Construction Equipment Maintenance

Heavy equipment operators and staff that do construction equipment maintenance face distinct obstacles when working on a construction site. First, breakdowns are costly, accounting for around 2% to 3% of annual asset replacement costs. Not only is the cost considerable, but missed days result in a probable schedule slippage, which has its own concerns.

As a result of developing a cost-focused, meticulously planned heavy equipment maintenance program, there will be fewer equipment failures, reduced downtime, better schedule compliance, and lower expenses.

Here are six pointers on starting and running a heavy equipment maintenance program. These suggestions might help you set up and supervise in maintaining construction equipment.

Step In Maintaining Construction Equipment:

1. DEVELOP AN END-OF-SHIFT PROTOCOL AND START EACH SHIFT WITH CHECKLISTS

At the start of each shift, use daily, weekly, and monthly checklists to inspect each piece of equipment for issues. These checklists include cleaning, safety items, lubricants, and operational parts.

When possible, park heavy equipment in sheds or outbuildings at the end of the shift to avoid the weather. As a result, this action can reduce the amount of needed maintenance work in the long run.

A final end-of-shift checklist and clean-up program will help you spot any minor issues overnight.

2. PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE OPERATOR TRAINING AND COMPLIANCE WITH SAFETY PROCEDURES.

Make sure to train all the operators appropriately and support employees. They should be familiar with and comprehend the equipment and the necessary maintenance. For example, in a perfect world, they’d collaborate with maintenance professionals to identify vital components and swiftly notify any that aren’t working.

One approach is to ensure that maintenance processes, such as personal protective equipment, are compliant with OSHA and the Department of Labor’s heavy equipment and workplace requirements.

4. FORM AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM

Building and maintaining a rapid response repair team for large or long-term projects may be more cost-effective. Furthermore, this team would be available onsite with regularly used spare parts (such as filters, fluids, and belts) and have access to a heavy lift service truck, depending on the conditions.

You can plan and design this endeavor using data from preventative maintenance repair records and the identification of certain vital parts. In addition, coordination with spare parts providers to retain an onsite inventory of critical spare parts, identify critical spares, and “hot shoot” out-of-stock items can be an efficient approach to keep equipment running.

Anyone who wishes to maintain spare parts inventories and handle preventative maintenance work efficiently should carefully consider adopting a CMMS, as doing so manually is challenging.

6. INSTALL FLUID ANALYSIS AND MONITORING BASED ON CONDITIONS

The analysis of equipment fluids is an excellent approach to figuring out how well a piece of heavy equipment runs. You can do fluid analysis independently or as part of a condition-based monitoring program. Moreover, laboratory examination of equipment fluids is used to detect the internal state of equipment and can be used to determine when maintenance is required.

Any fluid, including lubricating oil, hydraulic fluids, transmission, final drive trains, and coolants, can be analyzed using a variety of procedures: contaminant identification, viscosities, UV spectroscopy, pH analysis, and other tests. You can use these tests to predict when equipment will fail and alert you to the need for repair. For example, you might incorporate fluid sampling and analysis as a preventative maintenance program.

Heavy machinery is an expensive investment, so it pays to make sure it’s up and running when it’s needed.

While direct equipment expenses are apparent, costs associated with failures, idle equipment, or operator mistakes are difficult to quantify.

Calculating the cost and return on investment for heavy equipment is critical. Contractors can run a successful firm with good operational practices and a well-organized construction equipment maintenance crew.

Source: Construction Executive