Monitoring Your Equipment: If it’s not broken don’t fix it. Right?

Preventative maintenance is expensive but is “prevention better than the cure”?  This blog is going to look at this phrase is applicable when it comes to your monitoring equipment and the benefits to your company.

Efficiency

By checking your equipment regularly, you will know that your equipment will continue to operate safely and you can make sure to identify any potential issues before they become big problems.  You can also help to maintain efficiency by ensuring optimal working conditions and enhancing the life span of your equipment.  Some of our customers have equipment that is still going strong 20 years later when you could expect equipment of this type to need replacing in 5-10 years.

Reduce downtime

Planned preventative maintenance may be an inconvenience to you but that is nothing compared to the time and money it could cost if plant shutdown is required to repair equipment that has unexpectedly failed.  You can plan your own maintenance schedule, meaning that you can decide when is the best time for maintenance to be carried out.  You can schedule this around production and choose the optimal time to minimise nuisance.

Reduce repair costs

A good preventative maintenance service will identify any areas that need addressing immediately or in the near future.  You will be able to change consumables as they’re wearing as opposed to when they have failed.  For example, during our preventative maintenance, our engineers will check the sampler pump tubing and replace it if it is starting to wear prior to it splitting. If the pump tubing splits, the sampler will stop taking samples which could breach the conditions of your permit.

Permit requirements

Some permits have specific requirements about your monitoring arrangements.  For example, you may be required to ensure you have continuous monitoring under all circumstances or a ‘zero downtime’ operation.  If your equipment fails due to poor or no maintenance, you can end up in breach of your permit requirements.  If you are subject to the Environment Agency’s Operator Monitoring Assessment (OMA), you will also have to demonstrate your monitoring techniques are suitable and provide accurate data.  Preventative maintenance will help to demonstrate you meet this requirement and will score you higher.  You can read more about Operator Monitoring Assessment in one of our previous blogs.

Piece of mind

Knowing that your equipment is well looked after and operating efficiently will give you piece of mind.  You can be assured that parts aren’t about to fail and it is less likely you will have to deal with an equipment failure. Whilst preventative maintenance isn’t a cure all, it can certainly help your business run more efficiently, ensure you stay within the parameters of your permit and reduce the costs associated with running monitoring equipment.  Are you happy that your maintenance schedule delivers these benefits?