It’s no secret that the pieces of machinery used in construction firms are expensive, complex, and crucial for completing projects within the stipulated deadlines. Even smaller construction firms have to spend thousands of dollars for the machinery, whereas larger ones spend tens of thousands of dollars, if not millions.
This leads to unplanned machinery downtime, malfunctions, overheating, workplace injuries, and can even cause premature death of the machines. While it may take years for recovering the costs of such machinery, the work can get severely hampered if the machinery isn’t properly installed, used, or maintained. That being said, let’s take a look at how maintenance management helps and some strategies for maintenance management in construction firms.
Maintenance management of the construction machinery brings numerous benefits for the organizations.
Equipment maintenance management can help construction firms:
All of the above, coupled with robust preventive maintenance planning , can significantly reduce maintenance costs down the line, reduce replacements needed, and ensure that the operations at construction sites run smoothly.
With the “why” out of the way, let’s take a look at the ‘how” of maintenance administration in construction firms.
Before diving into maintenance administration, organizations need to list all of their equipment. Any given construction firm needs to know what assets it owns, the quantity, their locations, whether they need preventive or reactive maintenance, manufacturer’s guidelines, manuals, work history, and other similar information.
While managers might think they already know this, if they want effective maintenance of the complex and expensive equipment, making a comprehensive list will help in the future.
All of this might seem overwhelming, but it’s the starting point for effective maintenance administration for construction firms. It can help them digitize, organize, and keep all the information in a centralized location. in addition, many instruments can help with this (as well as maintenance administration) such as an effective CMMS software for construction firms.
By involving them in the maintenance administration process, organizations can identify which equipment needs proactive maintenance, which areas require more attention than others, and which areas might cause problems. Besides manufacturers, equipment operators and the maintenance team know the most about the equipment. Incorporating their feedback and making necessary changes can help create robust maintenance administration in construction firms.
Creating comprehensive and useful checklists is one of the most crucial steps for ensuring effective maintenance management. While firms can go for downloadable checklists that are readily available on the internet, a different approach is much more effective.
Since each construction firm is different, checklists need to be customized according to the machinery’s requirements – you can just use the online templates as starting points and modify them as per your needs. Each piece of machinery has different specifications, capacities, requirements, and limitations – they need to be serviced or maintained differently as well.
Preventive or preventative maintenance means the same thing – it’s about executing maintenance tasks even before there are issues. This is quite the opposite of reactive maintenance, which means that the equipment is serviced AFTER a problem occurs.
on the other hand, more construction firms are shifting towards preventive maintenance as it has numerous benefits like reducing unplanned machinery downtime, preventing workplace injuries, maintaining productivity, and simplifying asset repairs .
Based on checklists and equipment requirements, maintenance managers can simply create, schedule, and assign necessary tasks to the maintenance team members. in addition, monitoring the progress and following up on these tasks are necessary to verify whether the equipment is working properly. These can be based on events or routine tasks such as recording fluid levels, cleaning, lubrication, leak inspection, and so on.
Construction machinery don’t always get the most suitable environment to work in, which is why maintenance administration of these particular machines might need changes. for instance, construction machinery in sandy areas might need regular changes of air filters. Keep in mind that such modifications will need to be made and they must be addressed swiftly to improve the machinery’s durability.
As mentioned before, the manufacturer probably knows the equipment they’ve created better than anyone in a building firm – it has spent millions of dollars in research and development, after all!
These have troubleshooting tips, recommendations, maintenance guidelines, installation guides, and more. Since the manufacturer knows what works for their machinery and what doesn’t, incorporating their recommendations into the maintenance management plans of the organization can save many costs down the line. Manufacturers provide a number of manuals and documentation along with the machinery.
A piece of machinery is as good as its operator and how well the person uses it. The machine operators must know the ins and outs of the machinery they are handling. Using the machinery properly can optimize performance, reduce issues, and create a safer environment.
Whether it’s a new piece of machinery introduced or a new operator, providing training is a must. Moreover, making such sessions open to those who need a refresher is a good idea as well.
Maintenance technicians need to have even more knowledge – how the machines work, why common problems occur, how to solve them, when they require maintenance, and more. Such crucial information can be conveyed to the relevant maintenance technicians through training sessions.