NOTE: The sponsor of this content may contact you with more information on this topic. Click here to opt out from sharing your email address with this sponsor. (This link will not unsubscribe you from any other BIC email list).
Typical manufacturing plants experience downtime as high as 20% annually. But don’t aim for typical, not when you can join the high-performing group that experiences only 5%. With downtime in manufacturing plants averaging $500 per minute, increasing uptime even incrementally makes a major contribution to the bottom line.
Unscheduled downtime costs more than scheduled because you’re usually in crisis mode. Per the Plant Engineering 2018 Maintenance Study, the leading causes of downtime are aging equipment (44%), operator error (16%), and lack of time (15%).
But you need to keep even scheduled downtime as low as possible to bolster your bottom line. Your choice is simple: Plan now or pay later. Take action with six steps to reduce downtime related to industrial process cooling.
Preventive Maintenance
By now, almost every maintenance team knows that preventive maintenance will save money over reactive maintenance—which isn’t truly maintenance at all, but rather a crisis response. The run-to-failure strategy costs less right now, because you’re not spending money to keep equipment in condition. But eventually, you’ll spend far more in money and resources than necessary. In fact, the Marshall Institute reports that you’ll pay 2-5 times as much as you would have if you’d performed proactive maintenance—either preventive or predictive.
Does reactive maintenance ever make sense? Sure, if the part or machine is inexpensive and easy to replace. The rule of thumb for the right balance in industrial process cooling applications is 75% preventive, 25% reactive. If you don’t invest in preventive maintenance and experience the breakdown of a critical workhorse like an air handler, you can expect to face downtime, lost production, safety risks, and unworkable environmental conditions. If you haven’t planned ahead, you’ll also pay more for complicated repairs, replacement parts you don’t stock, expedited shipping to receive those parts, overtime for workers performing the repair, missed deadlines on customer orders, and damage to reputation—the company’s and maybe yours. The costs mount rapidly, dwarfing what you would have spent on proactive maintenance.
Preventive maintenance is the better choice for equipment where repair or replacement costs run high and parts need periodic attention. Maintenance can bring your equipment back to like-new condition and resolve any issues that could lead to downtime later. The best approach is to develop a preventive maintenance plan to schedule MRO, determine tasks, assign staff, order parts, budget costs, and arrange backup to minimize downtime.
Predictive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance will save you time and money compared to reactive maintenance, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. The next step up is predictive maintenance. Instead of simply scheduling preventive maintenance according to the OEM’s suggested intervals, your machines can let you know when they need attention—and you won’t have to shut them down to determine their condition. In many cases, the sensors won’t even need to be wired in. With a basic setup to collect data, sensors to measure vibration, temperature, pressure, rotating speed, chemical composition, and many other parameters, and a software system to handle monitoring and analysis, you’ll know how long you have to service a key part or machine before it grinds to halt. That way, you won’t waste a minute of any component’s usable life.
Consider most process cooling equipment, for example. The combination of fans, drives, motors, bearings, and varying loads puts enormous stress on mechanical components, eventually leading to failure. The question is, When?
One key way to determine when the bearings and gears in a rotor are going bad is simply to listen. But that requires access to the equipment, which often isn’t available when it’s running. And you’re gathering information only on one component. You may still not know the best time to shut down the equipment to perform preventive maintenance. Predictive maintenance lets you shift from reacting to problems and a keep-it-running philosophy to analyzing performance and continually improving processes.
Environmental Effects
Your facility may be experiencing much different conditions now than when it was built, especially if that was decades ago. According to NASA, temperatures planet-wide have seen a rapid warming trend over the last 40 years. Regardless of the cause, records show it’s 1.62ᵒF warmer now than the 1951 to 1980 mean.
That may not sound like much, but ambient temperatures in the summer where your facility is located could be several degrees higher, drastically changing the indoor environment. Excessive heat and humidity, along with varied weather patterns, may require changes in cooling equipment to maintain production, ensure quality and safety of stored goods, and keep workers comfortable.
Don’t overlook that last item. To stay competitive, plants are requiring longer shifts, higher production levels, and faster throughput. In addition, regulations may mean your workers must wear stifling protective gear. That puts a lot of stress on workers, especially when the temperature soars. For example, a U.S. Department of Energy study determined that for every 1°C (1.8°F) temperatures rise above 25°C (77°F), work performance declines 2%. So, when you think of reducing downtime, you want to make sure you consider staff hours as well as equipment downtime. Overheated workers tire easily, lose focus, and can suffer from heat cramps to a life-threatening heat stroke.
