10. Maintenance
Planned preventative maintenance and condition-based maintenance
How to set up and manage a compliant asset care system in the food industry
The standards
Planned preventive maintenance and condition-based maintenance is a requirement of the following standards:
| BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 | 4.7.1 Maintenance schedule
4.7.4 Post-maintenance cleaning |
| BRCGS Packaging Issue 6 | 4.7.1 Maintenance programme
4.7.4 Equipment checks 4.6.2 New equipment |
| BRCGS Agents & Brokers Issue 3 | Not applicable |
| BRCGS Storage & Distribution Issue 4 | 6.2.1 X Planned maintenance schedule
6.2.2 Maintenance operations 6.2.5 Records |
| FSSC22000 Version 5.1 | ISO 8.2.4e) Equipment and maintenance |
| IFS Food Version 7 | 4.16.1 Maintenance plan |
| SQF Edition 9 | 11.2.1.1 Maintenance
11.2.1.2 Maintenance schedule 11.2.1.5 Maintenance controls |
What’s changed in BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9?
Clause 4.7.1 has been updated to:
- Increase the scope of the maintenance system to include mobile equipment and battery-charging equipment.
- The frequency of maintenance of equipment must be reviewed, following breakdown and repair, as this is an indication that the system isn’t effective.
Further clarification has been added into the interpretation of the clause. If you use condition monitoring, it’s been clarified that this must be in addition to planned preventive maintenance, not instead of it. Also, any corrective actions, or preventive actions from reviews must be completed, which means there must be evidence of their verification.
The purpose
The planned preventative maintenance system, or PPM as it’s known, is designed to prevent equipment from failing which could cause contamination of the product and impact customer orders.
The requirements
Scope
Maintenance tasks are carried out at a set frequency, to service the equipment and prevent breakdown.
The maintenance system must cover:
- Plant machinery, such as roll cages.
- Static equipment, such as racking.
- Mobile equipment, such as pallet trucks.
- Battery-charging equipment.
- Processing equipment.
- Equipment which controls the environment, such as temperature or extraction.
- Offline measuring equipment calibration.
- Robotic systems.
- Utility equipment.
Risk assessment
The frequency and type of maintenance tasks must be based on a documented risk assessment, which considers:
- Manufacturers guidelines.
- The likelihood of product contamination.
- The frequency and severity of equipment failure.
- The impact of failure, such as loss of traceability, damage, or contamination to product.
- General condition of the equipment.
- Design aspects which increase or reduce failure.
- How often the equipment is used.
- The need for critical spares.
Maintenance systems
Maintenance of current and new equipment must be managed through one or a combination of:
- Planned preventative maintenance – using service-based tasks.
- Condition-based maintenance (using condition monitoring).
Scheduling
Maintenance must be scheduled outside operating hours, wherever it poses a risk to product safety.
Where this is not practical, a risk assessment must be carried out and these risks must be mitigated through precautionary measures, to prevent the contamination of products.
Precautions may include:
- Removing the item to be maintained away from operational areas, for example to the workshop.
- Using screening to protect the operational area.
The risks to be considered may include:
- Additional movement of personnel, such as contractors.
- Dust or other contaminants being created during maintenance.
- Normal process flows being disturbed to accommodate the maintenance activity.
Relevant staff must be consulted when maintenance or repairs are to be completed in product areas. This is to ensure that the product isn’t put at risk.
Validation
Where measuring equipment is maintained, it must be:
- Revalidated where the maintenance impacts its validation.
- Verified for accuracy prior to handback.
Condition-based maintenance
Condition-based maintenance is a system which works by monitoring specific equipment indicators that highlight when the equipment may be about to fail. Maintenance is then implemented to prevent failure.
It isn’t an alternative to planned preventive maintenance, but an additional failure prevention strategy.
Monitoring may include:
- Vibration.
- Ultrasonic.
- Temperature.
- Pressure assessment.
- Oil condition.
- Thermal imaging.
Monitoring may be continuous or may be task based.
Records
Maintenance tasks must be recorded. Where external suppliers are used for maintenance, service records must be retained as evidence.
Review
Equipment frequency must be reviewed after breakdown and repairs, as this is an indication that the system isn’t effective.
Its crucial to get senior management commitment to PPM schedule – some food business believe, unfortunately, that if it isn’t broke then why fix it
I think it’s important that part of the scheduling process needs to be the allocation of a predicted completion time for each maintenance task. This is necessary to ensure that sufficient resource is available within the maintenance team to keep on top of their routine preventative maintenance duties and minimise the potential for slippage.