Autonomous maintenance always part of a good TPM program. It is a concept used in many manufacturing facilities that places the responsibility of certain types of maintenance on the operator of a machine. This is instead of having a dedicated maintenance team handling these responsibilities for all of the different machines in a facility.
With traditional maintenance tasks, the maintenance team would have a schedule of different maintenance activities that they need to follow for machines throughout the facility. They would perform these tasks as they become due to keep all the machines up and working properly as much as possible. There are many benefits to this type of maintenance strategy, including the fact that work is easily tracked and scheduled, and the maintenance team is always dedicated to keeping equipment up and running properly.
With autonomous maintenance, however, many types of routine maintenance will be performed by the machine operators themselves. For example, a machine operator may be responsible for adding fluids, changing oils, swapping out filters, and other similar things. There are a number of significant advantages to doing things this way. For example, with autonomous maintenance, the operator is able to perform the maintenance as soon as it is needed based on the use of the machine rather than a strict schedule. In addition, autonomous maintenance allows the machine operators to plan out when to perform the maintenance, which can often make it easier to maximize uptime and efficiency.
Understanding the differences between traditional maintenance and autonomous maintenance will help you to decide what is right in a given situation. It is also important to keep in mind that even with autonomous maintenance, there will generally be a need for a dedicated maintenance or service team to perform higher level or more complex repairs. In most cases, having a balance between traditional and autonomous maintenance will provide facilities with the best results.
