How To Build a Better Preventive Maintenance Program

Asset and component failures are integral aspects of maintenance, often driving the need for planned, corrective, or emergency actions. Understanding the nature of failures, their causes, effects, and the methodologies used to analyze them is essential for improving reliability and minimizing downtime.

Exploring Maintenance Asset and Component Failures

Asset and component failures are integral aspects of maintenance, often driving the need for planned, corrective, or emergency actions. Understanding the nature of failures, their causes, effects, and the methodologies used to analyze them is essential for improving reliability and minimizing downtime.

What are failure codes?

Failure codes are alphanumeric codes that offer detailed insights into why an asset failed. Failure is the inability of an asset, component, or system to perform its required function, and they may be sudden or gradual and affect the performance, safety, or efficiency of the asset. Three main categories of failure are:

• Functional failure. This occurs when a system or component can no longer perform its intended function. For example, a cooling system that fails to maintain the required temperature is experiencing a functional failure. It may not necessarily mean the system is entirely broken, but that it no longer meets its operational criteria.
• Hidden failure. This is a failure that is not immediately apparent or does not have immediate consequences on the system’s operation. These failures are often discovered during inspections or tests, and though they may not affect current performance, they pose risks for future operations. For example, a dormant backup generator may have a hidden failure that won’t become evident until it is needed in an emergency.
• Potential failure. This refers to an identifiable condition or signal that indicates an impending failure. This concept is a cornerstone of predictive maintenance, as it allows maintenance teams to detect signs of deterioration before the asset fails completely. For example, vibration analysis might detect misalignment in a motor, signaling a potential failure that can be addressed proactively.

This failure data is stored in a system like a computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) solution or an enterprise asset management (EAM) system. These codes play a crucial role in various analyses to identify the root causes of issues and how they can be rectified.

Failure codes, whether time-based or non-time based, serve as a standardized method of identifying problems that are easily recognizable by technicians. Depending on the program used to generate them, they may provide a road map to a more detailed description of the issue or the information may be contained in a single encrypted line.

Why are failure codes important?

Failure codes play an important role in the entire maintenance and reliability process as they can help a business identify the specific reasons behind a failure. These could range from improper operation, material fatigue, poor design, manufacturing defects, or lack of proper maintenance. Identifying the root cause of failure is critical for preventing recurrence and is a core aspect of methodologies like Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

Failure codes can help improve maintenance efficiency by highlighting recurring issues, which allow for corrective measures to be implemented. They can also assist in tracking and identifying issues over time, allowing management to generate analytical reports that can be the foundation of an ongoing continuous improvement program.

And, finally, they aid in creating in-depth work orders. Most CMMS solutions allow sorting by time, date, location or asset, providing flexibility to examine where and when failure codes occur. This data can then be used to create detailed work orders that address both the core and consequences of the failure code.

Remember that failure effects can be local (impacting only the failed component), system-wide (affecting the entire system’s operation), or they may lead to severe safety, environmental, or financial consequences. Analyzing failure effects through failure codes helps prioritize which failures need immediate attention and which can be deferred.

How should I deal with failure codes?

Understanding the common failure codes and the simple steps it takes to address them can be a good starting point in improving your maintenance and reliability systems. If businesses do not address failure codes in a timely manner, they will continue to operate damaged equipment, potentially causing larger problems in the future.

Common failure codes include:

• Maintenance codes
• User mistakes,
• Calibration problems
• Asset defects
• Contamination problems
• Computer issues
• Overheating codes
• Leak alerts
• Failure to start codes
• Equipment jams

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a systematic methodology used to evaluate and prioritize potential failures and their effects on system performance. FMEA involves identifying all potential failure modes of a component, determining their effects, and ranking them by their severity, frequency, and detectability. This helps maintenance teams focus on high-risk areas and develop effective mitigation strategies.

Begin by identifying failure modes on your assets and setting up appropriate failure codes. Be sure to include failure code components on work orders. Then, optimize them and test and scale as needed.

Remember that the accuracy of failure codes is heavily dependent on the quality of the data input. Therefore, it’s crucial to adhere to failure code best practices to keep them organized, logical, consistent and simple.

Finally, it’s important to close the loop between the failure code and the repair. This depends on having accurate failure code data, but it can also feed into this data. It’s also crucial to integrate failure codes within the software.

Conclusion

Failure codes help organizations analyze root causes and point toward changes that will not only fix problems but also provide the basis to implement preventive measures to prevent future issues. They can provide invaluable insights that can drive your business forward. They can help identify and rectify issues that improve efficiency and prevent future problems. Embrace the power of failure codes and let them guide your company into a future of improved maintenance and reliability.