Many maintenance and engineering departments have embraced preventive maintenance (PM) in the last two decades.
Others have just dabbled. In both cases, though, maintenance and engineering managers facing tough financial scrutiny have embraced the benefits of PM, which include increased department efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
The last decade also has seen the rise of sustainability, an ever-expanding effort that offers managers yet another solid reason to embrace PM as a way to streamline department operations, reduce costs and improve performance. But PM is not enough anymore.
Managers now have both the motivation and the technology to take the next step. It's time to double down on maintenance efficiency and effectiveness and embrace predictive maintenance (PdM). It's the greenest move managers can make — and the smartest.
By embracing PdM practices, front-line technicians can monitor the performance and energy use of system components as never before in order to identify small issues and address them before they become costly headaches. Technologies such as vibration analysis and infrared imaging, once experimental and now available at an affordable price for use in a range of facilities, enable technicians to monitor components down to the smallest details, as well as to gather valuable performance and condition information.
In turn, managers can access and exploit this data as never before — for example, by tapping into the power of energy-management software and by establishing and tracking key performance indicators designed to uncover energy waste and equipment problems.
Overall, these developments can enable departments to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively. And in this era of sustainability, they help departments minimize the environmental impact of facilities by improving energy efficiency and by extending the performance lives of key systems and their components.
Dan Hounsell offers observations about trends in maintenance and engineering management and the evolving role of managers in facilities.
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