Maintenance can be broken down into three types: preventive, predictive and proactive. Let’s analyze each type to best position your operation for success.
Preventive maintenance
Preventive maintenance refers to routine checks, inspections and services at scheduled time intervals such as daily (eight hours), weekly (40 hours), monthly (200 hours), yearly (2,000 hours) and during crusher liner change as recommended and explained in the crusher instruction manual.
Preventive maintenance also includes daily walk-around crusher inspections. It can include repair of a crusher if damage is found during a routine inspection, and it refers to additional checks, inspections and services that could be included based on specific operating conditions determined by your own field experience or determined by your daily walk-around inspection.
Preventive maintenance results in increased crusher on line availability, increased productivity and lower operating costs. It also allows you to make the decision when the crusher will be shut down.
Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance refers to the collection and documentation of operational data to determine the rock crusher’s normal operating condition.
It gives you the opportunity to learn and understand your rock crusher’s normal operating characteristics. Once the normal operating condition of the rock crusher is determined, the collected data can be used to determine when something abnormal has occurred (deviation from normal).
Predictive maintenance also includes the documentation of operational data at regular time intervals, which can include, but is not limited to: crusher oil temperature, crusher oil pressure, crusher power draw, crusher coast-down time, crusher cavity level, oil tank return screen condition, oil analysis report information, vibration analysis report information, crusher liner wear profile analysis report information, and more. In addition, predictive maintenance gives you the ability to fix or correct a problem before the crusher fails.
Proactive maintenance
Proactive maintenance includes analyzing a rock crusher problem to determine the root cause.
It includes developing a strategy or game plan to prevent failure reoccurrence, as well as fixing root causes and not fixing symptoms (i.e., if you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got). Proactive maintenance will decrease reactive maintenance costs and increase crusher on line availability. It may require using predictive maintenance tools to learn and understand normal rock crusher operating conditions.
In addition, proactive maintenance requires the development and implementation of a rock crusher preventive maintenance program.