Equipment management and equipment maintenance management in large enterprises

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As enterprises increase their investment in technological upgrades, the level of their equipment improves significantly, and the technical complexity of that equipment also rises. This places higher demands on equipment managers, operators, and maintenance personnel in terms of their overall management skills and technical expertise. Equipment management and maintenance face many new challenges. It has become an urgent task to update concepts by combining traditional equipment management methods with the new circumstances and taking into account actual production conditions, so as to innovate and enable equipment management and maintenance to gradually meet the requirements for the proper operation of modern equipment, ensuring efficient production and improving economic efficiency. 01 Equipment Organization and Management: Equipment is not only an important tool for enterprises to organize production; more importantly, it constitutes the main capital of enterprises as well as a key element of their productivity. It serves as a vital guarantee for enterprises to improve product quality, reduce production costs, gain market share, and enhance their competitiveness and economic efficiency in the market. The objectives of enterprise equipment management are to optimize the composition of a company’s capital and the allocation of equipment resources. By employing various management techniques, it is possible to reduce the costs associated with the equipment’s life cycle, increase its utilization rate, and enhance its reliability, safety, and suitability. What is the organizational management of equipment? The organizational management of equipment involves restructuring the organizational framework for equipment management in line with the production process, replacing single-functional structures with cross-functional team structures to establish a sound organization for equipment management. Instead, it is necessary to recruit versatile professionals with extensive knowledge of equipment or multi-skilled operators to join the equipment management team, thereby creating a comprehensive equipment management team composed of equipment managers, technical specialists, and equipment operators. At the same time, a set of effective regulations such as the \"Equipment Management System,\" \"Spare Parts Management System,\" \"Repair System,\" and \"Safety Management System\" should be established. It is the main guarantee for achieving proper equipment management. How to manage equipment? Throughout the entire process of equipment management, a combination of design, manufacturing, and use should be maintained ； Combining maintenance with planned repairs ； A combination of repair, renovation, and upgrading ； Combining professional management with mass management ； The principle of combining technical management with economic management fully leverages the initiative of all types of personnel to manage, make good use of, maintain, and upgrade equipment effectively. It continuously improves and enhances the quality of a company’s technical equipment, makes full use of the efficiency of such equipment in order to achieve good returns on investment, thereby contributing to the improvement of both the economic and social benefits of the company. With the improvement of equipment and management standards, enterprise equipment management and maintenance tasks involve many new technologies, such as computer and software technology, numerical control and display technology, electro-hydraulic automation technology, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the quality of training for personnel in equipment management and maintenance as soon as possible. Only by cultivating equipment managers and maintenance workers who possess both practical experience and skills, as well as a certain level of theoretical knowledge and proficiency in modern new technologies, can modern equipment be properly managed and maintained. Only when equipment is well maintained and the quantity and quality of products produced are guaranteed can the expected goals regarding output value, costs, and profits be achieved. Therefore, active efforts must be made to strengthen basic equipment management, on-site management, maintenance, regular inspections, and technical upgrades to ensure that the equipment can support production. 02 Management of Key Equipment: As technical upgrades progress further, a large number of advanced devices featuring sophisticated technology, high-quality equipment, and a high degree of automation are being introduced rapidly. To manage such key equipment properly, attention must be paid to the following two aspects of work. (1) Establish and improve equipment technical records. Creating and maintaining proper equipment technical records is essential for the whole-life management of key equipment. It is necessary to keep records of each such piece of equipment, including inventory sheets, cards, and lists of spare parts, while carefully documenting the equipment’s usage and any failures that occur. A standardized record-keeping system provides the necessary information for management and maintenance purposes. For critical equipment, a new maintenance system that integrates mechanical, electrical, hydraulic aspects along with the operators should be established, so as to master various technical aspects and rapidly improve the skill levels of relevant personnel; this enables quick diagnosis and resolution of any issues that arise with the equipment. At the same time, it focuses on \"strong maintenance with zero waiting times,\" using \"strong maintenance\" as a foundation to ensure timely resolution of faults in key equipment. (2) Ensure proper on-site management of key equipment. To guarantee the safe, stable, and efficient operation of key equipment, it is also necessary to implement proper on-site management for them. This includes the use management, maintenance management, and lubrication management of equipment. Special care management is implemented for key equipment to reduce human-induced deterioration of such equipment and minimize downtime caused by lack of maintenance. Strengthen on-site management, establish technical documentation and specifications for key equipment, and conduct regular inspections and monitoring of such equipment. Operators must strictly adhere to the operating, usage, and maintenance procedures for the equipment, and uphold the responsibility system for equipment inspections and handovers. Professional and technical personnel must go to the site in four aspects. That is: ① Equipment management on-site ； ②The equipment has been sent to the site for inspection ； ③Coordinate equipment operation on-site ； ④Device issues are resolved on-site. At the same time, a total production maintenance system is established to improve employee competence and equipment efficiency, thereby continuously refining the management system. Only by integrating these advanced management concepts into on-site management can equipment cleanliness be ensured, operations standardized, and production proceed smoothly. 