One of the single largest, yet often overlooked costs of running a construction business is equipment maintenance.
While highly crucial to reducing operational downtime at the project site and maximising the ROI of the heavy construction equipment and machinery, regular maintenance also takes away significant time and resources from the business. That’s why to make the process more time, and cost-efficient as possible, more and more companies are shifting from reactive to predictive maintenance.
In this concept, the goal is to optimize the repair of the construction assets at the time that they need. It involves the capture of real-time data about the condition of the assets, so you can accurately make a forecast of when they should be serviced.
Though might seem a complex shift from traditional reactive maintenance, you can move to predictive maintenance by establishing a good foundation on the following aspects.
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Real-Time Condition Monitoring
To be successful in predictive maintenance, you must first have a tool in place that will allow you to monitor the condition of all your equipment in real-time. Fortunately, there is construction management software with equipment tracking features which should help you effortlessly do just that.
A construction management software with equipment tracking will not only allow you to collect information about your equipment’s operating costs per hour but can also help ensure your high-value assets – like excavators and trucks – are monitored extremely closely and worked to the max.
Additionally, smaller items like handheld tools can also be assigned to different categories since they have a lesser value and may not need constant monitoring.
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Data Access and Analysis
Another key area of predictive maintenance is access and analysis to equipment data being captured in real-time. It’s important that all relevant employees should be able to access all the relevant data to achieve a successful data assessment.
For instance, fleet managers should be able to access data about the trucks and hauliers to make an informed decision on when such assets should undergo maintenance.
It’s important to understand that predictive maintenance should not take over your monitoring efforts, but rather enhance it. To ensure that the data collected are efficiently used, make sure to have a clear structure in your company for who monitors specific items and how data should be passed on to one another promptly.
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Key Success Metrics
Predictive maintenance is money up front. You need to identify the criteria that you need to achieve in a specific time frame to get your ROI. Is it 25 avoided failures on the construction site? Is it the ability to order spare parts far enough in advance that you avoid downtime entirely?
Having a clear objective governing your ROI ensures your ability to measure the effectiveness of your predictive maintenance strategy from the day of implementation onwards.
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Asset Management
The last but not the least aspect you need to ensure in your predictive maintenance implementation is the integration of this process to other aspects of your business. That’s why construction management software is essential to make sure that your company is set up for success.
Through an integrated builder software, you will be able to integrate work-orders and equipment data, providing you with the most accurate insight of an asset’s condition plus work order history, servicing information, and more.
Having constant equipment monitoring, the right people involved in data assessment, the right success criteria in place, and an integrated construction management software will enable you to sustain and proactively improve your predictive equipment maintenance strategy.
Consider all these factors, and you will be able to safeguard the success of the transition, bringing your business to the next level of efficiency for the long haul.
Visit our website today at www.bizprac.com or send an email to [email protected] to learn more about building estimating software and our construction project management software.