Although years ago, your predecessor might simply have opened the factory doors, today’s high-precision manufacturing equipment often requires clean air, without dust, dirt, pollen, or insects. Opening a door won’t do much good if the temperature outside is sweltering as well. But plant managers today can choose a range of cost-effective solutions for supplemental cooling, from mechanical cooling and hot-water absorbers to absorption chillers that use byproduct heat.
Product, Speed, Quality, and Standards Changes
Every year your plant faces changes in equipment and processes due to internal shifts—new product introductions, greater customer demand, different quality controls—and external standards, such as evolving regulatory requirements. This often requires modifying the plant environment and equipment needed for process cooling.
If your current capacity cannot keep up with peak demands or meet regulatory requirements, you may be looking at repairing or replacing a chiller, air handler, or cooling tower, preferably without disrupting your operation. If you need only a replacement part, you may be able to get by with your existing equipment for a few days and not lose much time. But if you need to order a large rooftop unit, with a delivery date weeks or even months away, you’ll want to consider renting supplemental equipment to cover the gap. That may call for portable air conditioning units to spot cool, or a fully engineered solution involving large rooftop units, chillers, and air handlers.
Either way, be prepared for the situation to unfold in ways you least expect. Work with a partner who can help you create an emergency cooling plan and help you confidently address equipment failures and other adverse situations.
Emergency Shutdown
You’ve done everything right. You developed a preventive maintenance plan and you keep it updated. You get early warning of issues via data from sensors as part of your predictive maintenance program. You’ve got climate change on your radar and make sure you meet all your process and comfort cooling needs. Your team has become adept at managing a constantly shifting environment, whether you’re changing products or meeting new standards. And still, you can experience unexpected downtime.
Although many facilities would be unprepared, yours doesn’t have to be one of them. With a contingency plan in place, and a partner with temporary equipment, engineering knowledge, and expertise to ensure a smooth installation, you can change a reactive response to a proactive one.
Although every facility will ultimately face a situation that could be handled more smoothly and efficiently with a contingency plan, too often it’s not in place. To minimize downtime during an unplanned outage, you must develop a plan that identifies risks, considers unique site factors, enables your team to act swiftly, and allows you to be flexible and hands-on.
Natural Disaster
No part of the world is immune from a natural disaster, whether it’s a hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, flood, tornado, or volcanic eruption. In such an event, it’s not just your company that needs help getting back online, but everyone. At rental companies supplying much-needed equipment, the phone rings non-stop—and the operators perform triage to determine how to allocate limited equipment and resources.
If you’ve already developed a contingency plan and can provide that to your bosses, you’ll be a hero. And if you worked with a temporary equipment provider to develop the contingency plan, you can activate it immediately and get temporary cooling solutions and other utilities headed your way and installed. You’ll be back in business long before any of your competitors.
The key to saving every spare minute of time in these scenarios is to make sure your contingency plan covers all the details. A rental partner can save you days or weeks, by working through every scenario and every possible need at your specific site. For example, you may use chillers in your process cooling. Many times, the permanent chiller works on electricity of a specific voltage and amperage. The temporary chiller must use the same type of electricity. If that’s not possible, then you’ll need a generator or transformer to adjust for the power differential as well—and the fuel for it. Or the connection points may use 4” hoses, not the 8” hoses the company supplying the chiller brings. Planning and communication are critical, down to the last nut and bolt.
Consult with a Partner—at No Cost
Whether your plant is experiencing planned or unplanned downtime, you don’t want it to last a minute longer than it has to. We hope this guide will help you take every possible minute of downtime out of your schedule and recover quickly when you do face a critical issue. Even at the low end, downtime costs your company $500 a minute. If you can whittle—or whack—away at the 20% downtime that most manufacturers experience every year, you can give serious money back to your company. But you can’t go at it alone. When you’re developing a preventive or predictive maintenance plan, responding to a change in anything from climate to regulatory rules, or fighting an emergency shutdown or natural disaster, you need a partner who’s just as invested in saving time and money as you are. Be sure to establish a partnership with a rental company to provide high-quality equipment and accessories, engineering knowledge, and installation expertise wherever you need it, 24/7. The right company will also be able to help you with education and training for your employees.
For a free consultation including an on-site survey and custom-designed cooling solution, contact the Sunbelt Rentals experts: 866-633-0785. You can download a printable version of our e-book, 6 Ways to Reduce Downtime at Your Manufacturing Plant here.
