Benefits of a Preventive Maintenance Program

Have you ever considered the benefits of a Preventive Maintenance Program for your compressed air system? A PM program is something that should not be looked over after the purchase of an industrial-sized compressor, or any compressor for that matter. When taking on such as an investment it is important that you also take on the protective measures to ensure the unit continues to run smoothly and to avoid any unexpected downtime or further interruptions.

Implementing a PM Program at your facility offers an array of benefits that in turn will end up saving your company thousands of dollars in the long run. In order to do so, you must be performing more than the typical standard maintenance checks to ensure that no serious issues will unknowingly arise. The point of a preventive maintenance program is to do exactly that – prevent the problem from occurring. Depending on your machine PM programs can run daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. Although you may come across a few low upfront costs during inspections such as replacing warn our consumables such as air filters or belts, they could be causing more damage not replacing them based on the manufactures recommendations. This is to ensure that something major occurring will be greatly decreased.

There are a few ways PM programs can add value to your application first being avoiding downtime. Downtime can be the most costly expense that a company can take on as it influences many aspects of products. Not only is a machine down and not working, but production has now stopped. If schedules maintenance checks where performed on a regular basis this issue could have been completely avoided. It is important to note, even if you feel your machine is performing perfectly well it is still necessary to service it with regular maintenance.

A second benefit that PM programs offer is avoiding costly repairs. Now that downtime is reduced you will no longer be seeing those costly emergency repair bills but instead seeing consistent productivity. Even though you may see a few initial upfront costs with the PM program, they will never reach the magnitude of downtime in comparison. PM programs also help to avoid inflated energy cost as they give you an opportunity to catch struggling system functions that are trying to keep up with the regular rate of production. For example; issues such as this can stem from parts down the line that may need to be cleaned or replaced, such as a dirty line filter. This, in turn, causes your compressor to run the system at a higher pressure to compensate for the high differential on the line filter.  Addressing these potential issues beforehand with maintenance checks result in immediate energy savings.

The key behind a preventive maintenance program is to enhance the longevity of your compressed air system. With the money you invest in your compressor you should see come back into your business through productivity that your machine will offer. Thus making the initial investment extremely worthwhile.

 

Alyson Taylor

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