Heavy Equipment Maintenance, Check out the Types and Maintenance Tips!

Heavy equipment maintenance is the process of regularly inspecting, cleaning, and repairing various parts of heavy machinery, including hydraulics, engines, and moving parts.

Machine maintenance is either preventive or reactive. Preventive maintenance involves regularly scheduled maintenance of the equipment and can include oil changes, tire pressure checks, and routine cleaning.

Reactive maintenance, on the other hand, occurs when a machine fails or does not operate efficiently. It may involve more downtime than Preventive Maintenance and is more expensive as technicians diagnose equipment weaknesses.

Taking the time and occasional expense to keep equipment in good condition ensures that it will function properly when needed.

Well-maintained machines also tend to last longer than those that are not. Moreover, machine maintenance provides additional benefits to businesses. Let’s find out together with  TransTRACK!

How to Determine Heavy Equipment Maintenance

A proactive machine maintenance schedule relies heavily on Preventive Maintenance (PM). Often, simple service tasks such as oil changes or coolant top-ups are overlooked for long periods of time. While these items may seem minor, they can have a major negative impact on our equipment.

Creating a comprehensive PM schedule allows us to constantly monitor our assets. Scheduling machine PMs may sound daunting, but developing a schedule can be as simple as following mileage or service hour intervals. This process can be further automated through fleet management software.

When handling our own Preventive Maintenance, consider creating work orders for each task. Work orders help us plan and execute service tasks on time and automatically update inventory levels on parts used.

Streamlining work orders through fleet maintenance software allows us to communicate with maintenance teams as soon as issues arise, helping them get to work quickly. Being in smooth communication with our team helps us track repairs easily and helps get assets back in working order.

Types of Heavy Equipment Maintenance

Well, this time we will find out about what types of heavy equipment maintenance are. These types are:

1. Preventive maintenance

According to Wikipedia Preventive Maintenance (PM) is “a routine for periodic inspection” with the aim of “spotting small problems and fixing them before major problems develop”. Ideally, “nothing breaks”. The main objective of Preventive Maintenance is to perform subsequent maintenance activities without damage and failure of machinery and equipment. It includes activities such as partial or complete servicing at specific periods, oil changes, lubrication, etc.

2. Predictive maintenance

This maintenance activity is also carried out in advance which means solving the problem in advance. This activity is more like a preventive measure to avoid problems. The main purpose of predictive maintenance is to determine the condition of equipment & machinery so that it can be known when maintenance activities can be carried out.

This is one of the promising ways of cost savings. It also helps estimate the stage of degradation of assets, equipment, and machinery. (Both of the above are proactive maintenance activities carried out after a certain period of time such as 30 days or 45 days especially predictive maintenance).

3. Corrective maintenance

Corrective maintenance restores the equipment depending on the fault. It includes various steps after the equipment fails such as diagnosis, cause of failure then ordering replacement parts & installing new parts then testing the functionality and continuing the process.

Corrective maintenance can be divided into two parts immediate corrective maintenance and deferred corrective maintenance. In the process of immediate corrective maintenance, one has to take quick action after the failure.

On the other hand, deferred corrective maintenance, in this process the maintenance activities are scheduled later, there are many reasons behind it. Such as, replacement parts may not be available, it may take a long time, or technicians are required in some other high-priority cases.

4. Routine maintenance

The main objectives of routine maintenance activities are cleaning, oiling, lubricating, changing batteries & changing oil. Routine maintenance activities can be carried out on a weekly or half-monthly basis. It depends on the equipment working.

As a professional equipment maintenance practice, one should keep the emphasis on maintenance rather than repair. In simple words, to keep our equipment in good working condition, routine maintenance should be performed regularly.

5. Emergency maintenance

This activity is a reactive equipment maintenance activity. The main purpose of emergency maintenance is to prevent threats to life, property and property of the company. Emergency maintenance can be implemented to keep facilities operational and safe. Emergency maintenance is widely used in chemical plants, tenant buildings, etc.

