Manufacturing
Unplanned downtime is the only maintenance number that matters
In a plant, the cost of a maintenance failure is not the repair. It is the line standing still. That makes the planned-to-reactive ratio an operations metric rather than a maintenance one, and it makes asset history a production asset.
- Condition readings trended per asset
- Executes in the plant environment
- History that survives turnover
The operating problem
The maintenance failures that cost production
The window will not be extended
Planned work happens inside a shutdown that production has already priced. Work that overruns is work that gets cut next time.
History lives in people
The person who knows this machine is on nights, or has left. Their knowledge leaves with them unless the procedure holds it.
Readings are collected and discarded
Written on a clipboard, filed, never trended. A drift that was visible for a year arrives as an unplanned failure.
Isolation is part of the job
Lockout and permit steps belong inside the procedure, not on a separate form that may or may not be completed.
Specialists visit twice a year
And leave with the knowledge unless their visit produces a record in your system rather than a report in your inbox.
Reactive work crowds out planned
Every week the preventive schedule slips a little, and nobody quantifies it until something fails.
Condition
Readings that become a trend, not a drawer
Vibration, temperature, pressure and hours run are only useful next to the last reading. A metered step stores the number as a number against the asset, with thresholds, so an out-of-range value raises work immediately and the drift toward it is visible months earlier.
- Every reading attached to the asset it came from
- Thresholds that raise corrective work automatically
- Trends per asset without exporting anything
- Contractor readings recorded in the same place as your own
Programmes
What gets maintained in a plant
- Daily equipment rounds by line
- Lubrication and greasing schedules
- Vibration and thermal readings
- Compressed air system checks
- Dust and fume extraction inspections
- Emergency stop and machine guard checks
- Fire suppression system inspections
- Forklift and mobile plant pre-use checks
- Chiller and cooling tower maintenance
- Boiler and steam system rounds
- Effluent and environmental monitoring
- Planned shutdown task lists
Questions people ask
- Does this replace our existing maintenance system?
- For many plants it does. Where an ERP-embedded system has to stay, the REST API and signed webhooks let DFM handle execution and evidence while the system of record for finance stays where it is.
- Can it be used in the plant environment?
- Yes. It runs with no connectivity, works with gloves on, and is designed around one large question at a time rather than a form.
- Can we track lockout and permit steps inside a procedure?
- Yes, as required steps with evidence and sign-off, so isolation is part of the record rather than a separate piece of paper.
Keep reading
- Equipment InspectionsMost equipment inspection captures a number and files it.Open
- Preventive MaintenanceEvery facility team has a preventive maintenance schedule.Open
- IntegrationsFacility platforms that will not release their data become the thing every other team works around, and the estate en...Open
Ready to see DFM in action?
Book a demo and see the platform running against a building like yours.