It found that 32% of those who took part in the survey described their maintenance as being reactive, with less than 30% implementing either predictive or preventive maintenance regimes.
“The fact that nearly 30% of manufacturers in our recent poll would class their maintenance strategy as predictive or preventive is something to be celebrated,” says Richard Chamberlain, UK Service Manager at Bosch Rexroth.
He continues: “However, there is still some way to go both to help bridge the gap for those that continue to take a reactive approach and helping forward looking manufacturers take that extra step towards a more planned maintenance programme.”
One of the key barriers to adopting a more forward-thinking approach by maintenance teams is resource, according to the report. Of those polled, 53% say that maintenance budgets have stagnated or decreased in recent years, and 64% report that maintenance personnel numbers have similarly stayed the same or declined.
“Maintenance resource is the major issue for manufacturers,” says Mr Chamberlain. “All-too-often, maintenance teams are stretched too thinly to be able to be more planned and predictive, instead resorting to firefighting to keep machines running.”
The report, ‘What you don’t repair you destroy – A report into maintenance practices in UK Industry’, can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/RexrothMaintenance.
