How to Develop an Effective Maintenance Plan for Your Automotive Facility

Preventive maintenance increases overall equipment effectiveness by up to 20% and reduces maintenance costs by 10 to 40%, according to research by McKinsey & Company. [1]

However, is preventive maintenance effective for an automotive facility? 

A multinational company in the automotive industry created and implemented a model for the management of spare parts linked to the maintenance of existing equipment and achieved an OEE of more than 90%, according to this case study on Research Gate. [2]

In 2024, there is no doubt that automotive companies need a proper maintenance plan for their equipment to function properly. Without a proper plan and execution, all efforts can be lost in the dark.

In this article, we will cover the benefits of a maintenance plan and how to create it in five steps. 

What Is a Maintenance Plan?

A maintenance plan is a roadmap-like document that defines the steps and proactive procedures done to maintain assets in a facility. 

It normally consists of:

• A list of assets that need to be maintained, with historical and manufacturer information.
• The whereabouts and detailed information on spare parts.
• In-house and external personnel with their skills and experience.
• Maintenance tasks with instructions. 
• A maintenance schedule that needs to be followed.

One common question that is normally raised is how often should companies revisit their maintenance plan? The answer is very simple: once a month if you want to maximize equipment reliability and longevity. The maintenance department is usually in charge of creating, executing and monitoring this plan by collaborating with technicians and analysts.

This brings us to the concept of routine maintenance. These are activities that are regularly scheduled to keep equipment up and running. The goal of these activities is to prevent asset failures before they occur.

What Are the Benefits of a Preventive Maintenance Plan?

The five reasons why you should have a preventive maintenance plan are:

1. Asset availability and reliability: No more unexpected breaks of assembly line robots, for example. An unexpected failure can disrupt the whole production schedule, causing delays and operational costs.
2. Better failure and downtime predictability: No more second-guessing the lifespan of CNC machines, for example. Without this information, you can’t plan necessary repairs and reach production targets.
3. Effective and timely repairs: Prevent long repair times and delayed fixes for hydraulic presses. Without a maintenance plan, fixes are only performed after a failure occurs.
4. Increased employee safety: Failing to maintain equipment properly, such as conveyor systems, can lead to unsafe working conditions.
5. Standardized maintenance management: Without a preventive maintenance plan, maintenance tasks on equipment like paint booths may be performed irregularly and inconsistently.  Avoid equipment damage and staff confusion by standardizing these processes.
6. Minimal risks of warranty claims and product recalls: With preventive maintenance, you will ultimately ensure customer satisfaction and timely delivery of products.

Keeping in mind that there is a constant demand for more reliable and safer cars, the automotive industry is one of the pioneers of preventive maintenance plans. 

How to Develop a Maintenance Plan in 5 Steps?

Let’s outline the steps and design a sample maintenance plan outline:

1. Make an Overview

If this is your first maintenance plan, don’t forget to make an overview of the facility. Create a short introduction so that everyone is on the same page. For example, “X facility specializes in the production of electric vehicles. The facility includes Y assembly lines, Z paint booths, W conveyor systems, etc.”.

Then write down the purpose/goal of the maintenance plan, so that everyone is clear of the benefits. “To guarantee the continuous and efficient operation of all equipment, minimize downtime and enhance safety, we need to follow this maintenance plan every month.”

Finally, outline the maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs) you will use to monitor the effectiveness of your operations. 

Here is an overview of the most important maintenance KPIs, and you can learn more about them by downloading our “Maintenance KPIs ebook”:

2. List Equipment and Assets

Once you have a clear overview of your facility and objectives, next is a detailed list of equipment and assets in your automotive facility. Besides the basic asset information such as name, location and model number, you should keep track of past repairs and spare parts needed. 

By doing this you are cutting down time on preparation and guaranteeing that the maintenance procedures are standardized and safe.

