Cost of Maintenance

Cost of Maintenance

Cost of Maintenance - There is little factual information available on the cost of machine tool maintenance, particularly in relation to types of machines. Further, the very wide variety of machines that are available within a particular type, the differing production demands made on a type of machine from company to company, and the variations in maintenance policy, would make it extremely difficult to summarize such information other than in the most generalized form.

Each company should assess the cost of maintenance within its own system of operation. The key to this lies in its preventive maintenance schedules and corrective maintenance records, since the total cost of maintenance is made up of the preventive and corrective maintenance, and reconditioning costs.

Although the time and cost scales will vary from machine to machine and company to company, the same basic pattern will emerge; namely that the average annual direct cost of buying and maintaining a machine levels out after comparatively few years and eventually shows an upward trend. As the average annual cost shows an upturn after ten years.

This is not to say that the machine must be replaced, but it does provide an opportune point in time to compare the capability of the machine with more recent models and processes which have become available since its purchase and thereby to take advantage of those developments which will improve the product performance or reduce its cost.

When there is no planned system of preventive maintenance then indirectly the cost of maintenance is increased, since there can be no scheme for corrective maintenance. Consequently, the nature of repairs becomes more serious and the cost increases. Further, unexpected machine failures result in disruption to the production programme, resulting in loss of capacity, increased costs and possible failure to meet delivery dates.