Page 334 - Intro Predictive Maintenance

15

ESTABLISHING A PREDICTIVE

MAINTENANCE PROGRAM

The decision to establish a predictive maintenance program is the first step toward
controlling maintenance costs and improving process efficiency in your plant. Now
what do you do? Numerous predictive maintenance programs can serve as models for
implementing a successful predictive maintenance program. Unfortunately, many
programs were aborted within the first three years because a clear set of goals and
objectives were not established before the program was implemented. Implementing
a total-plant predictive maintenance program is expensive. After the initial capital
cost of instrumentation and systems, a substantial annual labor cost is required to
maintain the program.

To be successful, a predictive maintenance program must be able to quantify the
cost–benefit generated by the program. This goal can be achieved if the program is
properly established, uses the proper predictive maintenance techniques, and has mea-
surable benefits. The amount of effort expended to initially establish the program is
directly proportional to its success or failure.

15.1 GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND BENEFITS
Constructive actions issue from a well-established purpose. It is important that the
goals and objectives of a predictive maintenance program be fully developed and
adopted by the personnel who perform the program and upper management of the plant.
A predictive maintenance program is not an excuse to buy sophisticated, expensive
equipment. Neither is the purpose of the program to keep people busy measuring and
reviewing data from the various machines, equipment, and systems within the plant.

The purpose of predictive maintenance is to minimize unscheduled equipment fail-
ures, maintenance costs, and lost production. It is also intended to improve the pro-

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