How Maintenance Strategies Can be applied in our lives?

While I was drinking my cup of coffee an Idea hit me. I saw how the human body is very similar to a very advanced machine. And as a mechanical engineer, I began to notice that our bodies really can benefit from maintenance engineering concepts.

How?
This is what I’m going to demonstrate here through this post.

The Human Body The Wonder Bio-machine.

Our body can be described as an advanced bio-machine controlled by a biocomputer “Brain”. This machine requires various complex conditions to perform well. For example, the temperature of the body should be optimized at a certain degree 37 °C. That’s why the body has a cooling and heat system. The body also needs energy “electricity” indeed to perform properly. So the body has an internal biopower plant that converts food by burning it into ATP, which works as batteries that supply the body with its power needs.

The body also has advanced biocommunication and distribution systems. The biocommunication system, the “nervous system” is responsible for coordination between different body parts. This complicated communication system has very advanced biosensors and mechanisms that help the body do any required job easily.

Many advanced biosystems are in the human body, like the defense system “The immune system”, and advanced software of self-learning in the brain. etc…

Maintenance Strategies, Let’s see how we can benefit.

Like any machine humans ever made, it requires maintenance to keep running properly. The human body is our first and most precious asset we have. So how can we benefit from engineering maintenance strategies in our daily lives? That’s what I’m going to demonstrate.

1-Preventive Maintenance, Time-based:

This includes all the activities that are done periodically according to a schedule or plan.
The human body has built-in programmed periodic activities like sleeping time, eating time, etc…
Any delay or skipping of these main activities will harm and affect the body badly. So prioritizing those activities and ensuring they are performed with good quality is essential to keep the body in its optimal condition.

Example:

If you have a car, The manufacturer advises you to do maintenance according to a plan. You should change the oil of the car every 3 months or when you pass 5000 Kilometers which happens sooner. You will change the Battery every 2 years, and so on. These activities are periodic to keep the car running in the best condition possible.

Your body is the same. If you make a plan for yourself for some activities to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It will work as a periodic maintenance plan.
For example: You schedule to go to the GYM 3 times per week. or you schedule to go on a vacation for a couple of days every three months. There are many activities that can help boost your life and keep you on a healthy track to maintain your body in the best condition possible.

2-Proactive Maintenance:

For humans is to prevent or minimize the risk of harming the body. One of the ways to help the body is to increase its power and stamina. Working out and doing physical activities in a healthy way increases the body’s strength and endurance. This way we prevent the body from being fragile and weak and easy to be harmed.

Healthy food. The quality of whatever enters your body plays a great role in keeping your body healthy. If you consume fast food for example you are doing the opposite of preventive maintenance. In fact, you performed a bad procedure that should have been healthy.
Imagine you have a new sports car and need to change the oil. You bought cheap oil intended for a normal sedan car. Would your car work? Yes, it will work but the engine eventually will be damaged especially if you use your sports car in a race. The engine will be burnt in no time.

This is how you can perform a good activity incorrectly. Despite your intention was good to prevent your car from being damaged by changing the oil on time, you used the wrong oil. Your body is like a supercar, if you nourish it with bad-quality food then don’t ask it for a high performance. If you want to keep your body in a good condition you have to pay attention to what food enters, how you work out, how you rest, how you move, etc…

3-Predictive Maintenance, Condition-based maintenance CBM:

This is a more advanced method. In machines, we attach sensors to detect any abnormality, especially on the most vital and expensive parts. When there is anything abnormal happens the sensor alerts the operator of something wrong.

If the machine is expensive and doing an important job the more complicated sensors are installed. Sometimes not only to alarm but even to decide. For example in a nuclear reactor, one of the protection measures is when a chain reactor starts to go out of control the reactor shuts down immediately without interference from any human.

The human body is the same, it has its own sensors and indications impeded within. A very advanced defense mechanism helps you to pay attention when something wrong happens to you. When you hit something, you feel pain. When you get infected, your temperature rises and you have headaches, etc…

So how can you perform condition-based maintenance (CBM) for your body?
Step 1: Pay attention to how you feel and be aware of your senses.
Step 2: Check if the alarm is a false call because whether your mind deceives you or not.
Step 3: Make a suitable action to solve or mitigate the issue before it becomes more complicated to solve.
Step 4: Check and record if the action you took was the right one and made the alarm go away or still there.

An example: You Feel your body is exhausted and not able to do simple tasks properly. This could indicate many reasons for that.
Apply the following 4 steps:

Step 1: Pay attention to your feelings and you find you are not feeling active.
Step 2: Check the condition and analyze it. You concluded that you are not ill, just feeling lazy.
Step 3: Decide to take action to solve that problem. One of the methods you know from your experience with your body is that when you work out or do some sport you feel energetic and active. So you started to work out for 15 Mins.
Step 4: Check your feelings after finishing working out. You found that you really became more active and ready to do more things than before.

This is simply what condition-based maintenance is about. It relies on monitoring, checking, and taking the right action before a major malfunction occurs. The more experienced you are with your body, the better you will make decisions to maintain its optimal condition.

4-Reactive maintenance:

This can only be the best choice with cheap machines if the cost of replacing the machine with a new one is feasible more than paying for trying to fix it. This principle is called run to fail.

Reactive “Corrective” maintenance also is essential when a sudden failure happens. Accidents happen and unexpected events happen no matter how careful you are with your machine or body.

This kind of maintenance is something we should try to avoid as much as possible in engineering or real life. We all want to avoid sudden accidents. In machinery, it may lead to financial losses in the form of production stoppage or losses in the machine parts itself.

The same happens to your Biomachine. When you get injured due to some sort of accident you will need to do an emergency correction. As much as the severity of the injury the more painful and costly the repair is. Unfortunately, corrective maintenance may not restore the original state.

Corrective maintenance is not the best strategy for dealing with your own Biomachine “Your most precious Asset in Life”. Always put in your mind your safety and try the prior strategies with yourself.

Conclusion:

Engineering principles can be beneficial in our ordinary life. Not only do we consume engineered products, but we can also apply engineering strategies in dealing with normal activities. Strategies like maintenance planning can give a wider perspective on your life activities. It may help you prioritize those activities and help you maintain a balanced healthy lifestyle.

Let’s Remember that our most precious asset is our own Biomachine. It’s who we are and we can’t achieve anything without it.

Be safe, and keep a healthy balance in your lifestyle.