The importance of maintenance for Heavy Construction Equipment
To avoid job delays, you must keep your heavy equipment functioning smoothly and predictably. You cannot cut corners on maintenance for the sake of your fleet. In fact, maintaining your construction equipment’s operation is almost as crucial as using it. Your heavy machinery will not be accessible when you need it if it is not properly maintained.
Why Is It So Important To Maintain Construction Equipment?
There are two types of maintenance: reactive and preventative. When your equipment has a problem, such as low oil levels or performance issues caused by impurities in the fuel, reactive maintenance is performed. Even if the system does not entirely fail, it will still have enough issues to require service before it can function at its best. Reactive maintenance is frequently performed after a breakdown occurs, necessitating a quick response to the problem in order to minimize downtime.
While this form of repair will get your equipment back up and running, you shouldn’t always react to problems. This will put a stop to work on the broken machine until it is repaired. This repair time could take hours or days away from your job, depending on the severity of the problem. Consider taking a more proactive approach to preventative maintenance rather than waiting for portions of your fleet to break down.
You’ll save time and money by servicing construction equipment before it loses efficiency and performance if you prevent problems. Equipment should be serviced on a regular basis to keep it in top shape. Because in the construction sector, running equipment to the point of breakdown causes more difficulties than the minor inconvenience of planned maintenance, preventative maintenance should be your preferred technique.
What Happens When Routine Maintenance Is Performed?
When a problem first appears, reactive maintenance actions are performed. Finding the source of the problem and resolving it is the first step in responding to it. If left unchecked, low oil, poor fuel quality, and clogged filters can all cause problems. Checking the rest of the car for expanding concerns should become a part of associated responsibilities if a problem emerges. The specific maintenance tasks will be determined by the vehicle and the manufacturer’s guidelines. Most heavy equipment, on the other hand, has engines that require similar inspections. Check the following for regular maintenance of your heavy machinery:
Check sure the system has adequate oil and that the quality of the oil is satisfactory.
Check the levels of coolant, oil, fuel, and other fluids to verify if they’re adequate. Fluid drops on a regular basis signal a leak that has to be repaired.
Are all of the parts moving as smoothly as they should? Do the controls react in a timely manner? Problems with these elements could suggest a problem with the equipment’s accessory operators. Looking for anything that appears out of place during this visual inspection will help you uncover problems faster.
What Is Preventative Maintenance and How Does It Work?
Preventative maintenance is performed on a regular basis, regardless of whether the equipment is malfunctioning or not. By including regular inspections into your company’s repair and maintenance program, you can ensure that the machinery does not have to be shut down before being serviced. As a result, uptime and productivity will grow. Because many circumstances that can cause wasted time on construction projects are beyond your control, such as adverse weather, it’s important to remember to maintain your fleet if you want to avoid losing time.
Cleaning should be done on a regular basis as part of routine maintenance. In fact, “clean to inspect” is an important concept in preventative maintenance. Any heavy machinery cleaning effort should include a visual assessment to look for any potential problems that may be developing.
While preventative servicing equipment may not prevent all breakdowns, it will help to lessen the number of them, which is one of the reasons why preventative maintenance is so important. Consider predictive maintenance to take this type of service to the next level. Despite their similarities, each has unique characteristics that make one superior for your fleet’s needs.
Maintenance: Preventive vs. Predictive
Preventative maintenance is performed on a set timetable, regardless of the machinery’s urgent needs. Its purpose is to seek for signs of equipment deterioration while examining refillable or replaceable items on the device.
When monitoring equipment indicates that repair is required, predictive maintenance is performed. Predictive maintenance may be required less frequently than preventative maintenance, depending on the age of your fleet. However, as your equipment ages, the frequency of servicing will certainly rise, as older machinery may require more frequent repairs. If you use these approaches, you’ll need to keep meticulous records of your service schedule and install monitoring devices on your equipment.
