Development of a Preventive Maintenance Strategy for an Automatic Production Line Based on Group Maintenance Method

The high maintenance costs and low reliability of automatic production line are attributed to the complexity of maintenance management. In the present study, a preventive maintenance strategy for the automatic production line was developed based on the group maintenance method. The criticality of machines in the production line was evaluated, and then the machines were classified into three groups: the most critical machines, the secondary critical machines and the general machines. The general machines were performed on the breakdown maintenance. The preventive maintenance model of the most critical machines was established with the shortest shutdown time as decision objective on basis of the Delay-time theory. The maintenance model of the secondary critical machine was established based on the considering of reliability-maintenance cost. A case study on an automotive part automatic production line was carried out to verify the proposed preventive maintenance strategy based on the production line data, and the maintenance periods of the most and secondary critical machines were gained; meanwhile, the machines all satisfied the reliability requirements during the maintenance periods.