Field maintenance refers to performing maintenance work on remote assets. This might be attending to breakdowns, performing planned maintenance or tending to any other aspect of setting up and running equipment in distant locations.
This blog post covers key roles in industrial field maintenance, discusses field service management, looks at the role of technology in improving effectiveness and considers the challenges and benefits of running an efficient field service operation. It is intended to equip readers with the knowledge needed to contribute to such an organization.
What is industrial field maintenance?
In manufacturing, field maintenance is the same as local or on-site equipment maintenance, with some additional complexity.
The goal of all industrial maintenance is to ensure equipment is available to run at the expected rate when needed. Reactive maintenance (i.e., attending to breakdowns), is part of this, but today many manufacturers are implementing preventive maintenance and even predictive maintenance. These strategies reduce the occurrence of unplanned, and very disruptive, downtime, helping raise OEE and improve operational efficiency.
Field maintenance is when this equipment maintenance work is performed on machinery located away from the responsible maintenance organization or hub. It could be at a different location in the same town, in a different state or even overseas.
Field maintenance services often support particularly complex or advanced industrial equipment where the necessary skills, tools and expertise are not available locally. This places additional demands on maintenance management in terms of providing a rapid response while maximizing resource utilization and controlling costs.
Key roles in industrial field maintenance
It takes a sophisticated organization to provide a high level of service to remote locations. Supporting the industrial maintenance technician who works on the equipment are engineers, supervisors, managers, storekeepers and maintenance planners and schedulers. Large organizations might also add administrative support staff and financial analysts.
Here’s a closer look at the most important roles.
Industrial maintenance technician
These frontline workers travel on-site, inspect and perform maintenance tasks, as well as repair equipment. They need excellent diagnostic skills and the resourcefulness to adapt when circumstances are not as described. The ability to solve a problem in a single visit is vital.
Maintenance technicians have a wider skillset than industrial maintenance mechanics. This latter group works almost exclusively on the mechanical aspects of manufacturing equipment.
Maintenance engineer
This person supports the technicians with expert technical knowledge and problem-solving skills. They will often be involved in planning maintenance work and identifying upgrades and improvements to avoid future problems.
Maintenance supervisor
Responsible for day-to-day oversight of technicians and mechanics, ensuring records are updated and that necessary resources are available. Monitors future workload and, working with the maintenance planner/scheduler, endeavors to maximize technician utilization.
Maintenance manager
Oversees all maintenance activities, monitors and acts on key performance indicators, liaises with customers to ensure needs are understood and met and ensures appropriate procedures are in place and followed. Setting policies for prioritizing competing requests for service is an especially important aspect of the position.
Storekeeper
Spares are an especially important aspect of field service: Maintenance technicians must take what they need with them or appropriate parts or kits must be shipped ahead of time.
The maintenance storekeeper is responsible for having parts available when needed for planned maintenance work, and for keeping replacement parts on hand. Where parts that have been removed from machinery are returned for rebuilding, the storekeeper tracks and records these movements.
Maintenance planners and schedulers
This may be two roles or combined into one. The planner/scheduler reviews requests and allocates tasks in ways that minimize response time while also optimizing their productivity. In field service operations, good estimates of task duration enable efficient scheduling.
What is field service management?
Field service management (FSM) refers to the process of coordinating field operations. This includes scheduling, dispatching and tracking technicians and industrial machinery mechanics who perform the off-site maintenance, repairs or even equipment upgrades and installations.
In industrial settings, FSM helps ensure that equipment is properly maintained and that service teams can quickly respond to issues. It integrates tools like mobile apps, scheduling software, and GPS tracking to optimize field operations, improve service efficiency and reduce downtime.
Customer liaison is an important part of FSM, whether the customers are external or internal. Understanding and managing customer expectations is part of the role of maintenance supervision and management.
Ways to improve field service management
Most manufacturers measure field service performance against metrics such as response time, technician utilization, Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and First Time Fix Rate (FTFR). Making improvements requires attention to five main areas:
- Process standardization
- Use of industrial maintenance technology
- Technician training
- Inventory management
- Implementation of planned maintenance strategies
Process standardization
Standardizing the work request workflow ensures consistency and prevents errors such as requests not being acknowledged and processed quickly. Standardizing how industrial field maintenance tasks are performed creates consistency in both quality and duration. The former raises the First Time Fix Rate while the latter aids planning and scheduling.
