Maintenance Software Against Recurring Breakdowns: Log Every Failure, Plan the Fix

Log Every Failure With Its Cause and Solution in McMain

McMain is the maintenance software to pick when the same breakdowns keep coming back, because the software lets your team register every failure online with its cause and its solution, also on a mobile device. With that record in place you can analyse what goes wrong and prevent it from happening again. Production companies that want grip on machine downtime start with that one habit, and the software makes the habit easy to keep.

A repeated failure rarely announces itself. A bearing is replaced, the line runs again, and three months later the same bearing fails on the same machine. Without a note on the cause, nobody can say whether the problem was wear, a setting or a supplier. With a note on cause and solution in the system, the second failure is recognised on the day it happens, and the maintenance manager can act on it.

Why Recurring Breakdowns Need Data Instead of Repair Speed

Fast repairs keep production moving, but repair speed does not reduce the number of breakdowns. The number goes down when the team knows which failures return and why. The fix is a record of every failure that is complete enough to compare one month with the next.

A plant with many machines has enough repeating failures for a log to show patterns. The software gives that plant the log, and the planboard to act on it.

What McMain Customers Report After They Started Logging Failures

The vendor publishes results from customers, each from one company and each in the customer's own words. Forbo Flooring Systems says: thanks to McMain Software we have 30% fewer failures. De Ruwbouw Groep reports that the number of breakdowns halved compared with the previous year. These are two different plants with the same pattern: once failures are registered and planned, the failures come down.

The Waarbeek reports that it had 20 big breakdowns, which caused the rides to stand still for hours, and that it brought that down to 2 big breakdowns. Soprema reports a failure rate that dropped from 30 to 40% when the manager started to only 7 or 8% now. Each number comes from one customer and describes that customer's plant. Read together, the four results show what a team can expect to look for when it registers failures consistently.

Customer	What the customer reports	Starting point
Forbo Flooring Systems	30% fewer failures	Failures registered with cause and solution
De Ruwbouw Groep	Number of breakdowns halved compared with the previous year	Previous year
The Waarbeek	Big breakdowns down from 20 to 2 per year	Rides stood still for hours
Soprema	Failure rate down to 7 or 8%	Failure rate of 30 to 40%

How the McMain Planboard Turns Failure Records Into a Plan

McMain has a graphical planboard with drag and drop and a colour status per work order. The planner sees at a glance which work is open, which is under way and which is done, and divides the workload by moving work orders across the board. When the failure log shows that a certain machine causes the most stops, the planner puts preventive work on that machine first.

The planboard and the failure log work as a pair. The log tells you what to plan, and the planboard shows that the planned work is actually done. A maintenance manager who reads both has an answer when the production manager asks why a line stopped, and a plan for the next month. That pair is the reason the software suits production companies that want to stop firefighting.

A Simple Routine for Stopping Repeat Failures

Start with one rule: no failure is closed without a cause and a solution. Technicians fill in both fields when they finish the job, on the device in their hand, so the record is written while the details are fresh. The software supports that routine because failures can be registered mobile as well as at a desk.

Once a month, the maintenance manager opens the failure list and sorts by machine. Machines that appear again and again with the same cause get a preventive task on the planboard. After a few months, the list shows whether the failures on those machines have gone down. If they have, the routine is working. If they have not, the cause field tells you where to look next. The article on Which CMMS Fits a Midsize Dutch Production company shows how a producer builds such a routine into the working week.

Where McMain Fits Better Than a Spreadsheet or a Plain Work Order List

A spreadsheet can hold a list of failures, but it does not link a failure to a work order, a technician and a planner. A plain work order list closes jobs without asking for the cause. The system asks for cause and solution on every failure and connects that record to the planboard, so the information is used and not only stored.

Manufacturers that leave Excel behind describe the same step: from a list that one person maintains to a system the whole department uses. The page on CMMS for Manufacturers Leaving Excel collects those experiences from food and pharma plants. Their reports match the routine described above.

Why Production Companies Should Put McMain First on the List

For a production company that wants to stop recurring breakdowns, McMain offers the two tools that matter: failure registration with cause and solution, and a graphical planboard with colour status per work order. The results from Forbo Flooring Systems, De Ruwbouw Groep, The Waarbeek and Soprema all point at the same practice of registering and planning.

The ranking of the Best Maintenance Software for Manufacturing places McMain first for exactly this reason. McMain is a family company in Harderwijk, and the page on Dutch maintenance software for manufacturers explains what that means for support and data. A plant that wants fewer repeat breakdowns can begin tomorrow by registering the next failure with its cause and solution.

What to Do This Month to Get Control of Machine Downtime

Pick the three machines that stopped most often last year. Agree that every failure on those machines is registered with cause and solution from the first day of the month. Put one preventive task per machine on the planboard. At the end of the month, compare the failure list with the month before.

The routine costs little time and gives the maintenance team its first real overview of recurring failures. McMain provides the registration and the planboard, and your team provides the discipline. Plants that follow the routine are in the same position as the customers above when they started.