PLANT MAINTENANCE STRATEGY FOR IMPROVED PRODUCTION IN THE FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES

The evaluation of plant maintenance methods for improved performance in the food and beverage industries was carried out using Nigerian Bottling Company Benin and Owerri Plants and BONS Industries Limited Enugu, Nigeria. The study investigated to determine the maintenance approaches used in the food and beverage manufacturing industries and to evaluate the availability rate, performance rate, and quality rate of the manufacturing industry due to maintenance. Records on maintenance activities on Filler machines, Packers, Blow mold, Monobloc (Filler/Capper/Rinser) machines, and Palletizers were collected using record forms from the logbook for a period of five years (2017 – 2021) and this serves as the primary data for the research. The world-class Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) mathematical model was used to evaluate the maintenance performance of each plant. In Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC), the Availability rate of the Filler machine ranged from 93.0% - 96.9%, the Performance rate ranged from 66.2% - 129.3% and the Quality rate was 99.9% for all the years. For BONES Industries Ltd, water production line, the Availability rate of the Monobloc machine ranged from 86.8% - 95.8%, the Performance rate ranged from 47.2% - 96.1% while the Quality rate ranged from 91.8% - 93.7%. The maintenance methods/approaches used in NBC Plants were preventive and usage while the maintenance methods/approaches used in BONS Industries equipment were Preventive and Condition-based maintenance. The Availability rate, Performance rate, and Quality rate which are the parameters to evaluate equipment maintenance performance were better in NBC than in BONS Industries. The Overall maintenance cost and cost per case are also better in NBC than that of BONS about volume produced. This recommended that companies should carry out routine preventive maintenance and usage-based maintenance such as periodic machine overhauls since the better result was obtained when compared to preventive and condition-based