Use of industrial maintenance technology
Equip field technicians with mobile tools for access to data held on the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). This can include maintenance history records, spare parts inventories and manuals. It can also let them provide real-time updates on-site, improving efficiency and reducing errors.
Technician training
When working remotely it’s harder for a technician or industrial mechanic to seek advice from colleagues and peers. This places greater emphasis on industrial maintenance training, both in terms of diagnostic skills and equipment understanding, and in how to get the best from the CMMS.
Many field service organizations rotate technicians through various roles, such as customer liaison and field support. This improves understanding of customer issues, increases exposure to different types of machinery and problems and helps build strong connections between team members. (It’s seldom practical to swap a technician with an industrial machinery mechanic as the two have different skills.)
Inventory management
Inventory optimization and control is challenging in field service organizations. Not only must future needs be predicted and inventory levels maintained, but parts may need dispatching at short notice. Tracking where spare parts are located requires accurate and timely updating of inventory records. This record keeping must extend to any components and subassemblies returned for rebuilding or refurbishment.
Implementation of planned maintenance strategies
Most manufacturers are moving from reactive to planned maintenance strategies. Planned maintenance involves identifying routine tasks that will prevent breakdowns and extend asset life.
Preventive maintenance reduces unplanned stoppages, but downtime is still needed to allow the work to be done. Furthermore, there is the risk of doing too much or the wrong type of maintenance. This is addressed by adopting predictive maintenance.
In this strategy, data on machine health is used to identify when the probability of failure will start to rise, so a decision can be taken regarding when to perform maintenance, and what type to do. Predictive maintenance services typically employ sensors mounted on the machine to monitor key parameters such as temperature and vibration.
Technology in field maintenance
Advances in industrial automation are also changing the way in which field maintenance is performed. Today, rather than needing to visit and inspect machinery, important data can be transmitted to a central location for review, analysis and tracking.
Key components for this are smart sensors (sensors capable of filtering, analyzing and transmitting data), also known as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors and advanced analytical tools capable of identifying trends and making predictions about component life.
With the volume of data now available and the complexity of identifying patterns, many manufacturers are turning to AI for predictive maintenance. The ability to incorporate such capabilities is one of the benefits of CMMS technologies. Other benefits include the speed and accuracy with which records are updated.
Benefits of industrial field maintenance
Highly automated industrial machinery requires skilled industrial maintenance technicians to keep running. Doing too little or the wrong types of maintenance will result in unplanned downtime as problems arise and can shorten the life of the asset. It can also prompt unsafe behaviors as workers take shortcuts to keep production running.
For many organizations, field maintenance is the optimal way of delivering the planned, preventive and breakdown support needed. Rather than keeping a specialist industrial
maintenance mechanic on-site to perform work as needed, this entails dispatching an appropriately qualified technician from a central hub to perform the work needed.
Benefits of this approach are:
- Reduced downtime: Field maintenance performed by technicians with up-to-date knowledge of industrial technology keeps equipment running smoothly and prevents costly stoppages.
- Increased safety: Properly maintained equipment causes fewer problems for production workers to deal with, reducing accidents and injuries.
- Cost efficiency: A proactive approach to maintenance helps avoid major repairs and extends equipment life.
Get help putting industrial maintenance technology to work
As machinery becomes more complex and needs higher levels of skill that may not be available locally, field maintenance is becoming an increasingly important part of industrial operations. While the maintenance work itself is little different whether performed on-site or remotely, remote operations are more complex to manage efficiently.
Key success factors include standardizing the workflow and the maintenance activities performed, inventory control, training and taking full advantage of modern technologies.
ATS provides a wide range of industrial maintenance services to help manufacturers optimize equipment availability while driving down costs. Whether you’re looking for fully outsourced maintenance or help with a short-term spike in workload, we have the resources and expertise to help. Contact us to learn more.
