictive system.