In heavy industrial environments like facilities that produce steel, aluminum, and other primary metals, maintenance should not be an afterthought. Your maintenance program should be a well-thought plan that protects uptime, ensures safety, and reduces long-term costs.
Reactive, Preventive, or Predictive?
When it comes to below-the-hook lifting equipment, selecting the right maintenance plan can make the difference between smooth operations and costly shutdowns. There are three approaches companies can take with maintaining operations: reactive, preventative, or predictive.
Which strategy is right for your plant? Below we take a look at each approach.
Reactive Maintenance: Wait and See
Reactive maintenance waits until something breaks. While this “run-to-failure” model might seem cost-effective in the short term, it often leads to:
- Unexpected downtime that halts production
- Scrambling to source emergency parts
- Safety risks due to unplanned failures
- Higher total cost of ownership over time
For lifting equipment handling heavy loads or operating in high-heat environments, reactive maintenance is a high-risk approach that often proves more expensive than planned alternatives.
Preventive Maintenance: Proactive and Practical
Preventive maintenance involves regularly scheduled inspections, lubrication, and part replacements based on time or usage intervals. This is a proven strategy for:
- Extending equipment life
- Meeting OSHA/ASME compliance standards
- Reducing the frequency of unplanned outages
Preventative maintenance is a great way to reduce the need for emergency service and avoid unexpected downtime. There still is, however, the potential for problems between service intervals. Your team needs to be alert to any signs of potential problems, which may still occur, despite having a regularly scheduled maintenance regiment.
Predictive Maintenance: Smarter Decisions With Real Data
Predictive maintenance uses sensors, usage data, and inspection analytics to detect early signs of wear or stress before a failure occurs. For below-the-hook devices, this might include:
- Monitoring lift counts, loads, or force thresholds
- Forecasting pin or bearing wear based on use
- Flagging critical components approaching failure conditions
This approach minimizes unnecessary servicing while helping avoid catastrophic breakdowns. Predictive maintenance is increasingly viable for mid-sized operations as more right-sized monitoring tools become available.
What is Your Best Strategy? It Could be a Combination
Most facilities benefit from a hybrid strategy:
- Preventive maintenance ensures compliance and covers known failure points.
- Predictive tools add intelligence and reduce unnecessary interventions.
- Reactive maintenance should be reserved for low-risk, non-critical components.
For below-the-hook lifting devices, the right combination of maintenance strategies will depend on your equipment’s duty cycle, operating environment, and the cost of downtime.
The Bradley Team Can Help Design Your Strategy
Increasing pressure on companies in terms of safety, reliability, and productivity, means the ability to justify your approach with data is more important than ever. Coming up with the best maintenance plan for your business is a lot easier with the help of an experienced team of experts. Bradley Lifting Corp offers a service platform that can take care of maintenance for you, taking the pressure off of your team. We can implement value-add upgrades such as predictive data sensors, in addition to handling your planned maintenance services.
Contact Bradley Lifting Corp. for assistance in developing the right maintenance program and strategy for your operations.