How to prepare an inspection route plan?

With Industry 4.0, industries are increasingly required to use technologies to reduce costs, increase the quality and efficiency of operations. So that they remain competitive.

Although this change occurs in all areas of the industry, from management to the factory department, few sectors influence an industry as much as maintenance.

Therefore, more and more companies are implementing and reaping the benefits of optimizing processes such as the inspection route plan.

Check out several aspects of this subject below!

Why is it important to automate the inspection route plan in maintenance?

It is known that planning strongly supports companies in reducing waste, avoiding rework, and improvisation. Thus inhibiting possible failures and damage that could result from these problems.

This is why the maintenance inspection route plan becomes so important and valuable to companies.

However, the inspection route plan process in maintenance uses a large amount of information for its realization.

In other words, this means that a very organized management system will be needed so that each inspection is carried out on time. Also, updating information needs to be done during inspections.

With this, automation has become essential, as it allows the use of warning alerts for a new inspection. Thus ensuring greater efficiency in the control of this activity, with the direct registration of information in specialized systems.

In this way, the system itself is capable of generating the Service Orders (SO), keeping all the steps to carry out the inspection route centralized in a single place.

In other words, with automation through specialized systems, it is possible to optimize the inspection route for maintenance, improving the performance of equipment. And with that, the operation of the entire factory.

What are the benefits of performing the preventive maintenance inspection route?

Preventive maintenance is nothing more than maintenance that is carried out at a predetermined period of time to check for possible equipment failures and degradations. Furthermore, this is how the probability of these events happening is determined.

Among the many benefits of the maintenance inspection route, it can be said that the main one is the reduction of waste. Be it labor, time, equipment, or materials used.

If you do not plan an action, being it maintenance or not, you will be wasting one or more of these resources.

In this sense, it is known that an activity without planning results in 65% of wasted time, only 35% of productive work. In other words, within 8 hours of work, 5.2 hours are wasted and only 2.8 hours are worked productively.

In an unplanned activity, the distribution of waste and how it could be avoided can happen as follows

• 35% – Productive working time;
• 15% – Time spent moving the equipment: They could already be allocated in the determined location;
• 12% – Time spent obtaining tools: They could already be allocated in the determined place;
• 10% – Activity interruptions: It is often necessary to align activities with other areas so that it occurs without interruptions;
• 8% – Time spent with delays in the start of the activity: Result of delays in labor, materials, and equipment not scheduled;
• 5% – Time spent on instructions: There could be previous instructions to optimize this step;
• 5% – Inactivity: Waiting time to resolve the unforeseen events of an unplanned activity;
• 5% – Late start and early finish: Without planning, there will hardly be an effective estimate of the activity’s completion time;
• 5% – Inactivity due to excess labor: Without planning, there will hardly be an effective estimate of the number of people needed to carry out the activity.

Therefore, to minimize the loss of time during maintenance activities, it is essential to correctly implement the Maintenance Inspection Route.

After its implementation, expect at least the 35% of productive work to rise to 65%. As a result, this change has a strong impact on the efficiency of the operation.

How important are reliability indicators for maintenance?

We have two main performance indicators for industrial equipment, which are related to the availability of equipment in operation:

• MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures): The longer the time between failures, the greater the reliability of the equipment;
• MTTR (Mean Time To Repair): This value should be as low as possible.

Reliability indicators are an evolution of maintenance indicators and provide a high level of quality for the industrial sector.

MTBF indicator

By measuring the mean time between failures, it is possible to predict when the next failure will happen and with it the availability of the equipment. This is possible through the use of historical data to make assertive projections.

MTTR indicator

By measuring the repair time, it is possible to estimate the time that the maintenance team needs to repair the equipment. With this, it is also possible to measure the efficiency of the maintenance team.

Especially when we talk about Industries 4.0 more and more, the control of these indicators becomes essential. After all, these are indicators that directly result in the efficiency and productivity of the entire industrial plant.

In the maintenance inspection route, the MTBF indicator can support the decision of the maintenance interval time to prevent possible failures. In addition to using MTTR to monitor the efficiency of each team for equipment maintenance.

Step by step for carrying out an inspection route

The inspection route can be carried out in tools such as excel and word, as well as in specialized software. The main difference is in the quality, time, and quantity of people to carry out the task.

When we have the use of specialized software, we have a more efficient process. However, with the step by step below, the inspection route can be performed in each company’s preferred tool.

For the integration of all processes that include preventive maintenance, it is essential that the inspection route contains at least the following information:

1. What services will be performed;
2. When the services will be performed;
3. Who is responsible for performing the services (name, position, or function);
4. What resources will be needed to carry out the services (tools, materials, etc.);
5. How much time will be spent on each service;
6. What will be the cost of each service, cost per unit and the total cost;
7. What materials will be applied;
8. What machines, devices, and tools will be needed.

In other words, the efficient implementation of a maintenance inspection route is essential for industries today. Ensuring higher quality, availability of machinery, predictability of failures, and planning activities.

With specialized software, it is possible to have an even greater benefit. Automating alerts for upcoming maintenance, and centralized information management for even more assertive definitions in the future for the time between maintenance.

The sooner you start designing your inspection route, the less waste and more efficiency in your industry you will have!