A Maintenance-Based Approach to Increase Equipment Availability in the Plastic Bag Industry

This study addresses the problem of low equipment availability in plastic manufacturing industries, which limits productivity and efficiency. A technical diagnosis identified critical failure modes in the extrusion screw, bearings, and control panel. Validation through Arena simulation showed a 128.60% increase in MTBF and a 2.07% improvement in availability, while MTTR remained at 59.67 hours. To solve this problem, the research proposes a hybrid maintenance approach that integrates Preventive Maintenance based on optimal intervention intervals calculated using the Weibull distribution, and Predictive Maintenance using a system based on a neural network with persistent memory for temperature data. According to the results, integrating preventive and predictive maintenance reduces unplanned downtimes and improves equipment availability in industrial operations.