Failure reduction in manufacturing systems through the risk management approach and the development of a reactive maintenance model

Maintenance and failure costs of production machines increase the overall operating cost of a manufacturing organisation and will reduce the profit margin. Hence, management is interested in minimising the resources allotted to these non-productive activities. This work includes a case study, wherein the failures of a plastic injection moulding machine are examined. The reactive maintenance model (RMM) is developed in which risk management technique (RMT) is used to analyse the causes of the failures. Corrective measures are taken to avoid failures and a suitable preventive maintenance (PM) programme is followed to keep the machines in working condition. The loss before and after implementing the RMM is compared using Taguchi's loss function. In this paper, the analysis, development of maintenance model, implementation and results of implementation of the model are presented.