The Benefits of Integrated Preventive Maintenance Software

Today, more than ever, an integrated approach to preventive maintenance software is critical to a manufacturer’s profitability and growth. On one hand, companies increasingly compete on their ability to produce customer orders faster, pushing machines to maximum productivity. On the other, rising costs and inflation rates for new machinery are driving manufacturers to further extend the life of their existing machines. Let’s look at how integrated preventive maintenance software can provide significant benefits beyond those offered by stand-alone solutions.

The Advantages of Integrated Preventive Maintenance Software

On its own, preventive maintenance software provides a useful tool for helping maintenance managers to monitor equipment conditions and schedule technician job tasks. Integrated preventive maintenance software ties this core functionality in with enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution system (MES), quality management, supply chain management (SCM), and other solutions. The resulting exchange of data across these systems not only helps to extend the life of machinery; it also contributes to greater production efficiency and product quality.

An integrated approach to preventative maintenance software also enhances decision-making by making it easier to analyze the data needed to track key manufacturing metrics, including overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). By using integrated preventative maintenance software to unlock insights from real-time data, manufacturers can respond quickly to changing conditions as well as identify how to improve their operations.

Top Five Benefits of Integrated Preventive Maintenance Software

Now let’s review the top five benefits manufacturers can gain when preventive maintenance software is integrated with the other systems managing the business, including direct and indirect cost savings, greater productivity, improved planning and decision-making, and greater security.

1. Direct cost savings. Industrial manufacturers lose $50 billion annually due to unplanned downtime resulting from equipment failures, which is up to seven times more expensive than planned maintenance work. Preventive maintenance software helps to prevent unplanned equipment failures. Moreover, when this software is combined with OEE and other real-time production and process monitoring metrics, manufacturers can more accurately identify jobs, materials, and tasks that prematurely wear machines and tools and take corrective action to extend the life of their assets.
2. Indirect cost savings. When preventive maintenance software is integrated with an MES and real-time production and process monitoring, manufacturers can see how worn machinery is producing parts that are at the outer limits of acceptable parameters. Armed with this data, technicians can schedule maintenance on a machine before it begins producing rejected parts and unnecessary scrap which creates additional costs associated with added production shifts and worker overtime or expedited shipping to meet customer delivery commitments. The software also facilitates the ability to comply with warranties to reduce ownership costs.
3. Higher productivity. Using a combination of real-time production monitoring, OEE, and preventive maintenance software, manufacturers can gain insights to improve production efficiency and yield rates without sacrificing machinery health. Additionally, preventive maintenance software and automated scheduling can align maintenance and production schedules to maximize productivity. The software also helps to generate work orders using real-time asset data and advanced analytics to predict asset failure, ensure the resources are available to complete predictive work orders on schedule and improve internal communication to reduce the need for micromanaging technicians.
4. Improved planning and decision-making. An integrated preventive maintenance software solution can assist manufacturers in managing assets by identifying a machine’s frequent breakdowns or near end of life in order to plan and budget for replacement machinery and other capital improvements. Combined with data from the ERP system and business analytics, this software can help management teams understand the financial implications of the wear on their machines and review alternative scenarios to make informed decisions.
5. Greater security. An integrated preventive maintenance software solution significantly improves data security and privacy. Data breaches and unauthorized access are reduced by keeping sensitive data within a single system, thereby reducing the number of potential threat surfaces attackers can breach to gain access to company data.

The bottom line is that preventive maintenance software is indispensable for any manufacturer seeking to profitably grow their business. By integrating real-time integration with ERP, MES, and core production systems with preventive maintenance software companies can securely obtain the data-driven insights needed to track OEE and find ways to extend the useful life of assets while improving shop floor yield rates and performance. Integrated preventive maintenance software also empowers manufacturers to improve long-term planning as well as quickly adjust machinery, materials and labor to manage customer, market, and supply chain dynamics. As a result, manufacturing businesses that adopt integrated preventive maintenance software can achieve the cost-efficiencies, productivity, agility, and security to compete successfully in today’s global market.