Production Routes

Many production-stopping failures are predictable — they are preceded by symptoms you can catch during a routine inspection. What it takes is spotting irregularities early and reacting before they escalate.

The standard is the "shift inspection" — run by production staff (as part of Autonomous Maintenance) or by technical services. The catch: its scope usually stays on paper, outside any system. Even a precisely defined inspection route delivers little if it is not supervised electronically.

Modern tools for handling inspection rounds dramatically improve the effectiveness of the process and are a natural complement to a CMMS/EAM-class maintenance system.

The core components of such inspection tools include:

• Recording inspection routes along with scheduled frequencies
• Defining control checklists for each piece of equipment on the route
• Specifying expected responses from inspectors (e.g., entering measured values or confirming task completion)
• Using a mobile device (tablet or smartphone) to confirm tasks during inspections
• Tagging inspection waypoints with RFID/NFC to enforce presence and streamline data capture
• A quick-capture mechanism for logging identified issues with categorization and photo documentation
• An intuitive dashboard for analyzing and overseeing completed production routes
• Automated alerts for any detected irregularities