Manufacturers understand the importance of filling machine maintenance today. They recognize that any downtime puts their brand and financial future at risk. In addition, if a filling machine malfunctions, the products may be contaminated, which hurts the brand’s reputation. Maintaining filling machines reduces the risk of these problems.
The Importance of Maintenance Standards
Every company needs to establish maintenance standards to reduce the risk of problems. These standards increase efficiency, minimize safety risks, and improve machine reliability. Business owners must understand that implementing these standards and following the maintenance program benefits their organizations in numerous ways. When buying a fill machine, the company must know its maintenance requirements to avoid surprises. However, all machines benefit from the following maintenance tips.
Preventative Maintenance
With preventative maintenance, a company can catch minor problems early before they escalate and become more costly to rectify. These costs include additional parts, downtime, increased labor needs, and more. They hurt the company’s bottom line.
Maintaining the machine involves completing tasks such as checking each machine’s oil levels and temperatures. Furthermore, machine vibrations need to be monitored, as they may lead to parts coming loose. Tightening these parts promptly reduces the risk of further damage to the machine.
Preventative maintenance helps extend the lifespan of the filling machine while reducing the risk of someone being injured. Productivity and production increase when the company maintains its machines and its bottom line improves. Learn more about preventative maintenance tasks that will allow a company to see these benefits.
Autonomous Maintenance Tasks
While filling machines sometimes need professional attention, who knows them better than the men and women who use them daily? Machine operators can perform autonomous maintenance tasks without needing a professional. The company improves machine operator ownership by allowing operators to complete these tasks. Shutdowns, both scheduled and unscheduled, are minimized, boosting production time, and there are fewer accidents. The company’s risk profile improves with autonomous maintenance. Equipment maintenance and production shutdown costs also decline.
Spare Parts
All machines break down with time. The wear and tear they experience with use makes these breakdowns unavoidable. Filling machines run non-stop, so they are at high risk of mechanical failure. Machine operators know which parts are most likely to fail and how frequently they do. With this information, the company can replace the parts before they lead to a breakdown.
Having the parts on hand when a machine fails or is in danger of failing significantly reduces downtime. Always keep high-wear parts on hand to repair the machines promptly. Have medium-wear parts readily available, and establish a relationship with a parts supplier to obtain low-wear parts quickly if they fail. They rarely do but need immediate replacement if this does happen.
Employee Training
Every employee should be trained on all machines they use. This training should cover machine operation so employees understand the purpose of each part and what will happen if the part malfunctions. This information allows them to spot problems early to be corrected before leading to downtime.
Maintenance tasks vary by the machine. Many companies today rely on predictive maintenance, artificial intelligence, and the Industrial Internet of Things for machine maintenance. Maintenance goes beyond preventing equipment breakdowns. It also helps the company predict its maintenance needs for budgeting, expansion, and more. Every company needs to make preventative maintenance a priority today.
