Why and when is preventive maintenance necessary?

When a processor is running double shifts, 6 or 7 days a week, there is little time left to maintain machines. It becomes impossible to resolve issues reactively. There simply isn’t time to ‘look at it later after production.’ For such a processor, preventive maintenance offers a lot of confidence: in principle, the equipment continues to run well until the next planned overhaul activities. Good coordination between JBT Marel and the customer regarding the maintenance timing provides a lot of peace of mind.

Predicted replacement

“For machines with many mechanical spare parts, we are very good at predicting when those items will wear out and need to be replaced. Therefore, PMS mainly focuses on evisceration lines, overhead conveyors, cut-up lines, and filleting lines; a preventive maintenance package is available for almost all of these machines.”

Service in the evisceration line

The evisceration department includes large carousels with many units and small parts such as bearings and bushings. The goal is to keep these machines running continuously with highest performance. If maintenance for the VC, VO, and Nuova is not well organized, product loss can occur. For example, if the cam plates of the eviscerator spoons are not replaced in time, wear can reduce the clamping force of the spoon, causing the viscera pack not to be transferred properly. Bennie Schamp knows, “In some markets, losing the viscera pack means you also have to discard the chicken. So, cutting costs on spare parts and overhauls poses a risk of much more costly yield loss. With timely maintenance, the machine continues to perform at its best to maximize yield from the chicken.”

Service in secondary lines

In cut-up and filleting lines, it’s about timely replacing wear-sensitive parts so that the cuts remain precise. Even when knife settings remain stable, worn blades can still lead to 1–2 mm deviations in cuts. “For example, in the AMF-i separator modules, there are many ball joint heads that wear out. If you replace them in time, you can still separate the meat from the carcass consistently, keeping the yield as high as possible. If you’re too late, it means less precise cutting, leaving valuable meat on the breastbone.”

Spare parts in stock?

Bennie Schamp talks about spare parts: “We offer preventive maintenance packages with spare parts for which we know exactly when they usually need to be replaced. We deliver these before the quarter in which it needs to happen. Additionally, we advise keeping a stock of breakdown parts and consumables. These are items such as blades and plucking fingers, components for which you can’t predict replacement frequency. But when they wear out, there should be no stress: new parts must be readily available and already on hand at the customer’s site.”

Can customers perform preventive maintenance themselves?

“Together with our ready-made service packages, containing all parts that require scheduled replacement, we help customers clearly understand what needs to be done and when. If they don’t have the required knowledge, we can do it for them. But we aim for customers to do it themselves, as our people are, of course, also limited in availability. Especially in urgent cases, it’s better for the customer to know exactly which actions to take and to be able to execute them independently.”

How does preventive maintenance work in practice?

Preventive maintenance is the most comprehensive and structured form of maintenance, giving processors upfront insight into what is needed. It’s a contract that provides maximum peace of mind. It involves parts delivery at predefined intervals, scheduled inspection visits, PDS software support, and possible overhaul visits. Because preventive maintenance follows a strict schedule, the customer must be well organized to handle it effectively. For processors without a solid structure, preventive maintenance simply won’t deliver the intended results.

One customer’s turning point

Bennie Schamp concludes with an example; “This customer went from an 8,000 bph line to 12,500, which required a complete shift of their people and in their mindset. They were used to reactive maintenance; if a bearing was worn out, it was replaced. But there was increasing fear of being surprised during production. It took six months for them to realize that their way of working no longer suited the new line speed. Then they realized things weren’t working and there was too much downtime. We were able to convince that customer to switch from reactive to preventive maintenance. Since then, that customer has never doubted the preventive maintenance contract.”