Carrying out preventive maintenance on a CNC lathe can spare the machine shop from the problems associated with its machinery. If this maintenance is not done, the CNC lathe may stop working from one day to the next and part production will halt immediately.

Background to preventive maintenance on CNC lathes

Long before preventive maintenance existed, and even before computer numerical control (CNC) was introduced in the metalworking industry, factories and workshops were already carrying out some kind of maintenance on machine tools. During the First Industrial Revolution (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), maintenance was corrective: whatever fault the machine developed was fixed and work carried on. If the damage could not be repaired, the machine was replaced with a new one.

During this period, factories began to introduce rudimentary automated systems and to realise that it was better to avoid the faults and problems that stopped the production line. In other words, to prevent problems before they happened.

It was not until the third and fourth industrial revolutions that the concept of preventive maintenance became truly important. The reason? The adoption of sophisticated technologies such as computer numerical control; computers need regular maintenance to perform at their best, and many machines today include computers that make work easier, reduce production costs and shorten delivery times.

How many types of industrial maintenance are there?

Today there are three types of maintenance in the metalworking industry:

Corrective: its main aim is to fix, repair or correct, and to replace defective components and tools on a machine. This type of maintenance is carried out once the machine has developed an error or fault.
Preventive: designed to reduce the occurrence and impact of faults or errors on the machine. Its main aim is to avoid interruptions to production lines and improve their performance. This maintenance is periodic and varies from machine to machine.
Predictive: as the name suggests, it consists of predicting the faults a machine may develop. To do this, thorough analyses are carried out on the machine's electrical and mechanical components.

Why preventive maintenance matters on a CNC lathe

To understand the importance of preventive maintenance on a CNC lathe, think of a car. A vehicle needs routine checks such as oil changes and tyre condition, among others. This avoids problems that can, in the long run, become serious and expensive to fix. The same applies to machine tools, in this case the CNC lathe.

This type of maintenance is carried out at regular intervals to reduce the chance of faults in the equipment. Preventive maintenance on a CNC lathe is performed while the machine is in good condition and running, and well before an error occurs in the system that would stop production.

Thanks to this type of maintenance, it is possible to spot the warning signs of defects that could appear in the machines and reduce the risk of them occurring. This largely avoids the need for corrective maintenance. So what can be done to prevent machine failures?

We are talking about basic tasks such as: correct installation of the equipment; proper operation in line with the manufacturer's instructions; cleaning and the replacement of worn parts, and so on. Preventive maintenance of a CNC lathe is important not only to stop production lines from halting unexpectedly, but also to avoid corrective maintenance in the workshop, which can be more expensive.

Maintenance should always be carried out when the machine is not running, that is, outside production hours. It also depends on the type of CNC lathe to be inspected, so the schedule can be weekly, monthly, six-monthly, annual, etc. When deciding when to schedule these checks, it is important to consider how often and how intensively the machine is used.