maintenance Archives

Innovative robotics and automation technology are helping organizations get more done, in less time and with limited facility space.

Warehousing, distribution centers and logistics companies are some of the organizations that are seeing big benefits with robotics.

According to the 2020 MHI Annual Industry Report, 67 percent of survey respondents said they believed robotics had the power to disrupt their industry and offer a competitive advantage for their organization.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that 39 percent of surveyed companies said they’ve adopted robotics and automation. An additional 73 percent of those surveyed said they plan to add more robotics or start implementing robotics in the next five years.

Benefits of robotics and automation

There’s no doubt that robotics and automation can help organizations meet their mounting needs to standardize production and overcome challenges related to high staff turnover rates. With robotics, you can increase your facility’s outputs without expanding your physical footprint or facility size.

Robotics can help organizations with staffing challenges by offering the following:

-High staff turnover rates often mean added expenses in training and keeping a facility running at full capacity. Robotics can help reduce this fluctuation in staffing by offering a consistent and reliable work source.

-As warehouses, logistics companies and distribution centers look to streamline operations, it often means increasing the weight of fulfillment carts. This puts added strain on workers and can lead to workers’ compensation claims and costly time off, lowering production. Robotics help streamlines product picking and packing activities without straining employees physically.

-Robotics can assist staff members with learning efficient routes through warehouses to pick and pack products. With artificial intelligence, robotics can map out a way to efficiently pick and pack products throughout a facility. This can offer heightened job satisfaction for workers that use “cobots” (collaborative robots) to assist them in their daily activities, allowing them to be more efficient.

But robotics offer more than just improved staffing and a reduction in fluctuations from staff turnover. Robotics can also help facilities do more with the same amount of space. Some ways robotics help with stronger outputs despite capacity limits include:

-Better inventory management allows your organization to automate the inventory process so you have to keep less on hand.

-Set aisle sizes based on robotic width and smart technology that tells machines when another robot is in an aisle. That way, you reduce the need for two-way traffic in an aisle so you can shrink the aisle size and make better use of the space.

-Reduction in need for additional workspaces, such as electronic scales, because it’s built into the robot’s system.

Maintenance for robotics and automation

But with robotics comes new requirements for the maintenance team.

Preventative maintenance becomes increasingly more important as keeping equipment up and running is crucial to your business operations.

If the robots fail regularly, you could experience worse staff turnover rates than you did without the technology as staff members get frustrated and tired of the loss in productivity. Your organization’s agility and ability to respond quickly to requests become more important than ever as you begin to rely more heavily on robotics.

To add robotics to your warehouse, logistics or distribution center operations, you need a maintenance plan that includes:

-Condition monitoring: Prepare a dashboard that shows each robot’s condition and expected date for new parts to prevent breakdowns.

-Work order requests: Allow staff members to make a work order request and have a process for assigning those work orders to your maintenance team for fast service.

-Reporting: Run reports that help your maintenance team see how often each robot requires maintenance so you can project and anticipate that maintenance in the future to avoid costly breakdowns.

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) help warehouses, logistics companies and distribution centers operate efficiently while taking advantage of the competitive advantage robotics can offer.

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For more than 30 years, Eagle Technology Inc. has worked with various industries. The Mequon, Wisconsin-based company offers clients the ability to boost productivity, control costs and maintain compliance, all from its web and mobile-enabled CMMS software, Proteus MMX.

Supply chain managers and procurement specialists often must reduce the effects of maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) expenditures on the supply chain. That’s not always easy, but these five tips should spark meaningful and measurable progress.

1. Understand the Impacts of Poor MRO Management

MRO encompasses essential items that are not part of the finished products — sometimes referred to as indirect costs. For example, the category might include lubricant for a machine, safety goggles for workers and scheduled maintenance appointments for equipment.

MRO expenditures typically account for 5 to 10% of the cost of goods sold. Some people initially view that percentage range as small and do not manage MRO procurement as well as they should or at all. However, that’s a mistake, because running out of critical items or failing to stay on top of maintenance could bring knock-on effects.

For example, if a production line machine runs out of an essential chemical, its output could completely stop until someone re-supplies. Alternatively, running out of safety gear could put lives at risk and expose a company to scrutiny from regulators if accidents happen. Weighing the consequences of inadequate MRO management should provide the encouragement any company needs to take it more seriously.

