Manufacturing companies are often faced with increasing unit production requirements however, businesses are failing to invest in the maintenance and servicing of their key machinery.
Machine tools are highly complex pieces of equipment and so, an investment is required in some form of maintenance programme. However, deciding which form of machine tool maintenance is suitable for your business takes some consideration…
Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance aims to stop issues occurring, therefore improving productivity and keeping downtime to a minimum. As part of a planned maintenance plan machinery is serviced and any components which need to be replaced are dealt with.
Preventive maintenance can sometimes find potential faults within the machinery depending on the maintenance programme. Reliability is often one of the key benefits of this form of maintenance, as the machinery is well serviced and looked at by an engineer regularly.
Predictive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance involves real time data collection for the machinery within your outfit, collecting this and constantly monitoring the results. From this data it is possible to review how the machinery is performing.
Often thermal imaging and vibration analysis are key components of predictive maintenance programmes. One benefit of predictive maintenance is that components of the machine are often used for longer periods, rather than changing these during the preventive maintenance schedule as a matter of routine.
Breakdown Response
Breakdown response is exactly how it sounds, engineers respond to a machine which is failing to work due to a fault. Downtime is caused and the production process must come to a halt whilst the issue is being fixed.
A disadvantage of breakdown response is this downtime, workflow is interrupted, and pressure is put on the manufacturing team to meet KPIs and benchmarks. Also depending on the severity of the issue and whether new parts need to be ordered, this downtime can be prolonged.
Selecting a CNC maintenance plan for your business
When dealing with machine tools, a maintenance plan is vital. CNC machinery is often has high levels of usage and are key parts of a manufacturing process, therefore it is important to have a comprehensive plan in place before an issue occurs.
At MTT we have worked with many businesses on their manufacturing process, specialising in the OEE of machine tools. We work alongside our clients to fully understand their requirements before making a recommendation for a maintenance plan.
If you are currently experiencing ongoing issues or inefficiencies with your machine tool outfit, our experienced team are available to assist you. We have engineers positioned throughout the UK and currently work with reputable brands within the manufacturing industry.
Reach out to our team
If you would like to know more about our machine tool maintenance services, or the work we carry out for our clients throughout the UK, do not hesitate to get in touch. We work closely with our clients to produce bespoke solutions to their machine tool issues.
Simply call us on 0845 077 9345 or email info@mtt.uk.com and we will be in touch.
