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Is Your Company Proactive or Reactive?

Source: Snap Lock Inc.
Date: 02/22/2010

How would you describe your company's reaction when a part of the system fails? Are you always just waiting and holding your breath until some disaster occurs, or are you performing regular maintenance to anticipate problems? If you are not currently performing regular maintenance, Snap Lock may have just what you need to consistently be proactiverather than reactive.

An industry study has shown that it costs approximately 10 times more to do equipment maintenance in a reactive mode versus a proactive or "predictive" mode. When a breakdown leads to unscheduled downtime, that cost can balloon to 40 times. Unfortunately, many in the food industry have had a "break/fix" mentality. The question then becomes how can I avoid such costly expenses and keep the plant running profitably.

One very effective way would be to use Snap Lock's Free E-Maintenance Scheduler. This feature allows you to upload equipment and track maintenance and replacement schedules. If you track the number of times something breaks as well as the frequency of that breakage, you can determine that every so many hours or days of use a particular part is apt to experience problems. Then performing maintenance prior to that time will save money as well as downtime.

            Obviously it will take some time to make a company change. However, with some training and explanation as to why things are going to change, it can be done in a seamless way. The main obstacle will be the "we've always done it this way" mentality. Cross training is also suggested. If the maintenance people can understand the operators' issues and background, things will proceed more easily. This brings up another necessary part of the equation - communication.  In the real estate industry they say the three main things are location, location, location. In all other industries the three main things are communication, communication, communication.