But no matter your industry, this much is true: preventive maintenance prolongs the life of your machinery, optimizes productivity and functionality, can lower the risk for workplace injuries, and can even reduce repair costs.
When it comes to electrical preventive maintenance (EPM) of machinery, here’s what you need to know.
The simple answer is: anything that runs on electrical power needs regular upkeep to stay operational (read our blog here for more information about the benefits of an EPM program). With a regular preventive maintenance plan, you’ll enjoy increased reliability and a reduction in unexpected downtime.
There are some types of equipment that come standard to most facilities. These are the nuts and bolts of your facility’s electrical power and distribution. They should be included in a regular EPM program to prevent power outages or safety hazards, because — while they may feel invisible — they’re as integral to your operation as every other tool of the trade.
Your building’s electrical distribution system — which includes your electrical service, branch and distribution panels, machine power disconnects, and motor starters — are some of the most crucial elements of day-to-day success and should be regularly inspected.
These systems include:
Different environments have different maintenance needs.
Regular maintenance in industrial and manufacturing environments can increase reliability and extend equipment life. With an organized approach, facility managers can be ever-prepared with spare parts and efficiently planned shutdowns.
Under a preventive maintenance plan, you’ll have more familiarity and understanding of the machinery, enabling you to easily identify the cause of an issue (such as heat, vibrations, or overload.) This allows you to not only be better prepared with spare parts, but you’ll also be able to schedule maintenance appropriately and budget repairs and replacements more accurately.
Most production and storage organizations have unique maintenance needs involving storage conditions and transportation requirements. Conveyor belts have unique sorting and tracking components, important pressure systems, and grounding setups that should be regularly maintained.
In the food industry, warehouses with food items rely on coolers and freezers to maintain specific temperatures to avoid product spoilage. This means maintaining ammonia compressor systems, operating sensors, thermometers, timers, fans, and other devices. Failure of any one of those devices can cascade into critical temperature rise or fall. Loading docks also rely on electronic equipment for safety and daily operations.
Your building’s lighting is also part of the electrical system. Proper lighting is necessary for a safe work environment on production lines, in loading bays, and over inventory storage.
An inspection of your lighting system should include:
Most facilities relamp dead bulbs individually as they expire. In the long term, this devours large chunks of otherwise useful time. Prevent productivity and time loss due to unexpected outages by proactively replacing all bulbs in a given area on a regular schedule. You can develop this schedule based on the amount of use put on the lights in the area and their expected life span. All bulbs should be relamped at once; this way you’ll never have more than one light out at a time.
LED lamps are more durable than traditional lighting and come in a variety of brightness and color values. Some can even mimic daylight — especially valuable because daylight is one of the best ways to positively affect the mood and efficiency of those who live and work in a given area.
If increasing daylight to create a healthier work is not possible, retrofitting your fixtures with LED lamps may be your next best way to improve morale and productivity in your commercial and industrial setting. Because LED lighting has less flicker than that of fluorescent lighting, it can reduce eye strain, migraines and drowsiness as well.
There are many retrofitting options including replacing lamps and components with a retrofit kit, or replacing the entire luminaire, including the housing. Before replacing or retrofitting, examine the current condition of the ballast and luminaire components, consider the light quality needed for an area, and survey the accessibility of the ceiling area. This will guide your decision. Consider as well, your need for lighting controls like occupancy sensors and daylight sensors., which can add to the overall energy efficiency of your space.
Regardless of your industry, there are a few elements that your EPM plan should have.
Having an electrical preventive maintenance plan is critical to reducing the possibility of industrial and commercial hazards. Click here to review our guide to putting together a thorough plan.
Lemberg can help you design and carry out a comprehensive, regularly scheduled electrical preventive maintenance plan. Save money, increase facility efficiency, and avoid costly outages by implementing an airtight electrical maintenance plan. Lemberg has earned the highest rating with Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy rebate program as a platinum ally. We help create healthier and more efficient environments with energy saving solutions like LED retrofits, green energy solutions and more. Visit Lemberg on the web or call (262)781-1500 for more information or to schedule a consultation.