Six Tips for Heavy Equipment Maintenance

Just like we take care of our cars, homes and bodies, heavy equipment needs constant attention and care.

Here are six ways to organize the maintenance of heavy assets so that looking after them becomes a regular and effective part of our workday.

1. Develop a Maintenance Routine

During routine maintenance, we should check the amount of oil, verify fluid levels, and keep an eye out for small cracks or chips. Our equipment manufacturers should provide information on how often this should be done.

However, we should immediately attend to minor workplace events such as low fuel and punctured tires.

Avoiding these can cause significant damage the longer the equipment is forced to compensate for the damaged part.

2. Check Equipment for Signs of Wear and Tear

Looking for evidence of regular minor damage to our machines and fixing it promptly helps ward off major repairs, and keeps our assets operating at their best every day.

Doing so even extends the life of the asset.

Sometimes the signs that our machines need minor repairs or inspections are not visible by walking around or looking at gauges. For example, your machine may show evidence of a problem through its exhaust. If it is normally white or gray, a sudden change to black or a change in odor is a red flag.

Another early indicator of a potential repair issue is low fluid levels. While this may be normal for some machine functions, if it occurs too soon after a scheduled refill or routine maintenance, it may indicate a coolant leak or a faulty valve.

The machine is noisy, but if it makes unusual or unnatural noises, it’s time to check the moving parts.

Grinding, clanking, or hissing sounds are early indicators of failure in the machine’s main systems. Stay alert for changes in odor or vibration levels as well.

3. Manage Engine Fluids and Ensure Regular Lubrication

Effective fluid management doesn’t just include checking fuel and coolant levels. Lubrication is an important aspect of good machine health.

Checking lubricant levels should be a regular part of basic and preventive maintenance. When doing so, you should ensure that the lubricant shows no signs of leakage from nearby seals or hoses.

When changing the lubricant, it is best to use the type specified by the manufacturer. And while low levels of lubricant are harmful, more lubricant is not necessarily better. Too much lubricant invites grease buildup, clogging, and decreased performance.

4. Don’t Overwork Our Machines

When trying to stay on schedule or make up for lost time on a project, we may be tempted to push our staff and machines a little harder to keep supervisors, clients and accountants happy.

However, using machines beyond the recommended limits is not only dangerous and potentially violates safety regulations, but it can also shorten the life of our equipment or contribute to costly repair work.

An overworked machine puts a strain on its main components, but it also puts a strain on smaller items – gears, silicone rings and connection points.

Over time, weak or worn small parts of equipment can trigger larger failures.

5. Train Our Employees

Paying attention to preventive maintenance won’t mean much if our employees aren’t properly trained on how to use the machine properly, or how to recognize signs that the machine is out of alignment.

If our staff understand what constitutes safe behavior and why, they are more likely to follow the guidelines. Also, emphasizing that machines require special care will help employees treat them like their own.

Machine training should be standardized, precise, and regularly updated.

6. Document Service and Set Reminders for Future Improvements

Knowing what our machines need, and when they need it, is critical to their operation.

Installing regular schedules and reminders for future equipment services can keep track of documentation for us, help us budget for Preventive Maintenance, and allow us to better control our personal and jobsite time tables.

Asset management software is a modern and efficient way to track machine maintenance. Some systems, such as TransTRACK, allow scheduling on the go through the app, eliminating wasteful paperwork that can easily get lost on construction sites.

Documenting services through software allow employees across the company to access this information at any time. Data is much more securely stored than on a whiteboard or in a physical notebook.

You can schedule heavy equipment maintenance regularly by subscribing to TransTRACK’s Vehicle Maintenance System. Take your company’s operations to the next level, extend the life of your vehicles and ensure they are always safe and ready to use. Manage vehicle repair and maintenance schedules and costs, inventory, and mechanics with us. Get vehicle repair and maintenance, sales systems, inventory, maintenance cost prediction, and mechanics with a VMS subscription from TransTRACK!