Autonomous maintenance is a system for maintaining machinery. It includes which machine operators continually check and modify their equipment and carry out small maintenance chores on it. Instead of designating a professional maintenance specialist to handle maintenance and regularly planned upkeep, this is done.
Autonomous Maintenance: What Is It?
The first pillar of the overall productive maintenance approach is autonomous maintenance. An operator who has received training in autonomous maintenance is fully knowledgeable in standard procedures including cleaning, lubricating and inspecting. Operators must take care of their equipment and the area around it. This means keeping the machine clean and in “like-new” condition. It set up an inspection schedule, and making sure that everyone has the technical skills they need to do routine inspections.
Autonomous Maintenance Adheres to Two Fundamental Principles
- To avoid equipment degradation through the appropriate use
- Restoring and maintaining equipment in “like new” condition through effective management
A lot of this depends on operators being aware of when a machine update is required and when a small repair would suffice.
To be able to do their maintenance, operators must learn how to spot problems by understanding how the machine works, making adjustments, spotting possible quality problems, and figuring out what caused them.
There is a reason total productive maintenance starts with autonomous maintenance, with the ultimate objective being to improve your organization’s entire equipment performance.
It frees up professional maintenance employees to concentrate on specialised maintenance projects by relieving them of having to worry about straightforward, routine maintenance duties. This has several benefits, including:
- Increasing operator familiarity with their tools
- Maintaining equipment in “like new” condition by keeping it clean and lubricated
- The capacity to identify new problems before they develop into failures
Advantages of Autonomous Maintenance
To identify the root causes of critical asset failure and subsequently fix them, most firms make significant investments in the hiring and training. The goal of autonomous maintenance is to relieve these specialists of simple jobs like inspections, lubrication, and small changes. There are three basic advantages that autonomous maintenance has for an organisation, among others.
The largest advantage is cheaper labour. This includes reducing inefficiencies connected to waiting for availability and travel time. Having an operator around a machine at all times helps a lot with these kinds of problems.
Autonomous maintenance also increases the availability of highly qualified maintenance staff, allowing them to attend to more urgent demands. It doesn’t interfere with regular maintenance. It can help even maintenance departments that are short-staffed but are able to deal with emergencies.
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The Process of Autonomous Maintenance in Seven Steps
You should be aware of the seven processes involved in autonomous maintenance if you want to profit from it.
Step 1: Boost Operator Education
To successfully deploy autonomous maintenance, it is necessary to equip operators with the knowledge necessary to handle and maintain the machinery that they are tasked with using. Give them an understanding of how the components of the equipment work together. They are aware of which components require routine maintenance. These components require special attention for procedures like cleaning and lubrication.
Use learning tools that can expand their knowledge and help them understand practical facts as quickly and easily as possible.
Step 2: Initial Inspection and Cleaning
Operators should be able to assess the equipment and identify any needs for cleaning and maintenance. They are familiar with the ins and outs of the machinery they are utilising. They must be able to recognise any area of the machinery that needs cleaning, tightening, oiling, or lubrication.
Step 3: Getting Rid of Contamination Sources
The operator must be aware of how to maintain the equipment once it has been cleaned and returned to its ideal functioning state. Getting rid of contamination sources is one technique to keep the equipment in good state. Cleanliness and good housekeeping at work help prevent contamination and make sure it’s a safe place to work.
Depending on the type of cleaning equipment, workers may need to use machine guarding and follow lockout/tag-out (LOTO) rules to keep themselves safe.
Step 4: Establish Lubrication and Inspection Standards
To keep equipment performing at a “like new” level and maintaining its “like new” condition, it should be cleaned, oiled, and maintained.
To set standards and make sure they are followed, tools and methods should be used to figure out what maintenance tasks to do.
Use checklist tools that may instruct operators on what to do and how to complete maintenance chores. It can also alert operators when work is approaching its due date.
Step 5: Conduct Inspection and Monitoring
It is advised to carry out inspection and monitoring to encourage excellent practices like autonomous maintenance. Operators can check their equipment and offer details in the form of inspection reports with images of the equipment’s present state and completed maintenance chores.
To make sure that all equipment is maintained by operators and in working order, data gathered via these inspections may be monitored.
Step 6: Standardize Visual Maintenance Management
Implementing visual cues, such as colour-coded tags and straightforward signs or posters. It will help operators accomplish maintenance jobs more quickly. These cues are meant to remind operators and other staff members of the right way.
To assist operators in adhering to and reinforcing criteria for maintaining equipment and machinery. It provides visual aids of the standards from Step 4.
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Step 7: Establish Continuous Improvement
Improvement is one of the principles of autonomous maintenance. It makes sense to build continuous improvement for autonomous maintenance.
Procedures for equipment maintenance may be constantly improved using any training input gained from operators in Step 1. Inspection and monitoring data acquired through their reports in Step 5.
Conclusion
Autonomous maintenance aims to give control back to machine operators. Technomax provides expert autonomous maintenance throughout the Middle East and GCC. With our reliable and top-notch services for the industrial sector, we are the leading autonomous maintenance service provider.
