Unreliable equipment can be the death knell for a business, with the costs of equipment failure and downtime being tricky to accurately predict and calculate.

Machinery breakdowns can cost businesses money as well as cause inconvenience and disruption. These can include extra downtime, lost production, safety risks, equipment replacement costs, and product quality issues. These downsides have negative ripple effects on your staff, customers, the supply chain, and your brand.

What then are the best practices your business can adopt to calculate the actual cost of equipment failure?

An eye on preventing failures

The most common machinery failures and what you can do to prevent them:

• Corrosion weakening the metal. Control moisture such as a coolant leak to control this.
• Boundary wear or adhesion due to inadequate lubrication. Regularly check lubricant levels.
• Cavitation, where low pressure creates air bubbles that can damage pumps and valves. Ensure speed control, surface treatment, and fluid dynamics.
• Erosion to baffles, screens, sensor, windows, pipes, etc. is managed with a protective coating.
• Electrical discharge from moisture, ground faults, or corrosions.  Ensure the equipment is kept dry.

Improving your overall strategy

Whichever sector or industry you’re in, you can also keep a step ahead of any issues by:

• Checking, updating, and following maintenance recommendations on your equipment logbook.
• Ramping up your record-keeping to track equipment failure, downtime, repair, or replacement costs.
• Developing detailed schedules for maintenances such as oil changes, belts, etc.
• Looking out for product safety recalls and users’ reviews of the equipment to hint at possible issues.
• Cutting your losses if your figures show excess maintenance means it’s time to invest in higher quality equipment.

These measures will hand you reliable data to calculate your potential and actual losses through equipment breakdown.

Catering for risks beyond your control

Even if you have great systems and checks in place, then events out of your control – such as a power surge – can still cause equipment to go awry. For peace of mind, equipment breakdown insurance bridges the gap – it’s much like accident, health, and disability cover, but for your gear.

If you would like to know more about equipment breakdown insurance, please CLICK HERE or contact us for more information.