Identifying Vital Facility Maintenance Concerns in Supply Chain Operations

Frequently, supply chain management (SCM) initiatives encounter obstacles that might impede the delivery of products in a timely manner.

These challenges may arise at any point of the supply chain cycle, including planning, sourcing, production, and delivery. Moreover, interruptions might have a cumulative and negative multiplier impact, reducing the overall efficiency of the supply chain.

Due to the sensitivity of the supply chain, the facility maintenance team must assist supply chain managers in staying ahead of possible difficulties by carefully planning for them. Additionally, maintenance personnel working behind the scenes may guarantee that the entire process, from manufacture to final delivery, runs well.

The following are the most prevalent maintenance issues in supply chain facilities management.

Three Significant Supply Chain Facility Maintenance Issues and Possible Resolutions

1) Maintaining Current Levels of Productivity

Historically, maintenance was considered as an undesirable cost center. As organizations implement more preventative maintenance techniques, they may notice that the maintenance role has transformed from a "burden" to a big profit source.

Maintenance enhances the performance and availability of equipment in the workplace, the physical environment, and any other business setting.

On the manufacturing floor, for instance, the need for maintenance is readily apparent. The effectiveness of the production process cannot be maintained if the equipment is damaged or not performing at suitable levels.

A crucial element that regularly affects the supply chain is equipment failure. It is anticipated that unscheduled downtime will cause industries to lose up to 5 percent of their production capacity. In addition, it reduces manufacturing efficiency through the following effects:

Delay in the production procedure. As a result, only if there are items will there be sales or profit.

Higher resource expenditures for items such as spare parts and extra pay for maintenance personnel who work to repair broken equipment Defective and unfinished products manufactured when a machine was damaged but still operational.

A well-executed preventative maintenance policy will eliminate or, at the very least, considerably limit the recurrence of the bulk of these problems.

Managers of maintenance should seek proactive maintenance solutions as opposed to reactive maintenance, which consists of waiting until equipment breaks down before repairing it. Predictive maintenance and a preventive maintenance plan (time-based, pre-planned intervention) are two alternatives (condition-based monitoring and intervention).

2) Stockroom and storage

It is typical at many institutions to realize that the goods stored in their warehouses are worth more than the building itself. Therefore, these items must be secured and secure.

The maintenance division is also responsible for ensuring that any warehouse or storage facility under its jurisdiction provides an environment that is adequate for storing manufactured items and raw materials. This may be accomplished by doing the following steps:

* Correctly maintain the warehouse by fixing leaking roofs, replacing broken window panes, replacing damaged light bulbs, and restoring unstable shelving, among other things.

The condition of forklifts and other mobile equipment must be maintained at all times.

Observe how safety equipment is utilized and ensure that safety procedures are adhered to. For example, all emergency exits must be well marked and unobstructed.

Maintain and test firefighting equipment on a regular basis.

Use preventative hygiene and pest management strategies.

If the completed goods are perishable or intended for human consumption, further care must be taken to ensure that the freezers and other cooling equipment are constantly operational (such as food, beverages, or medicine).

Transportation and fleet management are two additional important parts of supply chain facility management. Prior to the timely delivery of completed items to the client, the raw materials must be physically carried to a warehouse.

The maintenance crew goes above and above to ensure logistical efficiency, which involves planning. Has anybody investigated if the trucks used to deliver the things are waterproof, for instance? If it began to rain on the route to the customer's location, would the items still arrive in perfect shape and safety?

In addition, logistics planning should incorporate items that must be carried under certain circumstances, such as food and cold or frozen goods.

However, the temperature must be optimal since some commodities, particularly pharmaceutical goods such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and biotech goods, are frequently damaged by unintentional freezing during transport. Any inaccuracy at this stage has the potential to affect the entire batch and interrupt the supply chain.

Clearly, every stage of the supply chain process is extremely prone to mistake and delay, as seen by the preceding. By collaborating closely with the Facilities maintenance team, the supply chain unit may be able to mitigate a number of these consequences before they become a problem.

Source Article: Supply Chain Operations: Identifying Critical Facility Maintenance Issues