What Is Meter Based Maintenance? A Simple Guide
When asset and equipment management leads to high costs and downtime, a preventive maintenance strategy can be one of the most effective ways to improve outcomes. Meter-based maintenance is a form of preventive maintenance that schedules maintenance based on actual equipment usage rather than time-and-calendar-based maintenance schedules.
In this article, we’ll explore the fundamentals of meter-based maintenance, its importance, and best practices for implementation. We will also introduce LLumin’s Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS+) software and explain how it can optimize your maintenance strategy.
Preventive Maintenance (PM): Time Vs. Usage
To understand meter-based maintenance, we must first consider the two major types of preventive maintenance: time-based and usage-based.
- Time-based maintenance: involves scheduling tasks at regular calendar intervals, regardless of equipment usage. Unfortunately, this can result in unnecessary maintenance, increased safety risks, and higher costs.
- Usage-based maintenance: includes the sub-category of meter-based maintenance and uses equipment usage metrics to determine when maintenance tasks occur.
Preventive maintenance provides benefits such as reduced unexpected downtime, extended equipment lifespan, increased reliability, and smooth operations. It can also help reduce safety risks and costs associated with excessive maintenance, corrective maintenance, and emergency repairs.
The most important benefits of PM include:
- Reduces unexpected equipment failures
- Extends the lifespan of machinery
- Improves overall operational efficiency
- Enhances safety and reliability
- Lowers maintenance costs
- Increases productivity over time
What is Meter-Based Maintenance?
As previously stated, meter-based maintenance involves scheduling work based on equipment usage. It is guided by usage metrics such as operational hours, cycle counts, miles driven, and others to determine when maintenance should be performed.
Depending on the equipment being monitored, this process can also involve monitoring metrics, such as odometer readings, equipment runtime, temperature, pressure, vibration, etc.
Meter-based maintenance is condition-based, meaning maintenance tasks are only when specific equipment conditions are met. Because maintenance is based on real-time equipment conditions and usage metrics, it helps to ensure maintenance is performed only when necessary and is based on actual wear and tear.
Industries That Use Meter-Based Maintenance |
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Manufacturing |
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Tracks machine cycles and run times to schedule maintenance based on usage. |
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Fleet Management and Mobile Workforces |
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Utilizes odometer readings and engine hours to maintain vehicles and fleets. |
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Energy and Utilities |
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Monitors equipment like turbines and generators using runtime and condition metrics. |
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Construction |
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Uses equipment usage data, such as hours of operation, to maintain heavy machinery. |
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Healthcare |
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Tracks usage metrics of medical equipment to ensure timely maintenance and reliability. |
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Aviation |
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Relies on flight hours and cycle counts to schedule aircraft maintenance. |
Best Practices for Meter-Based Maintenance
While usage metrics guide meter-based maintenance and can seem like a fairly straightforward process, several best practices must be followed to ensure its effectiveness. We’ve listed these essential best practices below for further consideration.
Meter-Based Maintenance Best Practices |
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Inventory Review |
It’s critical to review inventory to determine which assets require meter-based maintenance regularly. |
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Set Maintenance Triggers |
Identify specific usage metrics your organization will use to trigger maintenance tasks, ensuring they adhere to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations. |
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Regular Employee Training |
Provide regular maintenance staff training to ensure accurate usage metrics tracking and the efficient and timely completion of preventive maintenance tasks. |
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Leverage Technology |
Use an advanced CMMS, like LLumin’s CMMS+, to track usage metrics and set condition-based maintenance triggers based on meter readings, automating scheduling and work order creation. |
LLumin’s CMMS+ and Preventive Maintenance
LLumin’s cloud-based, mobile-ready CMMS+ solution performs condition-based maintenance using machine-level sensors and advanced predictive analytics. When specific usage-based and performance metrics are met, the solution automatically initiates a work order.
LLumin can take any preventive maintenance program to much higher performance levels, significantly reducing high maintenance costs and unexpected downtime caused by corrective maintenance and emergency repairs.
LLumin’s Features For Meter-Based Maintenance |
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Automated Work Orders |
Automatically generate work orders based on meter readings and condition triggers. |
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Condition-Based Monitoring |
Use sensors to monitor real-time equipment conditions around the clock. |
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Advanced Analytics |
Analyze current and historical data with machine learning algorithms to predict maintenance needs and optimize schedules. Benefit from LLumin’s comprehensive reporting features that can empower data-driven decisions. |
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Inventory Management |
Track spare parts and inventory, improve relationships and communications with suppliers, and reduce excessive stock and stock-outs. These measures will help ensure your maintenance team always has the parts and resources to perform preventive maintenance tasks. |
LLumin Can Optimize Your Maintenance Strategy
Meter-based maintenance can be performed through manual inspections and paper-based processes, but this approach is highly inefficient and prone to error. LLumin can optimize your meter or usage-based maintenance program with an advanced set of powerful CMMS+ features and create and track work orders based on real-time equipment conditions. It can also boost employee productivity and efficiency by acting as a centralized database for accessing and distributing all maintenance-related data.
LLumin can take your maintenance strategy to new safety, productivity, and cost savings levels. Join the growing number of satisfied customers using LLumin’s CMMS+ to improve maintenance management today!
Getting Started With LLumin
LLumin develops innovative CMMS software to manage and track assets for industrial plants, municipalities, utilities, fleets, and facilities. If you’d like to learn more about the total effective equipment performance KPI, we encourage you to schedule a free demo or contact the experts at LLumin to see how our CMMS+ software can help you reach maximum productivity and efficiency goals.
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Ed Garibian, founder, and CEO of LLumin Inc., is an experienced executive and entrepreneur with demonstrated success building award-winning, growth-focused software companies. He has an impressive track record with enterprise software and entrepreneurship and is an innovator in machine maintenance, asset management, and IoT technologies.