Your metal fabrication business depends on a productive team and your machines running properly when you need them to. You never want to start an order only to find out one of your machines has an issue, causing you to spend unplanned time and money fixing it and potentially compromising the quality of your product. That is where preventative maintenance comes in – on a daily basis.
We have talked about the benefits of preventative maintenance before, with upsides including preventing unplanned breakdowns, increased productivity, and saving your bottom line in the future. You may have a longer-term preventative maintenance schedule, like annual oil changes for machines, for instance. But are your operators performing daily maintenance on your equipment?

Here’s what daily preventative maintenance looks like for smaller fabrication shops:

Operators create the PM checklist

No one knows machines like their operators. While larger shops may have a supervisor or manager creating a preventative maintenance checklist, for smaller fab shops the operator is in charge of this. For many machines, a PM checklist is already available in the operator’s manual. In other cases, the operator should be creating it on their own.
Working closely with the equipment every day, the operator knows the indicators of health – big and small. When performed daily, a thoughtfully-created checklist doesn’t have to take long. The daily checklist can include items like checking the oil level and air filters, for example, and should be carried out on each shift, in addition to your annual and monthly maintenance procedures.

Good housekeeping for all team members of your machine shop

Further to following a maintenance checklist on a daily basis, all staff on the shop floor should be accountable for good housekeeping. Ensuring the machine and work space is clean is paramount to the success of your shop.
Keeping a clean and organized shop is an easy way to help your business run smoothly. Make sure there is an allocated spot for everything your team needs so operators won’t lose time looking for tools, and keep the floor clean. Good housekeeping is not just for appearances; it helps keep dust and debris from impacting machine performance, improves safety on the shop floor, and saves time.

It all comes down to common sense when it comes to machine maintenance

In many cases, preventative maintenance comes down to common sense. Keep the area clean, check the main functions, and make sure everything is running as it should. By encouraging a team culture of common sense and following procedure, your operators should consider preventative maintenance just another fundamental part of their daily duties, not an additional task. Daily machine and shop maintenance doesn’t take a lot of time or effort, and is always worth it. Regularly maintained equipment will always thank you by performing optimally to get the job done – on time and with the highest quality.  What’s on your operator's’ daily checklist?