You’ll determine the optimal times to service your fleet based on the performance of each unit using data from monitoring devices. Rather than performing routine checks, the monitoring equipment will do so for you. One way that technological advancements are making fleet maintenance more efficient is through this form of fleet repair.
If you want a more low-tech method, simply scheduling fleet service at regular intervals will suffice. However, be prepared to change the plan if you see the gear is wearing out faster at each subsequent service period, especially if it is older equipment. The more wear and tear your heavy equipment has, the more inspections and service it will require.
Preventative maintenance may be performed after a certain number of hours or miles of use. This timetable relates the servicing to the equipment’s use and necessitates keeping track of how long your personnel use the equipment, but it ignores factors that could put the machine under more stress. Running motors in subzero temperatures, for example, puts a strain on the battery, while high temperatures can cause motors to overheat if not adequately cooled. If you do predictive maintenance to your equipment after it has been used under extreme conditions, it may give superior service.
Preventative Maintenance: Why Is It Necessary?
Yes, preventative maintenance can eat into production time. The reasons for caring for your fleet’s vehicles, on the other hand, will make the time investment worthwhile. Maintaining your fleet will make it safer, save you money, and reduce downtime, among other benefits. With so many advantages to preventative maintenance, it’s a time commitment you can’t afford to skip. Preventative maintenance has a number of advantages, including:
Maintenance can reduce cost overruns by up to 40% on building projects by increasing machinery operations and productivity. In addition, poorly maintained engines may lose fuel efficiency, increasing the amount of money spent on fuel to finish a project. This issue can be avoided by keeping the system in top shape by replacing filters and keeping the machinery serviced.
Enhances security: Regular maintenance ensures that safety features on the equipment continue to function, safeguarding workers from injury on the job. When a machine stops working unexpectedly while an operator is on board, the employee may be injured as a result of the sudden change.
Ensures productivity: Stopping work to make repairs wastes valuable working hours, lengthening the job’s completion time and decreasing efficiency. Construction equipment that is well-maintained will work throughout the project, eliminating downtime.
Maintains warranty effectiveness: For some warranties, failing to perform simple servicing activities may result in the policy’s protection being voided.
Insurance coverage is safeguarded: Damage caused by disregarding maintenance may or may not be covered by your fleet’s insurance, depending on the specifics of your policy. Prevents breakdowns: Breakdowns waste the time of your employees. By keeping up with the care of your heavy equipment on a regular basis, you may avoid such incidents.
The Importance of Preventative Maintenance
Whether you choose preventive or predictive maintenance, your heavy equipment must be serviced on a regular basis. Without it, you’ll notice that the life of your machinery is decreasing, efficiency is decreasing, production is decreasing, and projects are slipping behind schedule. Maintaining your equipment ensures that your employees have access to the tools and machines they require to complete their tasks promptly and efficiently.
Rather than wasting time reacting to problems, prevent them with routine maintenance. Maintaining your equipment is essential for reducing downtime, especially given how unpredictable faults can be. Yes, you should expect failures while breaking in a new machine and as it reaches the end of its useful life. However, outside of the end-of-life and new-equipment periods of the machine’s life, 80% of failures happen at random. Preventative maintenance duties should be incorporated into your fleet’s operations to reduce the impact of failures.
Checklists will assist your employees in determining what to evaluate and when. Workers will be less likely to forget to review the system’s important components if they use a checklist. Regardless of their level of experience, all maintenance employees should use checklists to guarantee that they inspect, clean, and repair your heavy equipment according to the proper protocols.
How Can Heavy Equipment Preventative Maintenance Be Incorporated?
You don’t need to make major adjustments to your service style if your organization relies on reactive maintenance. You may increase your maintenance program by adding to your service side with a variety of approaches. The more of these ways you employ, the more efficiently your equipment will operate:
Invest in the necessary equipment: Regardless of the type of work your company conducts, make sure you have the right tools for the job. Don’t save money by purchasing a smaller piece of equipment. It will wear out prematurely, costing you more money in the long run. Choose construction equipment that is appropriate for the project.
