AN ASSESSMENT OF MAINTENANCE OF WORKSHOP EQUIPMENT

ABSTRACT
Maintenance is the technical exercise that is usually carries out on machines to restore a component going to fail or failed component back to it design function in the machine.

The role of maintenance in machine work shop can not be over emphasized, because without it, many causality that would have been recorded in a workshop would have been much, most especially in some machine workshop that deal with the use of hazardous chemical in their production process of materials. e.g petroleum company.

The need for maintenance in a workshop practice emerged so as to reduce repetitive break down of machine and accident to the operator, can be minimizes during the come of operating the machine.

Also it is through this maintenance that the total running cost of a company can be reduced to greater minimum and if this maintenance practice is failed to be implemented in an organization, they are going to face the consequence of not practicing the expedient ingredient of workshop equipment’s and will as well increase the running cost which suppose not have increased if maintenance task has been in their organizational budget.

Therefore, the role of maintenance in workshop is very important that any organization set up without it will definitely run into lost and lack of efficiency in their productions.

CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION TO MAINTENANCE OF WORKSHOP EQUIPMENT
All action necessary for retaining a machine or machine component to its normal condition, including servicing, repair, modification, over hauled, inspection and condition verification.
It can also be referred to as the procedural and periodic actions taken to restore a machine to its designed function and these are of different priority which are as follows:
i. Emergency work (high order priority general offline)
ii. Differed work (low order priority)
iii. To reduce repetitive breakdown.
iv. To reconditioning or redesign job.
However, maintenance task are of different types which are:
i. Preventive maintenance
ii. Corrective maintenance
iii. Break down maintenance
Preventive maintenance:- These are the necessary actions that is required in an organizations or workshops to minimize damage or break down to the machines used and some other equipment in the workshop.
This maintenance task is carried out usually before the machine or equipment used in the workshop developed fault e.g changing the lubricating oil weekly or monthly even yearly depending on the level of usage and quality of the oil.
Corrective maintenance:- These are the actions necessitated due to defect or fault developed by machine or equipment used in the workshop. In this kind of maintenance immediate actions are necessary to prevent further damage to the machine and to the working personnel in the workshop.
Break down maintenance:- These are redesigns or installations that are carried out in a workshop, when a machine has completely break down which then need for redesign or re-installation of new component of the machine.
1.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF MAINTENANCE
i. To achieve production quality and customer satisfaction through adjustable and serviced equipment.
ii. To maximize useful life of equipment.
iii. To keep equipment safe and prevent safety hazards.
iv. To minimize frequency and severity of interruptions.
v. To maximize production capacity through high utilization of facility
1.2 IMPORTANT OF MAINTAINANCE
The main important of regular maintenance is to ensure that all equipment required for production is operating at 100% efficiency at all times through short daily inspections, cleaning, lubricating and making minor adjustments, minor problems can be detected and corrected before they become a major problem that can shutdown a production line.

A good maintenance program requires company-wide participation and support by everyone ranging from the executive to the shop floor personnel.
1.3 SCOPE OF MAINTENANCE
Many steps can be taken to ensure that the aims and objectives of maintenance is achieved, but only a few of these will be mentioned which are as follows;
i. Improvement of the quality of equipment and components through improved design and/or tighter manufacturing standards.
ii. Improvements in the design of equipment to facilitate the replacement of broken items and inspection and underneath equipment’s.
iii. Improvements in the layout of equipment to facilitate maintenance work i.e providing space around or underneath equipment’s.
iv. Providing slack in the operating system, i.e providing excess capacity so that the failure of equipment does not affect the performance of other equipment.
v. Using work in progress to ensure that the failure of equipment is not immediately reflected in a shortage of materials or parts for a subsequent piece of equipment.
vi. Establishing a repair facility so that through speedy replacement of broken parts, equipment down time is reduced.
vii. Undertaking preventive maintenance, which through regular inspection and or replacement of critical parts, reduces the occurrences of breakdowns.