Dude Solutions
dudesolutions.com WHITE PAPER How to Protect the Investment You’ve Made in Your Machines
Customers are demanding higher quality, longer equipment life, and
more innovative, flexible products at shorter delivery times. To meet
those tough demands, manufacturers are switching to machines that are
increasingly more complex to provide added flexibility to their production.
It is no longer enough to have a conventional lathe or a mill on your
shop floor. Traditional single task machines are rapidly becoming a thing
of the past, and to stay relevant in the global marketplace, those that
want a competitive advantage today are switching to new and emerging
technologies.
Manufacturers are beginning to use multitasking machines such as Turn/
Mill machines with added axis motions that can make a variety of parts
in one set-up, allowing for increased flexibility and cost-savings. These
machines are more automated than ever before, allowing for less part
inaccuracies, less labor hours, and higher part quality due to the decreased
amount of set-ups and increase in automation. Multitasking machines
come at a high cost, making it increasingly crucial to get the most out of
these machines.
It is vital to have a comprehensive asset or maintenance management
strategy around these new multitasking machining centers to make sure
that they reach their fullest potential, and to protect the investment in
this equipment. It is not enough to simply upgrade machines without
maintenance plans to support them.
There are 3 crucial factors that need to be considered to protect the
investment you make in your machines: Preventive Maintenance,
Automation, and Central knowledge.
Preventive Maintenance
Since these machines are more complicated, preventive maintenance is becoming
an absolute must in ensuring their peak performance. A preventive maintenance
strategy will ensure that the machines are getting all of the care and maintenance
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How to Protect the Investment
You’ve Made in Your Machines
they need in the front end to avoid painful, unplanned failures, resulting in costly
downtime. Unplanned downtime of advanced multitasking machines could be
compared to having two or more single-task machines down. Most manufacturers
still rely on corrective maintenance only for their operations and the switch
to preventive maintenance by focusing on systematic inspections, detections
and preventions will allow for more efficient, successful operations. Preventive
maintenance will ensure longer equipment life and decreased mechanical failure.
Automation
Automating your production process with multitasking machines without
automating your maintenance strategy will significantly reduce your efficiency.
Manufacturers focus on what they know best – producing products – but the crucial
software around it can sometimes be forgotten. In today’s world, manufacturers are
able to track an abundance of things. For example, newer machines are capable of
communicating with each other through the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and
provide exceptional data-driven feedback that can increase ROI dramatically. The
data can indicate warnings before machine failures happen as well as show where
the most failures occur. The improved analysis provides key benefits that maximize
overall equipment effectiveness.
Central Knowledge
It is essential for manufacturers to make sure their maintenance professionals are
always completely up to date and informed on every part of the equipment they
manage. Keeping up with work tasks and remembering details on every component
to every machine is not an easy task. Maintenance professionals can benefit from
a platform that allows them to make checklists and process work orders as well as
look back at the history of work order for each piece of equipment on their machine.
Whether there are too many machines to keep track of for one person, a new person
steps into a maintenance role, or many different people are working on the same
machines, a work order management system can make sure that knowledge is
stored in a centralized location that everyone can efficiently collaborate on. An asset
management solution allows all of the maintenance professionals the information,
check lists, and work instructions they need to maintain even the most complicated
machines. In order to plan for a successful future, it is important to have a plan on
how to track equipment so you can see the ROI on it later, justify new equipment,
and have all information right at your fingertips when an audit rolls around.
Protect Your Investment
It does not take much time or budget to implement a work order management
system but it will save considerable time and money. By implementing a strategy
dudesolutions.com 2WHITE PAPER How to Protect the Investment You’ve Made in Your Machines
that will protect the critical investments you have made, you can ensure you are
able to realize the full potential of your operations.
Modernize your production and let a work order management system help you:
» Maximize your overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
» Upgrade to the digital age and benefit from data analysis and reporting
» Keep records centrally located so you can look back at historical data and be
ready when audited
Ultimately, these simple strategies can help increase your machines’ return on
investment (ROI), and ensure every dollar you are spending is helping to advance
your business.
For More Information
To learn more about cloud-based work order management systems and how they can
help your business, visit dudesolutions.com or contact us at 866.989.3833.
About Dude Solutions
Founded in 1999, Dude Solutions is a leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider
of operations management solutions. Serving the maintenance, energy, safety,
IT management needs of more than 7,000 organizations, Dude Solutions helps
manufacturers and other industrial clients to boost efficiency, improve quality of
service, and reduce costs.
dudesolutions.com 3WHITE PAPER How to Protect the Investment You’ve Made in Your Machines