Use the right machinery: Just as you need to buy the right tools for your project, your staff need to use the right tools for the job. Never utilize apparatus that isn’t rated for a specified weight. Overburdening or incorrectly utilizing your equipment might void the warranty, endanger workers, and put more strain on the engine and components.
Clean to inspect: After cleaning the equipment, the worker must inspect it completely. Ideally, the worker will use a checklist during cleaning and inspection to ensure that they have checked all relevant components to see if the device requires service. Anything out of the ordinary should necessitate prompt repairs or part replacements before returning to the jobsite.
Schedule servicing according to the OEM’s recommendations: For servicing schedules for your heavy equipment, always follow the manufacturer’s recommendations. This information can be found on the vendor’s or manufacturer’s websites. Approved service experts for that brand will also be aware of the equipment’s planned maintenance intervals. Don’t be scared to ask questions or outsource your maintenance to ensure that your machinery is properly maintained.
Workers should be educated: Workers should be taught how to use the machines they work with properly. Heavy equipment can be overworked if it is used incorrectly, resulting in premature wear. If you want to avoid accidents and equipment malfunctions, never let untrained people handle the machinery. Operators must also be trained to recognize the symptoms of machine malfunctions that may develop during operation. The worker may need to take the equipment off the jobsite for urgent service or wait until the end of the workday, depending on the severity of the problem.
Educate the maintenance staff: Reeducate your personnel on the necessity of heavy equipment maintenance and how being proactive can assist avert larger problems if you have a team of workers who have only conducted reactive repairs on your equipment. If necessary, you may need to explain the benefits of preventative maintenance to them so that they understand why they need to do additional services on your fleet’s equipment. They’ll be more willing to complete their tasks if they realize why they’re important to your business.
How Can Technology Help With Maintenance?
Predictive maintenance is made feasible by technology, which might benefit your firm. Sensors, computer programs, analysis methodologies, and other tools can all assist you figure out when the optimal time is to maintain your heavy equipment. You could squander time and money with preventative maintenance by replacing filters or parts that are still functional. Predictive maintenance brings parts as close to failure as possible while also requiring you to replace them before they fail.
Even if you have to pay for the technology you wish to use for predictive maintenance, think about the long-term savings. You can save money on heavy equipment maintenance once you invest in the technological components required for predictive maintenance. By timing the replacement rather than waiting for a failure, one mining operation saved 13 times the cost of replacing the part.
Data for predictive maintenance is commonly gathered from a variety of sources, including:
Telematics: Telematics devices collect data about the machinery they’re mounted on and send it to a computer, which collects and analyzes the information. Some data may need to be downloaded to a computer over a physical connection. It will aid maintenance employees in determining when the optimal time is to service heavy equipment.
Fluid analysis is another type of data software that can be used to estimate service requirements. Fluids from the vehicle will be transported to a laboratory to determine the degree of wear on the system. Condition monitoring: Computer systems will use the conditions on the jobsite to determine when predictive maintenance should be performed. Snow, ice, and extreme heat will necessitate more regular maintenance than equipment operated in more temperate climates.
Make it a habit to maintain your heavy equipment properly.
Don’t wait until your jobsite is disrupted by a breakdown. Schedule preventative maintenance for your construction equipment with Equipment Planet.
We also recognize that no matter how well you maintain your equipment, you’ll need to perform repairs at some point. Repairs to your heavy equipment can be handled by our highly skilled team of professionals. We also have parts if you require them.
Your fleet should reflect your company’s investment. Allowing your employees’ equipment to deteriorate due to neglect is a recipe for disaster. If you want your fleet to survive a long time and perform properly when you need it, you can’t afford to neglect it. Contact Equipment Planet. For additional information on servicing, maintenance, or components.
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Source: Prime Source