At the moment we are regularly getting asked:
“Do I need to be doing this in my maintenance schedule?”
“Can I extend the intervals between servicing?”
“Can I carry out more of the servicing myself?”
There is no surprise that engineers are looking at these sorts of improvements; with increased budget pressures across most sectors and with better understanding, more questions are raised about bespoke maintenance plans.
In answering these questions we have put together our latest general maintenance guide which has been developed by combining our diesel engine knowledge with the expertise of electrical specialists Quartzelec.
The guide (which you can access here) shows the key checks you should be making to your maintenance procedures that will help you to prevent costly downtime.
Each maintenance plan should be specific to your engine and will need to take into account:
- Age of equipment
- OEM recommendations
- Application & environment
- History of equipment considering previous problems and work scopes
- Failures with the same type of equipment in other applications
- Engine performance and monitoring information
If you’re wondering whether there are any additional procedures that you’re currently performing too frequently or that might not be necessary, the guide will be really useful in you understanding what they are.
Opportunities to increase reliability and reduce costs:
- Increase maintenance intervals based on feedback information from engine, including oil samples, vibration and other condition monitoring.
- Regardless of hours run, change o-rings and other rubber based components every 10 years as after ten years, they will be markedly less effective.
- Monitor oil condition and change when required rather than by routine
- Review if there are additional procedures being carried out which are unnecessary.
- Reduce the time it takes to carry out maintenance activities by making sure they are in logical order.
If you’d like some help improving your current strategy, drop us an email and we’ll be happy to discuss options.
Remember there is the maintenance guide available here to use as a comparison.
