Safety Standards in Industrial Maintenance

Simply, industrial maintenance services ensure that assets in a manufacturing facility are kept in good condition. Industrial maintenance and repair services prevent machinery breakdown, rather than maintenance being reactive: waiting for a machine to fail and only then repairing it. A good maintenance regime reduces machinery downtime, which can be very costly to manufacturers, and unplanned maintenance. In doing so, it helps them maximise productivity and cut costs. Industrial maintenance may be preventative maintenance, where machinery is maintained according to a strict schedule determined by the machinery manufacturer, or, increasingly, predictive maintenance, where machinery is continuously monitored for signs of faults developing and repaired before problems arise.

ISO 55000 is a leading, comprehensive international asset management standard. The standard explains how to implement an effective asset management system. It includes: 

• ISO 55000 (introduces critical concepts and terminology for asset management)
• ISO 55001 (establishes requirements for implementing, maintaining and improving an asset management system)
• ISO 55002 (guidance for application of an ISO 5000-based asset management system)

ISO 55000 helps the manufacturer build a complete asset management plan from the ‘cradle to the grave’ of equipment. An important part of this process is development of a machinery maintenance plan outlining maintenance strategies, prioritisation of maintenance tasks, and maintenance cost forecasts. 

It’s important you measure if your asset management plan is working. You can do so by keeping track of a number of metrics, including mean time between failures (how long a piece of machinery functions between repairs) and mean time to repair (the average amount of time it takes to repair a piece of equipment). Both these measures enable you to understand the effectiveness of your industrial maintenance. 

Another ISO standard that manufacturers use is ISO 13374, which outlines the best means of carrying out data processing in condition monitoring and machinery diagnostics. 

Industrial maintenance best practice should see equipment kept in good repair, maintenance operations carried out safely, and machinery maintenance logs kept up to date. Effective industrial maintenance makes machinery more reliable, and therefore safer. When equipment develops a fault, it may present additional hazards. In addition, unplanned maintenance activities may mean more contact with dangerous machinery than is desirable. It's also important – in addition to preventing breakdown – that machinery maintenance is planned carefully and carried out safely. 

5S was initially developed as part of the Toyota Production System and is now synonymous with lean manufacturing. The 5Ss are:

1. Sort. Sort what’s needed from what’s not needed.
2. Set in order. Organise everything.
3. Shine. Clean and inspect.
4. Standardise. Develop common methods for consistency.
5. Sustain. Keep going and continue to improve.

The steps should be carried out in order. When applied to maintenance, 5S reduces downtime, prevents equipment failure, and increases efficiency. 5S should have a beneficial impact on mean time between failures and mean time to repair metrics.