“A stitch in time saves nine,” an ancient saying never gets old. Despite how fast the world revolves; prevention is better than cure. If you practice it at work, your business will keep running like a well-oiled machine.
Office equipment, like any other assets in your office, is subject to depreciation. Equipment downtime hinders work and makes it harder for your employees to accomplish daily tasks. This results in added expenses, which may amount to significant losses in your business.
Therefore, to ensure your employees always have access to well-functioning assets, you must regularly schedule repairs, replacements, servicing, and inspections.
This is where preventive maintenance comes in. Let’s explore what it is, its types, the advantages it offers, and what it incorporates.
What is Preventive Maintenance for Office Equipment?
Preventive maintenance falls under proactive inventory management. It adopts the necessary measures and precautions for equipment health and safety. It helps avoid equipment failures and accidents before they occur. Tidying your office space regularly, replacing printer inks in a timely manner, running anti-virus scans on laptop machines, and inspecting the air conditioning every year are all examples of preventive maintenance.
The primary aim of preventive maintenance is to minimize equipment risks and prevent failures. You might need to put certain precautions in your office or workplace if there are none. This will help you pay attention to what works other than repairing the broken pieces of equipment.
You may operate a small entity or business and assume preventive equipment maintenance is for heavy office equipment. Nevertheless, it also applies to your equipment and significantly mitigates costly damages and accidents.
As much as you are a manager or own a business, you will probably face some risks. Such risks may incorporate equipment safety and operations, employee and customer safety, and other areas.
Now, let us see the various kinds of preventive maintenance for your office equipment and its benefits.
Advantages of Preventive Maintenance of Office Equipment
By embracing preventive office equipment maintenance, it is evident that you will curb issues long before they happen. That is the whole point of care, right? However, if you still don’t feel convinced, other benefits might interest you such as:
- Preventive maintenance makes sure your office equipment lasts longer. Hence, in the end, you will spend a smaller amount on repairs and replacements.
- You can avoid unexpected equipment failures and breakdowns. Hence, your equipment and employees will operate within the scheduled time, avoiding overtime payments.
- You will be able to mitigate employee and customer safety risks. Therefore, it significantly minimizes the risks of workers’ compensation and lawsuits which might be costly.
- Preventive equipment maintenance helps minimize business closure and downtime that might result from unexpected machine or equipment failure.
- Maintenance reflects minimal energy consumption from the equipment. Hence, you will minimize the amount spent on utility bills.
What Incorporates Preventive Maintenance for Office Equipment
Preventive office equipment maintenance considers even slight anomalies or defects that might cause significant issues in the long run. Here are some of the things you must check to prevent downtime in your office:
● Electricals & devices
You may face material damage when electrical components fail or are not functioning as expected. It is essential to check all equipment including laptops, machines, and printers. Inspecting switches and sockets help avert electrical accidents with employees or yourself.
Also, regularly cleaning and inspecting exhaust fans will help maintain one’s health. Properly examining electricals promotes preventive maintenance.
● Lighting
Your office requires unwavering lighting that helps you handle operations with ease. Regularly check the lamps and bulbs and replace the damp ones and those with minimal lighting. You may opt to replace entire lamp sets by replacing them on expiry to minimize costs. Also, the cleanliness of lamp surfaces is essential to maintain the intensity of the light.
● HVAC System
The building’s breathing mechanism (HVAC system) is among the topmost essential equipment. Regularly replace your air filters to curb airflow disruptions. You also need to check, clean, and lubricate the motors in the ACs and blower. This will help in their proper operation and promote a healthy workspace. You will also prevent costly repairs in case of damages in the future.
● Safety & Vigilance
Safety is vital in your business as you are responsible for the worker’s safety. To ensure preventive maintenance, you need to often assess the safety instruments. Regularly renew your first aid kit and restock it after use or every month. Keep your CCTV working at all times as well? Here’s a CCTV checklist that you can use to make sure the system is always functioning at top capacity.
Types of Office Equipment Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance involves unreactive maintenance that can take various forms for different offices. Here are the significant types of office equipment’s preventative maintenance:
1. Usage-Based Maintenance
If you use specific equipment and machinery daily, you may consider tracking their usage, production cycles, operating hours, and equipment monitors. It is crucial, especially when you’re operating with equipment that does not give notifications or tickets when you have been running for a specific time. An example could be the coffee machine or even the table tennis table at work. Track how often these items are being used and get them checked frequently.
2. Time-Based Maintenance
It is essential to have an annual or monthly schedule for cleaning and checking your office equipment. Whether the plan aligns with the manufacturer’s recommendations, your office equipment needs regular inspections. These checkups will keep you on track and ensure equipment operates in the best way possible.
When designing a time-based maintenance schedule, you must remember the main tools, equipment, utilities, and technology your office requires for proper operations. This along with keeping maintenance logs & reports help identify items that need more care.
3. Predictive Maintenance
Predictive equipment maintenance uses sensors like vibration or temperature sensors to get an equipment’s information. Generally, predictive maintenance is about technology that can make work orders when your office equipment requires an upgrade or inspection. This technology incorporates monitoring the equipment’s condition for performance tracking. Also, identifying potential defects that might lead to a crash in the system.
Predictive maintenance is more relevant to food production, manufacturing, power, and energy firms. Predictive maintenance information can help you predict when a system failure or breakdown might happen. These predictions are drawn from previous occurrences helping you plan for maintenance operations to mitigate crashes on your equipment.
4. Prescriptive Maintenance
Prescriptive equipment maintenance is an advanced form of predictive maintenance. The process employs artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics to develop maintenance predictions and address them. In simple terms, prescriptive maintenance offers recommendations on system operation’s improvement and makes follow-ups. This is for generating a work order and overseeing the whole process.
Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? That is because it is probably the best choice for your office. However, if you regularly check your equipment manually and heed the manufacturer’s inspection processes and recommendations, you are practicing preventive maintenance. Therefore, you can care for and maintain your equipment effectively without needing technical preventive maintenance.
Final Thoughts
No matter how simple or complicated preventive office equipment maintenance may seem, it ensures proper care of equipment. All you need is to plan for regular maintenance and inspection of your equipment.
With preventive maintenance, you can save on costs, improve the life expectancy of your equipment, minimize energy consumption, and mitigate workplace risks. Also, considering
components like lighting, electricals, HVAC system, and safety can help prevent equipment failure or downtime.
Start taking little precautions today and have a prosperous and safer future in your operations.
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