Reactive vs. Preventive vs. Predictive Maintenance for Overhead Cranes: Which is Best?

Comparing Reactive, Preventive, and Predictive Maintenance

– When you hear reactive maintenance plans for cranes, what does that look like in real life?

– When it breaks, we fix it.

– What’s at stake beyond just the repair costs?

– Unplanned breakdowns cause production stoppage.

– And if somebody says, “We’re fine, we fix it when it breaks,” what’s one thing that you’d want them to understand?

– Not only do unplanned breakdowns cost more to repair, but they could also cause a safety hazard.

– How do you stop unexpected crane downtime from killing your production schedule? In this video, we’re going to compare reactive, preventative, and predictive maintenance so you can choose the right path for your facility.

My name is Ben, this is the Lifting & Rigging Channel. Today, I’m joined by Kevin Brewer, our Director of Crane Service, who helps plants across the country move from fixing it when it breaks to true reliability.

What Is Reactive Maintenance for Overhead Cranes?

Reactive, preventative, and predictive. What are those maintenance plans?

– Reactive is really no strategy. It’s just simply, “We wait till it breaks and then we fix it.”

What Is Preventive Maintenance for Overhead Cranes?

So a preventive maintenance plan, you do some adjustments, you make minor repairs as you see them starting to wear. We find and repair small issues before they become big issues.

What Is Predictive Maintenance for Overhead Cranes?

And then predictive maintenance is where we really start using additional tools to measure and gauge, and follow wear patterns to help determine when maintenance tasks need to be done, and then make predictive judgements on when things are going to break so we can fix them before they break.

Why Reactive Crane Maintenance Costs More in the Long Run

– So I’m sure that reactive plans are pretty common in the industry? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?

– Sure.

– Is there any time when a reactive plan actually works for some companies?

– Sure, if you have a machine shop that isn’t critical to your operation, that may be a workable strategy for you, but if production is really important, then a reactive strategy is typically not the best way to go.

From a maintenance strategy, the upfront cost to a reactive plan are the cheapest. There’s really no cost on the front side, but you do have a backend cost that is typically more.

– Mm-hm.

– It always breaks when it’s least, you know-

– Least opportune.

– Opportune. You’re having to call people in on an emergency basis, and so it’s a breakdown call. Breakdown calls are going to cost more because we’ve got to dispatch technicians, they’ve got to diagnose, figure out what the problem is, and they’ve got to make a return trip with the parts and make the repairs, not to mention your production is down during this time, the crane’s unavailable for use.

And if you compare those backend costs and those breakdown costs and those losses, and then look at planning that cost over the course of the year, the first couple of years, it’s about the same. Sometimes the preventive maintenance strategy might be a little more expensive in the first couple of years, especially if the cranes haven’t been repaired and haven’t been kept up. You’ve got to put some money into repairs and getting them back where they need to be, but once you kind of get everything on track and where it should be, that cost should level out, and when you can plan that cost, it’s always going to be more manageable.

What Is Included in a Preventive Overhead Crane Maintenance Plan?

– So if a company’s on a reactive plan and they want to move into a preventative plan, what’s something that changes for them?

– More Frequent Inspections. There’s requirements for Periodic and Frequent Inspections, and the timeframes that go along with those, but part of a preventive maintenance program are those more Frequent Inspections.

With those inspections, you’re able to see wear patterns and see things as they start wearing, and then you can plan that repair instead of having to do it on an emergency type of basis.

– Is there anything else that’s included in a good preventative maintenance plan?

– You’ll do lubrication and greasing, you’ll make brake adjustments. You know, sometimes you might do some of the minor repairs that you see, and we can go ahead and just take care of those things while we’ve got the crane out of service for the inspection, and it eliminates kind of nuisance breakdowns.

How Does Predictive Maintenance Work for Overhead Cranes?

– So when people hear predictive plan, they’re probably thinking sensors, AI, things like that. What does predictive actually mean for crane maintenance today?

– The way we look at a predictive maintenance strategy is really coming up with a condition-based tracking strategy. So we’ll do things from oil analysis and grease analysis to determine there’s bearing wear, there’s gear wear, and then make determinations on when we need to do a gearbox rebuild.

We’ll take wheel flange wear adjustments, so we’ll actually measure wheel flanges and provide that data so that we can track the trends of those wear, and we can see, okay, we’ve got six months that this is going to be worn beyond acceptable. We do those same kind of measurements for brake discs and brake shoes.

Heat sensors, we’ll have a thermal imaging camera to where we can find hotspots in contactors, and motors, and gear boxes, and bearings, and with those hotspots, we know that’s something that we need to look deeper into.

