Productivity in British manufacturing is at risk due to critical maintenance failings, a new report has found.
Key findings include 71% of engineers describing their maintenance practices as reactive or planned; 50% stating that maintenance training budgets have stagnated or decreased in recent years and that the majority of maintenance engineers receive only five days training or less every year.
Alastair Johnstone, managing director of Bosch Rexroth UK said: “We have been concerned for some time that maintenance practices and skills have not kept pace with advances in machine complexity.
“This report suggests that UK manufacturing is walking a tightrope, with dated maintenance practices and budgetary constraints posing a critical risk to the long-term health of our manufacturing base. More strategic maintenance, such as condition monitoring and preventive maintenance techniques, are the exception rather than the rule.
“This report is, of course, a snapshot. There are outstanding examples of maintenance practices in British manufacturing, you only need to look at the car industry as a prime example of that. But, it is vitally important that the rest of the industry follow suit and take a longer-term view of maintenance and its positive impact in order to safeguard the UK’s impressive productivity statistics which are, rightly, celebrated.”
The report covers keys areas of maintenance, including resource, planning and monitoring, critical machinery, obsolescence and training and includes verbatim quotes from engineers who took part in the research, which detail their concerns about the role of maintenance in manufacturing and the challenges faced on a daily basis.
Ken Young, technology director of Manufacturing Technology Centre, said: “Analysis of this kind is long overdue, but its findings will come as no surprise to many of those who work in British manufacturing. This report paints a picture of maintenance practices, which are reactive rather than preventive, with businesses waiting until equipment fails before it is repaired.
“The key message from this report is that we need to have much greater confidence in ourselves and implement a long-term strategic vision based on preventative maintenance techniques.”
‘What you don’t repair you destroy – A report into maintenance practices in UK Industry’ can be downloaded from www.boschrexroth.co.uk/UKmaintenancereport.
This is nothing new, as I was shocked when I left the Royal Navy in 1996. To find a serious lack of preventative planned maintenance being carried, hydraulic hygiene, non-existent and a lack of proper training and investemnt in tools and equipment. Is it any wonder industry in the UK went down the plug-hole?
Maintenance – preferably pre planned is what we are all about at our company.
There are many reasons why preventative maintenance goes by the board – budgets, time constraints et c.
Most of the mechanics and engineers I speak to on a daily basis spend most of their time “fire fighting” and a lot of them find a big improvement when they get some education on lubrication.
Tribology is far too often overlooked and a lot of folks out there are using the same products their grandfathers did and totally fail to realise that proper lubrication is a science and things have moved on a lot.
If you are having trouble with machinery look into improving your lubricants – it can often provide great results for minimal spend.
Don’t blindly follow a machine manufacturers OEM recommendations – go to a specialist lubrication manufacturer or suppliers – after all the machine manufacturer wants you to buy spares so why recommend the best lubricant when a mediocre one will ensure the parts wear out much quicker and then you can buy an expensive bearing instead of an up to date lubricant !!
As we say grease will always be cheaper than bearings.
David offers sound advice: in textile machinery we always did have a problem with ‘over-zealous’ application of lubricants ending-up on the yarn/fabric being produced. Which has to be ‘scoured’ off -a wet and wasteful extra process. Perish the thought that an OEM actually encourages/wants customers to waste money on un-necessary replacement(s) of parts that better lubricants would have avoided.
Its consideration of the complete life-cycle costings that are the key to efficient activity in anything? Actually, in my experience and a lot of experiences, original ‘capital’ cost is almost irrelevant. Though it is the thing that the clerks (accountants) can recognise easily and interfere with. When will they ever learn? This year, next year, sometime, never!
Mike B
It’s not just moving machinery where maintenance is being skipped. Where I work the test fixtures use “bed of nails” or idc connectors to make connections. The test pins on the bed of nails fixtures only get changed when parts fail tests and the idc connectors used are only warrented for 500 insertions if the most expensive ones are used (which they are not). The latter on a test fixture where 500+ pcbs are tested monthly. Again they are only changed when failures are detected.
Try saying anything and get accused of ‘not being a team player’ or a worrywart and get ignored.