For a long time, plant maintenance was mainly about being able to react to failures by machines and hoping you had the right parts in stock to be able to minimize downtime. This has changed significantly over time; plant maintenance is dependent on maintenance technology to be able to predict as well as prevent the occurrence of problems. Thus, it is possible to anticipate the life cycle of equipment, assets, and parts.

What this means is that supply chain managers, as well as maintenance supervisors, are constantly able to keep the conveyor belt rolling while ensuring that their machines’ performance is at optimum efficiency.

A well-managed maintenance operations department is characterized by the ability to decrease costs without hurting daily operations or even customer satisfaction. As such, it is important to identify those areas where maintenance costs may be reduced and have tools that can process and analyze data that is gathered to appropriately identify opportunities for cutting costs.

Overall, Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) are carefully designed to save time and money as well as simplify workflow. Here are some worthwhile considerations that supply chain managers need to keep in mind in their attempt to reduce the cost of maintenance as well as operations.

  • Competitive Supply Chain Warehouses Reduce Corrective Maintenance

The practice of operating equipment to the point where it needs to be fixed and staff conducting scheduled walkthroughs to take manual assessments based on sound and vibrations is gradually becoming a thing of the past.

The current competitive environment requires supply chain managers to predict probable maintenance issues that can then be addressed to prevent downtime that might eventually affect sales leading to unmet quotas. The predictive analysis involves analyzing potential maintenance issues that are likely to affect physical assets, measuring the negative impact they will have on production and taking proactive measures in predicting and correcting the problems before they interrupt production through downtime. Furthermore, an effective preventive maintenance program will prolong the life of the asset while maximizing uptime leading to increased productivity.

  • Cutting Costs through Maintenance Technology

Well-informed plant managers remain competitive in the marketplace by understanding the working of the technology that is within their facilities. Among the top advantages of embracing technology includes the following:

  • Increasing Throughput
  • Reducing production downtime and increasing the reliability of equipment
  • Improving quality and safety conditions
  • Increasing life expectancy of assets
  • Supply Chain Management Relies on Cloud-based Solutions

The ability to monitor plant assets through remote sensors allows data to be accessed remotely through cloud-based applications. Consequently, it is meaningless to embrace reactive policy or wait until an item is broken before you can fix it when it comes to facility management. As such, supply chain maintenance management departments within the industrial sector are looking out for efficient means of monitoring physical assets by following the flow of products through warehouses. The cloud-based platforms are improving different phases of asset management and supply chain management. Today, more supply chain facilities are embracing CMMS as well as EAM applications to be able to track their asset’s repair history well, analyze life cycles and so much more.

  • CMMS Software is a Leading Maintenance Technology

The use of CMMS software is beneficial because of its ability to centralize data for safety inspections, inventory control as well as predictive maintenance and preventive maintenance to facilitate efforts that are geared towards scaling down overall operating costs. Technicians and engineers on the floor can identify a problem quickly and analyze it to gain insight into maintenance or production operations.