Preventive Maintenance versus Run-to-Failure Operational Bias
Unmanaged manufacturing plants rely on run-to-failure machine maintenance strategies, causing sudden production stoppages, severe fabric defects, and excessive emergency repair costs.
Picture this
Imagine a taxi driver who never changes the engine oil or checks tire pressure, choosing instead to drive the car until the engine explodes on the highway. Fixing the blown engine costs ten times more money and loses three days of fares, whereas taking thirty minutes every month to change the oil would keep the car running smoothly without unexpected breakdowns.
What the evidence says
Baseline adoption of manufacturer-recommended preventive maintenance was only 7.1% in treatment plants; adopting regular preventive maintenance and logging breakdown causes contributed to reducing machine downtime and raising fabric weaving output by 9.4%.
- Who
- 28 manufacturing plants across 17 cotton textile woven fabric firms in Tarapur and Umbergaon, India.
- How
- Randomized controlled trial tracking daily machine downtime logs, breakdown cause categorization, and scheduled maintenance protocols over ~100 weeks per plant.
What to do
Create a daily machine breakdown log categorized by fault type and implement manufacturer-recommended scheduled preventive maintenance routines across all critical plant equipment.
From the source
"Regular maintenance of machines and recording the reasons for breakdowns to learn from failures."
541 Management in India QJE.pdf