You follow all of the recommended maintenance practices at the recommended intervals, and the maintenance technicians are properly trained for the work. Yet, the machine still breaks down frequently. What’s the solution when well-maintained equipment is also high break-down equipment?
When failures are inadvertently designed into equipment, even superb maintenance isn’t enough. Do an engineering study on high break-down equipment. Examine any frequently failing components for an opportunity to upgrade them to components designed for better reliability. You might even consider modifying the equipment to make it more reliable.
For example, an assembly elevation table hits mechanical stops at the end of its intended travel. As the motor exerts more torque to overcome the stops, it draws more current until a controller shuts it off. But this control scheme is hard on the entire system and causes premature failure of the drive motor for that table. If you install position switches to control the motor (and keep the mechanical stops as just safety stops in case of failure), you solve this problem.