A common writeup on inspections is that something is worn. Well, as soon as it’s used, it’s worn.

– How worn?

– So, how worn? Is it worn but it’s still within specs and acceptable?

It’s kind of like your tires. As soon as you drive your new tires off the shop floor, they’re going to show wear as soon as you drive to the first stop sign, but how much wear? And so they’ll actually measure your tread depth, tell you, “Hey, your tires are worn to 2/32 or 3/32, or whatever, and at some point they say, “We recommend you get new tires.”

A predictive maintenance strategy follows that type of system where we actually take those measurements and then we provide forecasts of, “Hey, you’ve got this much time before we need to make this replacement.”

– So what conditions need to be true for a good predictive maintenance plan to work well?

– You have to do Frequent Inspections. Typically, those are going to be on a monthly basis. Depending on how much production, it could be as often as weekly. There could be some scenarios in which you’re looking at them every day, but the most common is a monthly inspection.

Which Facilities Need a Predictive Crane Maintenance Strategy?

– Where do you see predictive maintenance plans delivering the most value, then?

– Those are going to be in your high-production customers. They have a dollar amount that it costs them when those cranes are down. If they know what it costs when production shuts down, then a predictive strategy is the best way to go for those plants.

– So, do you have any examples of who those might be?

– Sure, so, you know, automotive plants, the tier-one automotive plants, they don’t keep inventory of all the parts. They show up in the plant, and then they immediately go onto the assembly line, and so those tier-one suppliers that are making those components, they have those same type of production requirements.

Steel mills, if a crane goes down in a steel mill and they’ve got a crucible full of molten steel, there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour in loss. They’re getting into where we’re using temperature sensors, and vibration sensors, and laser measurement tools, and a lot of different things to really measure any moving component.

How to Choose the Right Overhead Crane Maintenance Strategy for Your Facility

– So if I’m a maintenance manager, and I’m trying to decide which strategy is best for my facility, what are some questions that I might ask myself to help determine that? How can I determine that?

– What does it cost me if production goes down? And if that’s a large number, then you know, a predictive maintenance strategy is always going to cost less. And there’s several ways, you can hire a third party like us to come in and put your predictive maintenance strategy together. You can have your own in-house team that works on that strategy, or you can partner with an in-house team and a third party.

Making sure that the crane’s going to maximize its lifecycle a predictive maintenance is going to give you the most benefit, but it’s the most upfront cost. If production is not a highly critical, very expensive thing for a plant, and it’s not for everybody, then a predictive maintenance plan may not be the best strategy. It may be money spent that just doesn’t make sense.

– So, can you choose the maintenance plan per crane? Or do you need to choose a maintenance plan per facility?

– No, actually, per crane is a great strategy. You may have a production crane that, if that crane goes down, your plant shuts down, and you may have a maintenance crane that’s not that critical. And so implementing the same strategy on both of those cranes may not make sense, so certainly, you could have multiple strategies within the same facility.

How to Transition from Reactive to Preventive Maintenance

– So if I’m currently on a reactive plan right now, what’s the first step that I can take without overwhelming my team as I’m trying to move forward?

– Sure, most of the time it’s going to be a progression, and so going to a preventive maintenance, one of the biggest ones is wire ropes. Obviously, wire rope on a hoist is one of the most critical components. It’s a single fail point, and there’s no backup for it.

Well, if you use that reactive strategy as a wire rope maintenance strategy, if your wire rope breaks, you’ve created an immediate safety hazard. With measurements and proper inspections of those wire ropes, you can accurately predict how long that rope’s going to last, down to the week or the day, in some cases.

How to Build a Reliable Overhead Crane Maintenance Strategy

– So, is there one sign that you might be able to pinpoint to identify if your current maintenance plan is failing?

– If you have a lot of equipment breakdowns, you probably don’t have a great strategy.

– And how can Mazzella help with their maintenance strategy?

– We can consult with a customer, talk with them about their production needs, and about their usage of the cranes, and then we can provide them with guidance in putting together all of those plans, and then we can take it full course, and we can run with the whole thing and provide them with a complete maintenance strategy with inspections, repairs, and the whole thing.

– All right. So reactive, preventative, and predictive maintenance all have their place. The big takeaway is this. The right plan depends on how critical the crane is, how hard it’s working, and how much downtime you can actually tolerate. If you’re not sure where you fall, or if you’re dealing with constant fire drills, your next step is simple. Talk with one of our Crane Service Specialists.

We’ll help you identify realistic improvements and what a path forward looks like for your facility. Contact us through the link below.

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