When it comes to an air compressor, maintenance in the standard form is never enough. To ensure the smooth running of operations and avoid interruptions and unexpected downtime, it is crucial to have a compressor maintenance program in place that prevents — rather than reacts to — problems with the air compressor and all attached tools and machinery.
Learn more about how to maintain an air compressor to keep it in its best condition.
The Difference Between Preventive and Standard Air Compressor Maintenance
In smaller businesses, maintenance is a standard procedure that amounts to toner refills and software and hardware upgrades. Essentially, standard maintenance is what you perform on equipment that works consistently until it expires or becomes outmoded by newer technology.
At facilities that employ high-tech machinery, you must perform more than just standard maintenance to ensure the operability and longevity of all the expensive equipment on hand. Air compressors need a preventive maintenance program that inspects the machine and its system peripherals regularly. These scheduled checks ensure everything is in fully functioning condition.
The purpose of preventive maintenance is to catch mechanical problems before they spread and necessitate costly repairs and system downtime. Preventive maintenance involves inspections of all system components — some according to a daily schedule, others on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis — to ensure everything works properly. If you detect problems early, you can take steps to rectify matters before they grow worse.
In some cases, preventive maintenance involves low-cost measures that help avoid costlier situations down the line. For example, when a maintenance technician notices a compressor belt has a minor crack, replacing the belt right away helps your company prevent a costlier scenario. Otherwise, the belt could snap, causing the compressor to stop working and production to stop. The staff might be unable to identify the problem for a significant amount of time, leading to excessive downtime.
The Benefits and Value of Preventive Maintenance for Industrial Air Compressor Systems
1. Avoiding Downtime
One of the most significant benefits of compressor maintenance is the decreased downtime. When machines function incorrectly, production usually halts, resulting in lost revenue. Preventive maintenance keeps machines running smoothly and efficiently, minimizing slowed production times.
Without maintenance, you might face frequent performance issues. These could arise at inconvenient times, like during a major production request with a looming deadline. You should perform maintenance every day to avoid these problems, even when nothing appears to be wrong.
2. Saving Money by Avoiding Costly Emergency Repairs
With reduced occurrences of downtime and parts failure in your air compressor system, you save money. As such, you profit both ways — through increased productivity and reduced overhead. The money you save through timely compressor maintenance allows you to invest more in better equipment as innovations reach the market.
Without maintenance, the costs involved in the repair of an air compressor and its peripheral parts can take a huge chunk from a company’s annual earnings. When you conduct timely maintenance, you’ll reap savings you can pass on to your company through higher wages and less expensive products.
3. Lowering Energy Costs
When you perform air compressor maintenance on a regular schedule, it allows you to catch instances where a function within the system is over-exerting or struggling to maintain an expected rate of production. When such issues do arise, it is often down to a part that needs cleaning, replacement or lubrication. By spotting these problems before they grow out of hand, the machine runs smoother and more efficiently, which translates to energy savings.
Of course, energy savings also amount to money saved in your overall production costs. With lower monthly energy costs, you can invest the money back into the infrastructure of your company.
4. Increasing Air Compressor Life and Efficiency
Of course, the greatest benefit of air compressor maintenance is that it increases the life and efficiency of the machine itself and the system as a whole. When you add up the initial cost of investment in an air compressor and all the attached pneumatic tools, you want to ensure a return on that investment through years of optimal performance. Ideally, the money you spend on your compressor system should reward you thousands and thousands of times over through productivity.
Without maintenance, an air compressor and its peripheral components will not last as long as it otherwise could with regular checkups, tune-ups and cleanups. When you compare the profits of companies that implement responsible system maintenance with those that do not, you are liable to see major differences in productivity.