Preventive maintenance is concerned with increasing the usability and longevity of manufacturing equipment.  An optimized preventive maintenance (PM) must take into account every step of the process from quality work instructions down to work execution and reporting.  To keep equipment in optimum condition manufacturers must also look into preventive maintenance of the tools and equipment that technicians use to maintain their machines. But how do you optimize scheduling of preventive maintenance of tools and equipment?  In this article we are going to look at tips for maintaining tools and equipment then show a Connected Worker Platform can help optimize their maintenance routine.  

Let’s start by looking at five effective PM tips for machine tools and other repair equipment.

5 Preventive Maintenance Tips for Machine Tools

Preventive maintenance of machine tools can be easily performed with a few basic tips, including the need to keep these tools:

1. Dry by storing them in non-moisturized locations and safeguarding them from industrial rust and pollutants.
2. Lubricated including the moving parts, internal, and fixed components without which, your machine tools are likely to break down due to wear and tear.
3. Sharpened, particularly those tools that are used for cutting, sharpening, or slicing without which, these machine tools are likely to have a shorter operating life due to constant wear and tear.
4. Clean to get rid of industrial hazard materials and grime that can prevent your tools from working at optimum efficiency.
5. In good shape by performing maintenance on smaller machine accessories such as the tool screws and bolts.

With a digitized Front Line Worker Platform, manufacturers can optimize the preventive maintenance work of their machines and equipment. Let’s look at how this can be accomplished.

How Front Line Worker Platforms Improve Preventive Maintenance of Tools & Equipment

For effective preventive maintenance of tools and equipment in your manufacturing facility, front line operators must incorporate several actions as part of their daily tasks, including the following:

• Regular inspection of machine tools for any defects or wear or tear
• Complete cleaning of manufacturing assets including the factory premise and ventilation
• Periodic lubrication of all moving parts in machinery to prevent damage
• Repair or replacement of defective machine tools and equipment

A Connected Worker Platform improves preventive maintenance operations by empowering front line workers to:

1. Automate repetitive task assignment such as tool cleaning
2. Integrate the maintenance-related tips into their daily workflows and check off if they have been followed at the end of every working day.
3. Improve the quality of their maintenance work by streamlining best practices through an integrated platform and removing any redundant or inefficient steps from the process of cleaning their tools and equipment.
4. Implement daily inspection routines using a guided maintenance workflow as part of the PM guidelines.
5. Have procedures in place to make sure tools are properly collected at the end of jobs and that any issues without equipment is reported.

Conclusion

In the manufacturing domain, machine tools are an important component of any maintenance operation that can enable longer life and usability of plant machines and equipment. A complete strategy must also include the preventive maintenance of tools and equipment.

Front Line Workers Platforms help extend the life of maintenance tools and accessories. This is just one of the many ways that Atheer optimizes preventive maintenance operations for manufacturing companies.

‍The Atheer AR Powered Connected Worker platform is focused on providing the best technology solutions in the manufacturing sector to increase quality, safety and productivity for your front line teams. With the Atheer Front Line Worker Platform, we ensure that your front line workers have access to the best of digital self assist resources to give them the digital learning tools they need to get the job done right the first time. With intuitive workflows that capture tribal knowledge your teams can improve job execution every time. When the unforeseen happen they can be immediately connected to remote assistance to speed problem resolution time.  Atheer is wired to continuously improve your business and enable lean manufacturing through improved data collection and operational transparency.