03 Spare Parts Management: In corporate equipment management, the management of spare parts is a tedious and error-prone task. Spare parts and accessories often come in a wide variety and require significant capital investment. How to optimize spare part management to ensure accurate planning, proper inventory levels, and efficient management is a crucial issue that helps create the conditions necessary for improving production and enhancing efficiency. What is spare parts planning management? Spare parts planning management aims to minimize spare parts inventory while ensuring the normal and stable operation of production, thereby reducing capital occupation. Relevant regulations such as the \"Regulations on Spare Parts Planning Management\", the \"Regulations on Spare Parts Warehouse Management\", and the \"Regulations on the Receipt, Storage, and Distribution of Spare Parts\" should be established as standards for spare parts management. At the same time, statistical work is standardized to ensure that management is governed by systems, plans are based on solid foundations, reserves follow established standards, and funds are under control, thereby further standardizing spare parts management. The currently more advanced and reasonable spare parts management method in enterprises is the ABC management model. They are classified into three categories, A, B, and C, based on factors such as importance, vulnerability, consumption levels, and the difficulty of replacing them with domestic alternatives. Spares with high consumption and high vulnerability, such as oil seals and belts, are classified as Category A ； Components that are replaced frequently, such as motors and limit switches, are classified as Category B ； The remaining spare parts with low consumption and relatively long service life are classified as Category C. For key equipment, especially imported equipment, more predictive research should be conducted on the supply of spare parts. Reasonable spare parts plans should be formulated based on past consumption patterns to avoid unnecessary orders that lead to stockpiling and waste. Efforts should be made to use domestic components for imported equipment; domestic manufacturers that are capable of producing alternatives should form task forces to carry out research and development, making full use of their capabilities to achieve the localization of spare parts. 04 Strengthen condition monitoring to improve the level of predictive equipment maintenance. Equipment maintenance is an important part of equipment management and plays a key role in ensuring the proper operation of equipment. Traditional maintenance mainly includes: routine repair and upkeep of equipment, scheduled inspections, and emergency repairs. With the continuous improvement and widespread use of automation technology in industrial equipment, traditional equipment maintenance management methods can no longer meet the demands. There is an urgent need for a more scientific and advanced approach to equipment maintenance. Emphasizing prevention in maintenance, shifting from regular maintenance to preventive maintenance represents the new maintenance philosophy adopted by companies abroad today. Preventive maintenance mainly consists of three aspects: 1) Emphasizing prevention as the core approach based on scheduled maintenance, along with the implementation of safeguard measures ； 2) Utilize advanced scientific methods for condition monitoring of equipment through fault diagnosis, to keep track of the equipment’s operating status and detect early signs of faults, thereby allowing proactive implementation of appropriate preventive measures. 3) Adopt new technologies, new processes, and new materials to improve equipment reliability. Equipment failures can be divided into preventable and non-preventable ones. Many preventable failures indicate that the preventive maintenance of the equipment is inadequate ； Unpreventable failures often indicate poor reliability of the equipment itself. According to available data, about 70% of equipment failures can be prevented, while 30% of failures are unavoidable. Therefore, to control the failure rate of equipment, the focus should be on improving preventive maintenance capabilities and the reliability of the equipment. Regardless of the development of maintenance theories and techniques, preventive maintenance remains the fundamental principle of maintenance work. Only by making every effort to carry out preventive maintenance can equipment failures be minimized, unplanned downtime reduced, maintenance costs saved, and equipment utilization improved. Predictive maintenance involves determining the most appropriate time for repair and the most efficient repair methods based on the inspection results and the specific condition of the equipment. This provides a reliable basis for planning the predictive maintenance schedule, eliminates the unnecessary economic losses and performance declines that arise from routine or emergency repairs, avoids arbitrary decisions in terms of maintenance, simplifies the maintenance process, and **shortens the time required for repairs**. To improve the level of predictive maintenance for equipment, efforts should be made in the following areas: 1) Routine inspections at the workstations. Establish strict inspection system guidelines to ensure that personnel on duty on a given day have clear procedures to follow during their routine inspections, thereby completely eliminating the practice of conducting inspections without actually checking anything or handling them perfunctorily; any abnormalities found should be repaired promptly ； 2) Specialized equipment inspection. By utilizing human senses and various testing instruments, and based on certain principles and technical standards, comprehensive, thorough, real-time, and dynamic inspections of equipment are carried out; the results of these inspections are analyzed and statistically processed to obtain accurate and timely data on the equipment’s operating condition, which is then used to guide equipment maintenance. 3) Professional precision inspection and technical analysis. On the basis of routine inspections specific to the equipment, more in-depth technical testing, tracking, and analysis are carried out on equipment whose condition has changed. 4) Equipment degradation trend management. Based on the established equipment condition records, technical and statistical analyses are used to identify the patterns of equipment condition deterioration, which serve as an important basis for predictive maintenance. 5) Management of the equipment’s operating environment. Equipment has its own optimal operating environment; the lubrication of the equipment as well as the surrounding conditions all fall within its operating environment. Therefore, ensuring a good working environment for the equipment is an important factor in improving and maintaining its good condition, and it is also a vital aspect of the production process. 05 Equipment Maintenance Cost Management: In the highly competitive environment of a market economy, the trend toward reducing the cost of enterprise products demands that maintenance efforts achieve the best results at the lowest possible cost. Whether the budget for equipment maintenance costs and their usage are appropriate will affect a company’s production costs as well as its normal operations. The purpose of equipment maintenance cost management is to use maintenance costs efficiently in order to achieve the specified production efficiency level at the lowest possible cost. In the management of equipment maintenance costs, efforts should be focused on three aspects: preparing a budget for these costs, controlling their expenditure, and analyzing the effectiveness of such maintenance efforts. Ensure that repairs are documented, consumption is regulated, statistics are reported, and losses are analyzed. By conducting regular analysis and summarization, repair quality is improved, maintenance costs are reduced, and economic efficiency is enhanced. Units or individuals that achieve substantial savings in maintenance costs while ensuring the quality of production and repairs should be given appropriate rewards.