Preventative and Predictive Maintenance

01 Nov Preventative and Predictive Maintenance

In an effort to be more eco-friendly, efficient and cost conscious today’s End Users seek predictive and preventative maintenance services to help maintain, analyze, and optimize their facilities.

Heavier electrical use at today’s facilities take a toll on the electrical wiring and equipment of a facility. Although some electrical equipment deterioration is normal, equipment failure is not inevitable with predictive and preventative maintenance. It is recommended that a complete predictive and preventive maintenance plan be implemented into any facility operations to ensure the electrical systems are always functioning properly and without failure. We all know that when it comes to a facility any amount of unscheduled downtime can be costly. Most unscheduled electrical outages within a facilities electrical systems are preventable if the systems are properly maintained.

One key component to any facility’s predictive and preventive maintenance plan of the electrical systems includes Infrared Scanning (aka IR scanning). IR scanning can be one of the most cost effective and essential services any facility should utilize to prevent unscheduled electrical outages. The process of IR scanning is relatively simple. All electrical panels, disconnects, transformers and major components of the electrical system are examined with an infrared camera by a certified thermographer. Each Infrared scan comes with a report that provides a narrative of the background information for the facility, a summary of the infrared findings, field observations and associated thermograms.

Here are some of the scenarios that can potentially be found during an IR Scan:

• Overheating of the electrical system components and wiring which can result in costly unscheduled outages and lost production and the need for replacement electrical equipment and/or wiring.
• Overheating of the electrical system components and wiring which can result in possible fires, safety hazards and accidents.
• Power problems such as harmonics and overloading and load imbalance can contribute to heating of an electrical system and unscheduled downtime including overall system failure.
• Poor installation practices and NEC code violations.

Once the recommended repairs occur this helps prevent unscheduled electrical outages as well as extend the life of the electrical system itself. We recommend an IR scan be performed annually at all facilities.

Preventative and predictive maintenance is a very necessary service to utilize to ensure your facility is not only in proper operation without any risks or failure and is up to code. Be sure to call an Electrical contractor with Certified Technicians to perform your IR scan on your facility.