At LH Travis, we know a thing or two about maintenance. Traditionally, maintenance teams have been trained to follow preventive maintenance procedures for as long as equipment and machinery have been used. The age-old practice is to inspect, replace, and repair. There’s only one big problem with that approach. A strict calendar-based approach is no longer efficient with modern machinery. It’s outdated and nothing more than a reactive process.
You’re either servicing equipment too soon (wasting time and money) or too late, causing an unexpected shutdown. That’s the flaw in preventive maintenance. That long-time practice assumes wear and tear follows a predictable timeline. It does not. Predictive maintenance, however, opens the door and shows company leaders how to genuinely cut costs, starting with equipment maintenance.
What’s The Difference Between Preventive vs. Predictive Maintenance?
Preventive maintenance involves manufacturer-suggested inspections and servicing based on suggested timelines to prevent machinery failures. That approach might help reduce unexpected breakdowns; however, preventive maintenance cannot thoroughly and accurately consider the actual condition of your equipment or machinery during inspection. The inspection might reveal an issue, but no data is available as to the exact timeline.
Predictive maintenance uses data-collecting sensors to monitor the equipment’s health. This ongoing process detects and shows early warning signs of potential failures in real time, letting maintenance teams address issues when needed. This helps minimize machinery downtime and potentially prevents replacement. With this approach, operational costs shift from preventive to predictive, reducing costs and unnecessary repairs.
The Long-Standing Uninvited Guest
What’s the biggest enemy to lubrication? In past articles, we’ve talked about this often — heat. It creeps in silently, accelerating oxidation, and turns perfect oil into a sludge-filled disaster. The lubricant’s lifespan gets cut short before you realize what’s happening. Let’s also not forget that you will also have viscosity drops, additives burn off, and increased metal-on-metal contact, and suddenly, there’s a more significant issue.
By implementing predictive maintenance processes, your maintenance team will spot temperature spikes before they destroy equipment. The sensors will flag abnormalities, alert the maintenance team, and take the necessary steps to resolve the issue before the situation gets worse.
Permanently Changing the Rules
Preventive maintenance still has its place, but let’s be honest. By getting LH Travis, the automatic lubrication specialists, involved with predictive maintenance strategies, you’ve stopped playing defense in a game that demands offense.