Maintaining your building’s electrical equipment is a delicate balance — electrical repairs are expensive, but electrical outages are even more expensive. In this blog, we discuss how to manage your electrical preventive maintenance program to optimum efficiency.
Do you have a comprehensive inventory of the electrical equipment in your facility? What about replacement parts? Do you know which pieces of machinery are nearly due for repairs or replacement? Do you have a good understanding of which pieces of equipment might cause issues in the near future?
With a structured, managed electrical preventive maintenance (EPM) program — an organized system in which your electrical equipment is regularly inspected, tested, and maintained — the answer to each of those questions would be yes.
Unfortunately, many commercial facilities overlook the financial, operational, and safety benefits of an EPM program, and as a result, lose time and money to electrical outages.
Below, we’ll cover why you should be inspecting your electrical equipment yearly at least, and how a regular EPM program can optimize your facility’s productivity.
Electrical Outages: It’s Not a Matter of If, It’s a Matter of When
If an EPM program does so much good, why isn’t everyone doing it?
Often, the decision-makers who set the maintenance budget are tech-savvy and are under the impression that electrical equipment should only be repaired when it is broken down — or worse, simply expect that the equipment won’t break down at all.
As a result, facility managers often lack the comprehensive information they need to monitor facility status and report machinery in need of upkeep or replacement. The lack of data means facility managers are unable to communicate the severity of electrical equipment outages to budgetary decision-makers.
One of the primary points of an EPM program is the recognition that it is not a matter of if your equipment wears down, it’s a matter of when — and that if properly inspected and maintained, these outages can be predicted, minimized or avoided altogether.
It’s Always Cheaper, and More Reliable to Maintain than Replace
Electrical equipment, like all equipment, abides by murphy’s law — whatever can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time.
Repairing equipment as a reactionary measure will cost more than a simple maintenance update because you’re paying for lost production hours, potential damages, and in the worst-case scenario — safety issues. Additionally, prescriptive maintenance—that is, repairs that happen after something goes wrong instead of beforehand—often means it’s too late for the simple repairs that would’ve helped avoid the outage in the first place.
Two most commonly noted causes of electrical-equipment failure involve bad connections and deteriorated insulation—both of which could be avoided with preventive maintenance. Repairing your equipment as a preventative measure will always be cheaper than unexpected repairs or replacement — and often it will help preserve or even extend the life of your equipment.
Electrical Preventive Maintenance is a program designed to prevent anticipated failures and avoid unplanned and emergency shutdowns. It involves proactive measures such as regular service to equipment and machinery, planned outages and scheduled replacements.
Electrical components are going to deteriorate, and without maintenance, failure is inevitable. An EPM program helps ensure that maintenance happens before failures do.
Electrical Outages May Cost You More Than You Think
Electrical equipment failures that lead to outages are more costly in some industries than others. Hospitals, for instance, often employ entire teams to prevent this very scenario because lives depend on it.
For large manufacturing companies, an outage that halts production can cost millions of dollars per hour.
Equipment and power failures in commercial facilities and small businesses cost production and precious sales time.
In data centers — which an array of organizations often rely upon — an outage costs an average of $8,851 per minute, according to a study conducted by Emerson Network Power and the Ponemon Institute.
Manufacturing plants lose production time during outages, and manufacturing equipment is vulnerable to damage in the event of a sudden shutdown. A single-day outage at a car manufacturer can cost the auto company millions of dollars.
Even retail facilities aren’t immune to the impact of electrical outages. Failed refrigerators and freezers can lead to thousands of dollars in lost product, and hazardous environments for employees and customers alike.
Food processing facilities deal with refrigerator and freezer failures causing lost product and hazardous work environments. All equipment can short circuit and cause the entire building to lose power.
Electrical outages cause an estimated $150 billion in damages annually (between repairs and service outage) according to the Department of Energy.
Ultimately, it’s cheaper and more efficient to implement best practices for inspection, testing, and preventive maintenance for your facility’s electrical systems — rather than wait for disaster to strike and scramble to schedule reactive maintenance. Plus, the additional data you gain from tracking wear and tear on machinery and part replacement will allow you to optimize equipment use. Just a little bit of preparation goes a long way to making sure you’re on the top of your game.
Avoid Outages and Save Money With an Electrical Preventive Maintenance Plan
Staying ahead of electrical issues is simple with an electrical preventive maintenance (EPM) plan in place. If you don't already have one in place we've put together a guide that will give you a working knowledge of electrical and mechanical components that should be included in your routine.
Lemberg Can Help You Maintain Your Equipment
Download our EPM guide today - achieving success in an electrical construction project has never been easier! Lemberg can help you design and carry out a comprehensive, regularly scheduled electrical preventive maintenance plan. For more information, feel free to talk to us, and we will be more than willing to assist. Visit Lemberg on the web or call (262)781-1500 for more information or to schedule a consultation.
