For food and beverage manufacturers, a proactive approach to maintaining equipment and facilities does more than promote operational efficiency. Ensuring all assets meet safety and hygiene standards helps keep consumers safe while protecting your business from reputational damage and excess expenses.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
More than 50% of organizations still operate reactively at least half the time. Faced with emerging technology, evolving customer expectations, and other daily challenges, maintenance teams across the food and beverage industry have an opportunity and an obligation to grow more preventive.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Though the size and structure of maintenance departments vary, all quality PM programs<\/a> rely on a number of the same components.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n While sticking with legacy processes may seem simpler and cheaper, insufficiently proactive maintenance leads to short- and long-term costs that you may not be able to afford. Imagine, for example, a breakdown that leads to significant downtime. Some estimates suggest the cost of just an hour of downtime<\/a> can total $30,000. Failing to spot signs of contamination or other hazards can lead to product recalls that put a stop to operations and ultimately cost much more. Quality Assurance Magazine<\/em> suggests that the combined direct and indirect costs of a product recall<\/a> will typically reach more than $1.5 million.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Preventive and predictive maintenance<\/a> offer plenty of benefits, but they aren\u2019t always the most cost-effective approach for specific assets. Some assets simply aren\u2019t important or costly enough to justify taking a strategic and proactive approach to their upkeep. If you put equal emphasis on each asset and component across your portfolio, you\u2019ll only exhaust your resources with over-maintenance. You certainly sh. Instead, you should stagger the rollout of your program to focus first on the assets you can\u2019t operate without.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n You can determine which assets warrant strategic attention with a criticality assessment. This exercise is beneficial for organizations that are transitioning away from purely reactive maintenance for the first time. Learn more about conducting these assessments<\/a> in our detailed guide.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Next, begin entering your equipment into your new systems. Start with those assets that you cannot allow to fail. Make sure to collect all the relevant information a technician would need to efficiently and effectively service this equipment. Take note of each asset’s current condition so you\u2019ve got a clear sense of what your \u2018before\u2019 state looks like. That way you\u2019ll tell a more compelling story when it\u2019s time to report on your successes. As you grow accustomed to your new preventive processes, you can begin to add additional assets to the program.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Begin documenting all the maintenance activities you know your team will need to carry out regularly and define the triggers that will inspire them to take certain actions. You might define these triggers based on factors related to time, usage, or the condition of the asset in question.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n You can reference several sources for support while you define maintenance task triggers, including:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The benefits of preventive maintenance for food and beverage companies<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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The costs and consequences of reactive maintenance<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
6 steps for launching a PM program in the food and beverage industry<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Step 1: Perform a criticality analysis<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Step 2: Build your assets into your program<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Step 3: Define maintenance tasks and triggers<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n