What is Preventative Maintenance and why is it so important?

Equipment failures cannot be eliminated. It will happen. However, it is possible to reduce equipment failures, prolong the lifespan of expensive equipment, and save your business money in the long run.

Preventative Maintenance (PM) refers to regular, routine maintenance to keep equipment running at optimal levels, and prevent unplanned downtime and the expensive costs due to equipment failure. Preventative Maintenance requires careful planning and scheduling of maintenance on critical equipment, identifying and eliminating potential problems before they arise.

It can be a complex process, especially for businesses that house various types of electrical equipment in one facility. However, the days of relying on run-to-failure or reactive maintenance are numbered, as many businesses move towards preventative maintenance to protect their expensive equipment.

Reactive maintenance can cost up to eight times more compared to preventative maintenance.

Reactive maintenance involves repairing equipment after it has failed and inoperable. While it may seem less expensive to operate reactively, planned maintenance can actually be less costly.

What expenses could arise without preventative maintenance?

Besides the obvious expense that comes with unplanned outages such as lost production, cost of labour from overtime, idle equipment and shipment delays, there are other hidden expenses that can arise if preventative maintenance is not a priority. Issues such as safety hazards, inspection failures and a shorter life expectancy for equipment can arise, which can be more expensive in the long run.

While Preventative Maintenance cannot eliminate these expenses completely, following preventative maintenance schedules can help to reduce the risk of unexpected equipment breakdown, health hazards and liability lawsuits. Preventative Maintenance can also prolong equipment lifespan, increase productivity, reduce repair costs and even increase energy consumption.

Keeping detailed logs of accurate records of all inspections and servicing documents will make it easier to track the status of your equipment, thereby making preventative maintenance more manageable.

What industries will benefit from Preventative Maintenance?

While any organisation with assets to maintain can benefit from Preventative Maintenance, we have found that it really helps to streamline the maintenance operations for some of these industries:

• oil, gas and utilities
• manufacturing
• property management
• facility management
• schools
• hotels
• office buildings.

Are you an operation or maintenance manager for the industries listed above?

Quality Energy can help your business with preventative maintenance services such as electrical switchboard imaging and thermographic scanning, emergency lighting testing, Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems maintenance and testing, etc. If you have a service item that is not mentioned here, Give us a call to discuss your Preventative Maintenance needs on 1800 736 374 or contact us today.

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