Plant Maintenance Shouldn’t Be Reactive—Here’s How to Get Ahead

Smooth startups are great, but the real challenge lies in keeping equipment running at peak performance after installation.  

I’ve seen it too many times: the first few months go well, production hums along, and then… the machines go down unexpectedly. Those once seemingly insignificant parts are missing when you need them, preventative maintenance is hit-or-miss, and suddenly, you’re back in crisis mode. 

As a manufacturing engineer, I know how much maintenance engineering can change the game. With the right systems and best practices in place, you can shift from firefighting to building a proactive maintenance culture.  

Why Maintenance Engineering Matters

Behind every extra point of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a system, and someone who built it. Maintenance engineering isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about creating frameworks that keep machines running reliably for years to come. 

When structured well, maintenance systems:  

• Enable scheduled work to reduce unplanned downtime
• Improve access to critical equipment data and spare parts
• Build a culture of proactive maintenance instead of reactive fixes

5 Maintenance Engineering Best Practices to Implement in Your Plant

These are the five practices I’ve seen make the biggest difference while working in multiple customer manufacturing plants. 

1. Build a Solid Foundation in Your CMMS

Your computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), whether SAP, Maximo, or another platform, is only as good as the data you feed it. 

Start by structuring your equipment assets with complete details:  

• Manufacturer and financial information for every asset 
• Accurate tagging and classification for quick identification 
• Criticality rankings to prioritize maintenance tasks 

This data isn’t glamorous, nor is the work it takes to gather and structure it all. But it sets the stage for everything else, from planning preventative maintenance (PM) to resolving breakdowns.  

2. Align PM Schedules with Failure Modes and OEM Guidance

Too often, preventative maintenance is either overdone (wasting resources) or neglected (leading to breakdowns). If you’re struggling to strike the right balance with your maintenance schedule and strategy, start here: 

• Map known failure modes for each asset 
• Review original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations 
• Tailor PM intervals to your plant’s operating environment 

I’ve found this approach to work well and help me stay ahead of common failure points without overburdening teams. 

3. Link Spare Parts and BOMs to Each Asset

How many times have you had a critical machine go down and the spare part you needed wasn’t in stock? Or worse, the part might be in stock, but poor visibility in equipment BOMs or the tool room means you don’t realize it, dragging downtime on for even longer. 

This is a common scenario for many manufacturing sites. You can avoid it by electronically linking spare parts and bills of materials (BOMs) to each equipment record in your CMMS. This will give your team quick access to verified part numbers, inventory levels in the tool room, and supplier information for rapid ordering. 

When your technicians have this information at their fingertips, repairs are faster and downtime drops. 

4. Automate PM Triggers

Manual scheduling is a recipe for missed preventative maintenance opportunities. Instead, configure your CMMS to trigger PM tasks automatically based on operating hours, calendar intervals, and/or sensor data, if you have it available.  

Pair this with tool room visibility so that equipment is ready before the job starts. This level of automation can help you plan ahead and even lighten the load on engineering teams by shifting from reactive firefighting to proactive improvement and Launches. 

5. Shift Your Plant Culture

Technical systems are only half the battle. The other half is culture. 

A proactive maintenance culture happens when everyone, from operators to managers, embraces scheduled maintenance as critical to production success. You can get there by: 

• Tracking and sharing key metrics like OEE and mean time between failures (MTBF) 
• Celebrating wins when downtime is reduced 
• Providing training and support so teams understand the “why” behind the systems 

Over time, this cultural shift will empower everyone to anticipate problems instead of constantly reacting to them. 

Build Today for Reliability Tomorrow

Plant reliability doesn’t happen by accident! It’s the result of well-structured data, aligned schedules, and a team committed to proactive maintenance engineering. It’s something I help teams with every day and have seen such great results from. 

By putting the best practices I mentioned into place, you can set your operation up for fewer breakdowns, faster repairs, and more consistent production. The work may be behind the scenes, but its impact will show up in every smooth startup and every percentage point gained in OEE.