In an apparel manufacturing business, it is extremely important to make sure that all the production equipment works in optimal condition. This not only reduces non-productive time but also helps to drive profitability. Simply put, it can transform an organization’s operational success. This can be done by running regular health checks on the machines, which is known as preventive maintenance. It can be defined as the process of performing several maintenance activities in order to prevent any unexpected failures in the future.
These preventive maintenance activities are performed on a regular basis, and in most cases, a pre-defined schedule is followed. In today’s competitive landscape, apparel manufacturing businesses are focusing more than ever on establishing preventive maintenance schedules. The simple reason behind that is: it gives them a base to build a maintenance strategy that helps them stand out within the market.
Now the main challenge is how to do preventive maintenance or how to make an effective preventive maintenance schedule. Here are a few useful tips to help you build a preventive maintenance schedule that ensures better results:
- Prepare a Checklist
Prior to beginning any preventive maintenance procedures, it is important to conduct a complete review. It will help you understand what assets currently exist in the system and what their current health status is. Without analyzing these things, it is nearly impossible to understand the gaps and the areas that need improvement. Once done, you can easily prepare a checklist that includes all the maintenance tasks you may need to perform.
- Create a Maintenance Schedule
The next step is to make a proper schedule to complete all of the tasks you’ve listed. Things get easier when you have a clear idea of what tasks are high priorities. This way, you can catch any potential problems at an early stage and solve them before they become bigger issues requiring expensive repairs.
- Maintain Records
Performing all the scheduled tasks in a timely manner is not the only thing you need to do. Always make sure that you maintain detailed reports for each asset or machine. These reports must include the number of maintenance tasks performed along with the date of execution and current status. It should include details about any upcoming maintenance tasks as well. This kind of documentation helps you keep track of the work that has been done so far and contributes to positive results.
- Go Digital
Doing everything manually can be a little bit overwhelming, even if you have a large team to carry out maintenance tasks. Instead of assigning all the maintenance tasks manually or maintaining these records on paper, you can use a cloud-based preventive maintenance solution. An efficient digital solution will help you streamline your preventive maintenance tasks while ensuring that you never miss a single maintenance check on an asset.
How can LTLabs help?
LTLabs offers a cloud-based mechanic management solution, LTmechanic, that helps you enable paperless tracking of machine maintenance. It provides real-time data for asset management and tracks every single machine on each sewing line to provide visibility of machine status, instant alerts of problems, and machine performance analysis. With a number of useful features, this solution helps you achieve better mechanic efficiency, minimize non-productive time, and enhance machine visibility.
You can explore our entire range to find other solutions and choose the one that meets the specific needs of your apparel manufacturing business. All our products can be used on a stand-alone basis or as a complete package.
