Regular machinery maintenance: An operational priority

An always-on electrical system is critical to any production facility and must not be disrupted by needless incidents resulting from poor machinery maintenance.

Most of the electrical work that happens in a production facility, such as scheduled maintenance and de-energising of the system, are fundamental requirements for safety. Outages from poorly maintained machines are not only more prone to electrical hazards but have the potential to induce a chain of damages—from the faulty equipment to the electrical system.

Here are six practical reasons why regular machinery maintenance should be a priority for your business.

1. You don’t want any surprises that could disrupt or halt production
Neglecting regular maintenance of electrical equipment, especially over a long period of time, may lead to a damaging system failure or an incident to disrupt facility operations.

2. All equipment, no matter how good the make, require servicing
This is particularly important for machines hidden from view, as they tend to be overlooked when everything is operating normally.

3. Not all machines come with warning capabilities
If workers could identify equipment that is about to fail before the failure occurs, it would be less disruptive to operations as proper steps could be taken to prevent or minimise the downtime impact to people, processes, equipment and production.

4. You can’t discover problems brewing in the hardware if you don’t open it up
Regular maintenance is required to ensure that equipment can operate as expected. For example, contacts that are not regularly exercised tend to stick or not open at all, leading to longer clearing times than expected.

5. Planned maintenance is a disruption made effective and efficient
While de-energising equipment is a fundamental requirement for electrical safety, the process of de-energising is disruptive to facility operations. Anticipating and planning for maintenance enable you to prepare for potential glitches beforehand, greatly enhancing the coordination and orchestration of different servicing activities. This approach can significantly improve the safety and speed of the maintenance execution.

6. Predictability is key to containing servicing and downtime costs
Scheduled maintenance is financially far more advantageous than unexpected maintenance. Knowing when a facility-wide shutdown is happening allows you to take steps to minimise operational disruptions. For example, if you don’t have trained and qualified electrical workers inhouse, you can anticipate and budget for qualified service companies in your planning.

With regular maintenance of electrical capital assets, factories can avoid potential losses from unexpected downtime, injuries and investigations. What’s more, these benefits can be further enhanced when you keep safety procedures up-to-date, as this ensures better compliance, complexity management and execution efficiency.

Panduit’s VeriSafe Absence of Voltage Tester can help you improve maintenance efficiency and safety.

Visit www.panduit.com/verisafe for more information.