Maintenance Inspections: Your Ultimate Guide

Are you drowning in unexpected downtime and skyrocketing repair bills? It’s a common problem plaguing many maintenance leaders today. Production stoppages, declining revenue and increased pressure come along with every broken machine part. 

But regular maintenance inspections can turn these issues around. By assessing equipment, you can identify minor issues long before they lead to major breakdowns. Unlike a reactive approach to maintenance, having a proactive maintenance schedule keeps things running smoothly.

In this comprehensive guide, you’ll come to understand how preventive maintenance inspections reduce downtime, increase cost savings and keep your business performing at peak efficiency. Ready to transform your maintenance strategy? Let’s dive in.

What Is a Maintenance Inspection?

Maintenance inspections involve systematic procedures for technicians to thoroughly examine machinery and systems to ensure continued functionality, efficiency and safety. These regular inspections commonly take place while equipment is operational to detect and address issues like abnormalities or signs of wear and tear, to clean buildup of substances like grime and dirt, and to replace broken or worn down parts. 

Let’s say you work at a car manufacturing plant. Knowing that the conveyor belt is integral to keeping production moving, you perform recurring maintenance inspections to check for issues like worn rollers, loose tension or faulty sensors that could lead to unexpected equipment failures. Identifying and addressing these problems early ensures employees safety, prevents downtime and ultimately strengthens your operational security.

By performing consistent maintenance checkups, businesses can extend equipment lifespans, minimize pauses in production and ultimately save money wasted on costly repairs and lost productivity. 

Benefits of Performing Maintenance Inspections

Recurring maintenance inspections are crucial to keeping your equipment functioning. Some key benefits that businesses can expect from implementing a preventive maintenance program include:

• Decreased unplanned downtime: By performing recurring maintenance tasks, you’ll keep your equipment in optimal working condition, decreasing the likelihood of failures.
• Reduced maintenance costs: Yes, you’ll need to pay for someone to run through a preventive maintenance checklist, but you’ll reduce the likelihood of a major problem that requires more expensive repairs and last-minute labor costs.
• Improved quality control: A preventive maintenance process results in fewer unexpected stalls in production, ensuring better quality and consistency of your product.

Types of Maintenance Inspections to Perform

Depending on your industry and assets, there is a wide range of maintenance inspections your technicians can and should perform regularly. Common types of maintenance inspections include:

Safety Inspections

Frequent safety inspections help in identifying possible hazards before incidents occur. These inspections in a manufacturing setting commonly prioritize issues like machine guard integrity, proper signage, sufficient lighting and clear walkways to keep all employees safe. 

Inspectors should also be checking the effectiveness of personal protective equipment (PPE) usage and housekeeping measures. By finding and addressing risks early, safety inspections prevent workplace accidents and make sure that federal and state regulatory standards are being met.

Fire Protection Inspections

Fire protection inspections are essential for preventing fires and maintaining functional suppression systems. Key components of an effective fire inspection include:

• Testing smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems
• Confirming unobstructed and clearly marked emergency exits
• Proper storage of flammable materials and usage of fire-retardant infrastructure

Routine inspections reduce the risk of catastrophic fire damage and ensure safe operations.

HVAC Inspections

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are essential for maintaining a safe and comfortable work setting. Recurring HVAC inspections involve reviewing filters, ducts, fans and temperature controls, and keeping systems fully cleaned to maintain standard performance. 

Properly maintained HVAC systems help maintain humidity, air quality and temperature, positively impacting employee health and productivity while mitigating product spoilage.

Electrical Inspections

Electrical inspections validate that all wiring, equipment and circuits are fully maintained. This type of inspection is vital in manufacturing, as heavy machinery requires an extensive electrical load. 

Key components include identifying exposed wiring, reviewing circuit breakers and confirming that motors and control panels abide by compliance standards. By addressing small issues before they worsen, electrical inspections prevent costly machinery failures while reducing the risk of electrocution or fire.

Plumbing Inspections

Plumbing inspections help to maintain water supply integrity and dispose of waste properly. In facilities that require water for cooling, cleaning or processing, a plumbing failure could result in equipment downtime. Typically, plumbing inspections include 

• Checking pipes for leakage
• Testing water pressure
• Confirming that drainage systems function properly
• Looking for signs of corrosion

Effective plumbing maintenance ensures production continuity and that sanitary standards are being met.

Failure Finding Inspections

Failure finding inspections focus on systems or components that aren’t typically operational in a normal workday but are essential when emergencies occur. Examples of this type of infrastructure include backup generators, emergency lighting and alarm systems. 

Manufacturers can confirm these systems will be fully operational when needed by performing these inspections frequently. This proactive maintenance technique reduces unplanned downtime and ensures operational efficiency in the case of an emergency.

Building Interior Inspections

Building interior inspections focus on structural components and a facility’s interior conditions that impact operations. Your checklist should include checking walls, ceilings, floors, doors and windows for wear and tear or damage. 

Employee amenities like restrooms and break areas should also be reviewed, to ensure safety and hygienic standards are met. Properly maintained building interiors protect assets and keep employees safe and comfortable.

Building Exterior Inspections

Building exterior inspections help to maintain the overall integrity of a manufacturing facility. These focus on: 

• Inspecting roofs, exterior walls, foundations and windows to detect leaks, cracks or other signs of deterioration. 
• Reviewing drainage systems and landscaping to catch, address and prevent water damage. 

Schedule routine exterior inspections to identify and fix issues quickly to extend your infrastructure’s lifespan.

Maintenance Inspection Best Practices

Effective maintenance inspections require a strategic approach to increase equipment lifespans and reliability, meet production standards and prevent unplanned downtime. Incorporate the following techniques into your inspection processes and procedures to maximize efficiency: 

• Ensure inspection tools and/or parts are readily available: Proper parts inventory management is required to have all necessary tools and equipment components on hand to prevent workflow disruptions and allow for immediate issue resolution.
• Allow protective gear or guards to be removed in order to check equipment in action: Temporarily shutting down safety barriers enables inspectors to directly observe moving parts and spot potential malfunctions early.
• Create inspection checklists to ensure consistency: Standardizing procedures through comprehensive checklists provides clear guidance, reduces errors and fosters consistent best practices across teams.
• Train maintenance staff on inspection processes: Thorough training equips technicians with the skills to perform detailed inspections, improves team capabilities and confidence, and reduces the likelihood that issues will be overlooked.
• Set up a reliable schedule: Abiding by a consistent, structured timeline for inspections guarantees timely maintenance, prevents unexpected downtime and contributes to steady operational performance.
• Use a CMMS to help with documentation: Using computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software to record inspection findings, schedule work orders and future inspections, and analyze historical maintenance data streamlines workflows, enhances accountability and supports informed decision-making.

How a CMMS Can Help Track Maintenance Inspections

Using a CMMS like Coast makes it simple for scheduling and recording your maintenance inspections. With simplified digital work orders, leaders can assign recurring inspections to relevant team members. Once assigned, the inspector will be notified via their phone or tablet with a due date, specific instructions and historical data on the machinery at hand. 

Upon completion, the inspector will record their findings and mark the status as completed. Follow-up action items will then be assigned to technicians, and the provided data will be integrated into maintenance reports in real-time. 

Don’t wait to optimize your maintenance inspection workflows. Book a demo with Coast today!