Working Hard All Winter – Seasonal Predictive Maintenance
In both warmer and cooler months, you rely on your heavy machinery to keep the lights on, the team employed, and the revenue flowing. You don’t have the time, effort, or expenses for emergency maintenance, but the longer you operate this or that heavy machine without regular check-ups, the more likely emergency maintenance becomes.
To make matters more complicated, the winter season throws new hazards at your machinery both inside and out, further threatening the continued operation of your business. Components spanning the range from bearings to fluids (oil, lubricants) can experience greater risk of failure throughout the winter months. Regular predictive maintenance checkups, however, can spare you some of that risk.
At Cornerstone Mechanical, we can look into your machine to discern its future. With our predictive maintenance program, we can see any possible failure well ahead of time and recommend the course we think most suitable to avoid it. We can also employ highly-accurate techniques such as vibration monitoring and infrared thermography throughout the winter months to make sure that your machinery is in top working order.
Winter Issues
Each season poses unique challenges to your machinery no matter where they’re located. The temperature inside and outside your shop has a lot to do with it, but so does the rhythm of your particular industry. The winter season could see an uptick, decline, or steadying off in production depending on your unique circumstances. But for our purposes, let’s take a look at the weather.
Component Failures
A change of even a few degrees in the average operating temperature of your machinery could cause some serious problems. Even if most or all of your machines reside indoors, the winter weather finds a way of creeping in.
During the colder months, certain machine components may be more likely to suffer from the sub-zero temps. Here’s a brief (and by no means exhaustive) list of components that are in special danger throughout the winter months:
- Filters (fuel/air)
- Fluids (oils, other lubricants)
- Seals
- Hoses
- Temperature control systems
- Much more
Thankfully, Cornerstone’s predictive maintenance program can identify and replace/repair certain components to lessen winter damage.
Predictive Maintenance
The operative word here is “predict,” as in “we avoided that machine failure because we predicted it.” Far from crystal balls, Cornerstone performs regular preventive and predictive maintenance to ensure bearings are properly lubricated and pump/gearbox oil has been changed. Cornerstone also relies on a comprehensive predictive maintenance routine featuring, among other things, our own vibration monitoring program.
Vibration monitoring programs allow Cornerstone to identify possible problem areas based on the vibration of your machine and its components, preventing problems before they turn into failures. This also gives you the time you need to source the needed parts and schedule maintenance when it’s convenient for you—a task that Cornerstone is also happy to help with.
For the maximum results, and maximum operational output throughout the winter months, Cornerstone’s predictive maintenance program includes cutting-edge methods to ensure your equipment performs as expected or even better than. For this reason, we also employ infrared thermography and oil analysis as part of our program options.
No two operations are alike and no cookie-cutter predictive maintenance program suits everyone. At Cornerstone, we’ll design a custom predictive maintenance program to fit your operations and machinery’s individual needs. This gives you the certainty you need to charge forward all winter long!
Don’t React, Predict
This winter, don’t wait until the cooler temperatures wreak havoc to inspect the operational strength of your vital machinery. At Cornerstone, our trusted team of predictive maintenance technicians can provide off-route vibration testing and in-depth analysis for any equipment that seems to have a problem even if it’s something you can’t seem to locate or understand.
With single-speed/variable-speed vibration testing, infrared thermography, and a dozen other tricks up our sleeves, we’ll give you the confidence you need to get back to business as usual no matter what the thermometer says.
Don’t just react to machine failures, predict them instead.
It’s not always possible to make the best of emergency situations. The stress, time, and expense of a sudden fix can cause a cascade failure of its own. Instead of just reacting to an issue, cut it off at the pass with Cornerstone’s cutting-edge predictive maintenance program. To schedule your predictive maintenance appointment, or to learn more about infrared thermography or vibration monitoring, contact us or call (214) 570-9498 today!