Plant maintenance is keeping construction and industrial machinery and equipment in optimal working condition to ensure more effective production or output.
Proper maintenance plays a very important part in the control of machinery to ensure efficiency on the site.
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Table of Contents
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Objectives of Plant Maintenance
- It helps in minimizing the loss of production time due to any machinery and equipment failure.
- Helps in quality and product improvement to ensure more effective production or output.
- Keeps all the machinery and equipment in optimal/ proper working conditions.
Advantages of Plant Maintenance
- Extending the working life of the machine.
- Ensure that extensive overhauls are not required at too frequent intervals.
- It plays an important part in preventing breakdowns, which are always costly in terms of time, money, and production.
- Ensure more effective production or output.
- Keep replacement of worn parts to a minimum.
Disadvantages of Plant Maintenance
The following are the advantages of Plant Maintenance;
- Plant maintenance increases investments in diagnostics equipment.
- For proper output, it also needs to invest in staff training.
- Plant maintenance can be expensive, requiring investment in diagnostic equipment, staff training, and replacement parts, which can reduce short-term profitability.
- Over-maintenance can occur when unnecessary maintenance is performed, leading to increased costs and reduced efficiency.
- Poor management of plant maintenance activities can lead to inefficiencies, delays, and increased maintenance costs, undermining the benefits of plant maintenance.
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Manufacturer’s Instructions
The manufacturer’s instructions should be carefully read and understood before using any on-site machine.
In these instructions, they give a simple daily check on the plant. Regular habits of plant maintenance should be adopted by all operators and become a routine matter each day.
These routine checks should include the following;
- If the engine is water-cooled, the radiator should be topped up daily.
- Petrol and oil caps should be properly filled on the filler tubes.
- Air filters should not be removed from the air intakes and never left off while the machine is operating.
- The cooling system of a water-cooled engine should be drained off every night during cold weather unless antifreeze agents have been added to the water.
- All moving parts should be kept well-greased or oiled.
- Greasing nipples should be wiped clean before applying the grease to ensure dirt is not injected into any bearing.
- Tyres on dumpers and lorries should be kept at their correct pressures.
- Stationery plant such as mixers and hoists should be placed on firm bases to prevent excessive vibration.
- Wire ropes that have become badly worn should not be used on the plant but should be replaced immediately.
- Plants should be kept clean, particularly those used for mixing and transporting concrete and mortar.
The cost of these maintenance operations of the mechanical plant should be regarded as a part of the operating cost rather than the overhead cost.
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Bonus: Concrete Mixers
Concrete mixers may be of the tilting or non-tilting drum type and classified with a capital T or NT, respectively
They are also identified by a number indicating the amount of wet concrete the mixer produces.
For example, a 0.2T is a mixer with a tilting drum and will produce 0.2 cubic meters of each mix.
Mixers may also have a reversing drum. When revolving in one direction, they will mix the concrete and will discharge it when reversed.
A paddle mixer is another type consisting of a rotating drum with revolving paddles inside it, which ensures efficient mixing of the ingredients. The mixing time for a concrete batch is usually from 1.5 to 2 minutes.
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Plant Maintenance: Wrapping Up
As discussed above, proper maintenance is important to construction machinery. It increases the production and lifetime of industrial machinery and equipment.
The manufacturer’s manual should be carefully read and understood step by step on how to use and operate the particular machine on site.
We hope this article helped you learn about Plant Maintenance: A Quick Guide to Get Started Quickly.
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