2. Determine How to Mitigate Climate Change-Related Effects

Many leaders across all industries are paying more attention to how climate change could affect MRO expenditures. For example, some scientists believe climate change makes hurricanes more severe, causing more rainfall than past storms did. In that case, maintaining a building may involve purchasing and installing flood barriers or changing a warehouse layout, so the most valuable items stay out of the reach of rising water.

Imagine an area starts experiencing more severe winter storms. In that case, a company’s MRO budget may include more salt and other de-icing products to keep loading bays and other regularly used areas safe and accessible. Alternatively, business leaders may need to invest in cloud software that lets some people work from home if they can’t reach their workplaces due to icy roads. When companies take preventive measures like these, their overall weather-linked MRO costs should decrease due to better preparedness.

Inclement weather’s effects on the supply chain are not merely hypothetical. A report showed that the 2011 floods in Thailand affected more than 14,500 entities that used Thai suppliers. Those weather events resulted in billions of dollars worth of losses for the companies that had operations disrupted. Thus, inclement weather could raise operational expenses if a business ramps up production to meet the needs of clients affected by production stoppages from other suppliers in hard-hit areas.

3. Create an Effective Preventive Maintenance Program

When maintaining the equipment that helps the supply chain run smoothly, there are two primary approaches to pursue — reactive and preventive care. The first type centers on addressing problems once they appear. Conversely, proactive maintenance is all about having technicians assess machines often enough to catch minor issues before they cause significant outages or require total machine replacement.

One survey showed that 80% of maintenance personnel preferred preventive maintenance. The respondents found it especially valuable as part of a multidimensional maintenance plan. Such an approach lets companies avoid the costliest or most time-consuming repairs. That’s because technicians notice most issues while the abnormalities are still small and simple to address.

Business leaders may not immediately associate some MRO expenditures with preventive maintenance. For example, one professional accepted a position as the maintenance manager of a fully automated warehouse. Soon after assuming the role, he assessed how cleanliness supported preventive maintenance by showing more details about functionality. He gave the example of how it’s more challenging to spot a machine leak when the floor below the equipment is dirty.

4. Set Relevant Key Performance Indicators

Many company leaders — especially those who recognize data’s value — set key performance indicators (KPIs) to track whether improvements on particular metrics occur over time. If they do, that generally means the business is moving toward its goals. On the other hand, if KPIs get worse or stay static despite employees’ best efforts, it’s time to assess what’s going wrong and make the necessary alterations.

Specific KPIs are exceptionally valuable for decreasing MRO’s impact on the supply chain. For example, measuring the percentage of slow-moving inventory and keeping it under 10% is a suggested ideal. Achieving that aim shows company leaders are not making the common mistake of buying a product that falls under their MRO expenditure umbrella, but finding it expires before they can use all or even most of it.

Inventory accuracy is another worthwhile KPI to track. An ideal is 95% or above. Incorrect MRO product counts could prove disastrous — particularly when many purchasing representatives buy PPE to keep supply chain workers safe. Imagine a scenario where a computer system says a company has 1,000 masks, but, due to human error, they only have 10 in stock. That’s an extreme example that illustrates the importance of staying on top of inventory counts.

5. Assess and Tweak the MRO Budget

Some people make the mistake of treating the MRO budget as a static entity. However, doing that could cause them to miss out on money-saving opportunities. For example, using one MRO supplier instead of several can reduce transactional overhead. In addition to saving on shipping, they may also become eligible for volume discounts.

Regularly scrutinizing the MRO budget can also illuminate whether businesses may be reducing costs in the wrong ways. Maybe they switched to cheaper cutting tools to minimize spending. These may have a lower upfront cost, but add more expenses to the overall budget. Perhaps employees complained and said the tools broke often or quickly became dull during typical use. Thus, managers would probably buy more of the items than before while trying to accommodate those shortcomings.

Making MRO Spending Reductions a Priority

These five tips show how businesses can act strategically to limit MRO spending’s adverse effects on the supply chain. Doing so can keep a company within its budget, plus make it more responsive to marketplace changes that may require operational changes to meet demands.

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Emily Newton is an industrial journalist. As Editor-in-Chief of Revolutionized, she regularly covers how technology is changing the industry.

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