 Here is a sample table that clearly outlines all the information you will need with examples:

Asset name	Location	Tag/ID	Manufacturer name	Model number	Serial number
CNC Millin Machin	Section A	MS-A-CNC1	Haas Automation, Inc.	VF-4	1234
Hydraulic Press Machine	Section B 3	PS-B3-HP2	Schuler AG	PSE2-200	0987
Robotic Welding Arm	Area C	WS-A4-RA3	ABB Robotics	IRB 6700	1122

Year	Past repairs	User manual	Spare parts
2018	Spindle motor replacement in March 2020	Link	Spindle motorsControl panel componentsTool holders
2017	Pressure valve replacement in November 2021	Link	Hydraulic pumpsPressure valvesSeals and gaskets
2020	Wiring harness replacement in May 2023	Link	Servo motorsWiring harnessesWelding tips and nozzles

3. Outline Maintenance Strategies

Make sure your maintenance strategies are visible and accessible to everyone on your team. Here are some popular maintenance strategies with examples:

• Preventive Maintenance (PM): Scheduled maintenance tasks such as lubrication of conveyor belts or cleaning of paint booths.
• Predictive maintenance: Use vibration sensors on hydraulic presses to monitor electrical systems for early signs of wear and tear
• Corrective maintenance: Immediate repairs of unexpected machine failures such as broken conveyor belts.

These maintenance strategies have their own purpose, and detailed steps for each of them should be outlined to ensure they are executed properly. Even though preventive maintenance helps minimize the need for corrective maintenance, it is good practice to have procedures for both outlined in case of unpredictable shutdowns or other emergency situations.

4. Define Maintenance Procedures

To standardize maintenance procedures, you need to clearly outline them so that there is no doubt about how an asset should be serviced. 

Inspection checklist and schedule

Create an inspection checklist for daily, weekly and monthly checks. For example, daily checks of conveyor belt tension, weekly checks of lubrication levels of robotic arm joints, and monthly filter replacements for paint booths.

What is a maintenance schedule? It is a timeline for when the maintenance tasks should be completed and in which order. By regularly following this schedule, companies can avoid machine failures and unexpected breakdowns.

Service instructions

Make a detailed overview of steps for repairing or replacing parts in all equipment safely and properly. These instructions should be detailed and standardized to avoid any complications and unnecessary fixes.

Safety protocols

Write down tagout procedures for all maintenance activities and safety checks before restarting a machine after maintenance. Also, add the work permits or other compliances workers should be aware of.

Task allocation

Assign tasks and define who is responsible for each task and how/when they should be notified. Communication is key when it comes to task allocation, so make sure the responsible people are notified on time and have all the documentation and data they need to resolve issues quickly.

5. Collect Data and Monitor

Plan how you will monitor specific equipment, such as:

• Install vibration sensors on hydraulic presses to detect imbalances.
• Use temperature sensors on CNC machines to monitor for overheating.
• Place pressure sensors in pneumatic systems to detect leaks.

Log in maintenance activities, keep historical data, and track equipment performance in your data sheets or by using a Computer Management System (CMMS). We will go into detail about CMMS later on, as it is a faster, safer, and more user-friendly option to keep up with your maintenance plan.

If necessary, provide technical training safety or predictive maintenance training to teams.

6. File a Work Request

Filling a work request consists of notifying the right team/people who need to act on a certain maintenance request. You need to fill them in on all the data you’ve collected and stored above so that the work can be done swiftly and effectively.

If there are multiple work requests, schedule them by priority and difficulty of execution so there are no interruptions or unnecessary delays.

Why Is a Written Maintenance Plan Risky?

Keeping in mind that a typical vehicle has around 20,000 parts, a smaller automotive facility will have ten times more parts. Collecting all that data and information in multiple sheets can be time-consuming and risky for your maintenance planning and scheduling.

Traditional approaches make it difficult to predict when a machine will fail, and most of the time, only a small group of people know what actions to take and what resources they need. A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) optimizes maintenance management and helps you easily execute your maintenance plan. 

Let’s see how.

How LLumin Automatizes Your Maintenance Plan

LLumin’s CMMS+ is a 100% HTML5 compliant, browser-independent, and mobile-friendly platform where you can plan, deploy, and monitor maintenance tasks for your automotive facility.

No more dozens of spreadsheets, work requests and data piling up in your maintenance plan; as with LLumin, everything is streamlined.   

“With LLumin in place, the maintenance department is working faster – the time to complete and close out work orders has cut back computer time by nearly 75%,” says the Maintenance Supervisor of Landoll Corporation.

With LLumin, you get:

• Asset management: Track asset cost, ownership history, past fixes and operational procedures in one dashboard.
• Work order management: Automatically schedule work orders, repairs and inspections while tracking key performance metrics.
• Preventive maintenance: Monitor real-time equipment health and performance and get accurate predictions and insights.
• Inventory management: Streamline inventory analysis, purchase order creations, authorizations, invoices, and more.
• Mobile CMMS: Track machine parameters, inspections, and repairs, and automate scheduling at any time, on your mobile.
• OEE utility: Identify equipment inefficiencies, reduce downtime and optimize maintenance tasks with ease.
• KPIs and reports: Access equipment status, maintenance duties, repair history and get statuses and trends that will help you make data-driven decisions.
• Condition monitoring: Monitor assets in real time, and trigger alerts with predefined conditions.
• Integrations with existing software: Integrate with telematics systems, IoT sensors, control systems, and more.

Here is how it works in a nutshell:

LLumin monitors all your pre-set time vitals such as increased vibrations or temperature spikes of all your machines in your facility, by integrating with your control system. You can automatically trigger proactive maintenance actions whenever there is an early sign of an issue or tear.

Set up a condition-based trigger in your LLumin dashboard facility view and see the status of all the assets and the conditions that are being monitored. You don’t need to check each asset every time, those that need repairing or aren’t working properly will be marked in red on our dashboard.

By clicking on a specific asset, you can get detailed information in terms of general, performance and maintenance data of every asset. One asset can have multiple rules set, and you can view them separately. No need to check multiple spreadsheets or tables to group all information in one place, as with a centralized dashboard, everything is done for you.

How to set up a rule? Every rule consists of “conditions,” “notifications,” and “actions.” You determine which conditions need to occur, which people LLumin needs to notify and what actions they need to take.

You can customize notifications by assigning tasks to multiple people, setting new conditions (if a worker doesn’t reply, alarm the supervisor) and contacting them via email or text message. This feature ensures no work order goes unnoticed and that there aren’t any unnecessary delays.

Besides sending notifications, LLumin’s system automatically creates a work order with all necessary data, such as procedures and parts. This will shorten the repair time and increase the effectiveness of the work. Technicians can easily find the standardized procedures, manual instructions, and spare parts needed to swiftly fix an issue.

Here is the technician’s view with all the necessary tasks and data:

All technicians can easily filter their work orders and find what they need in a user-friendly dashboard. LLumin’s team will walk you through every feature our platform has during the implementation process so every member of your team can use it with ease. Our customer service is also available for any further questions that may pop up.

Conclusion

Developing an effective maintenance plan isn’t a one-time job but requires constant updates and synchronization. Even though paper or digitalized maintenance plans are a great starting point, without a CMMS, it is impossible to keep track of all data and changes in a medium to large automotive facility.

With LLumin in one dashboard, you can easily set conditions, monitor performance, and assign work orders automatically.  We helped SunnyD, a food and beverage manufacturer, achieve proactive maintenance, reduce compliance, manage inventory and prevent sudden equipment failures for over a decade. Read this LLumin case study for more information.

With LLumin, you get:

• Configurable and easy-to-use dashboard
• Automated workflows that trigger notifications and actions
• Easy access to data and documentation 
• Seamless integration with financial systems
• Easier safety and regulatory compliance
• A support team that will help you every step of the way

Reduce unplanned downtime up to 40% within a year and MTTR by 20% in two years.

Schedule your free software demo today and see how you can streamline your maintenance plan!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you write a good maintenance plan?

To write a good maintenance plan, you will need an inventory of assets, specific maintenance tasks, a maintenance schedule, required skills and personnel, and spare parts. All this data can be stored and tracked easily in your CMMs like LLumin, where you can assign work requests and monitor KPIs.

What is a full maintenance plan?

A full maintenance plan is a paper of a digitalized roadmap for maintaining equipment in a manufacturing facility. A comprehensive maintenance management plan ensures that the right people are notified and can access all data necessary to fix a rising issue that may cause equipment failure.

Why do you need a maintenance plan in the automotive industry?

An automotive manufacturing facility often runs at high capacity have complex automated systems, strict quality standards and safety considerations. Due to these specificities, automotive facilities need a maintenance plan to reduce downtime and keep machines functioning properly.

What are the 7 elements of maintenance?

The seven elements of maintenance are testing, servicing, calibration, inspection, adjustment, alignment and installation. Testing involves checking the functionality and performance of equipment to identify potential issues before they lead to equipment failures. Servicing includes routine maintenance tasks such as clearing or replacing filters to maintain the longevity of equipment. Calibration involves adjusting the precision and accuracy of instruments while inspection adjustment, alignment and installation all include fine-tuning components of these assets.