Maintaining Power Equipment Testing Repair and Safety

Posted by rlnenergyservices on March 21st, 2017

Sometimes people ask why regular routine maintenance matters. Some would argue that it saves money to keep maintenance to a minimum, hire outside vendors or freelancers, and only occasionally check on power equipment like a Caterpillar natural gas engine.

And of course this is a short-sighted view. Could you save a little money annually? You might think so. But if you wait to repair a generator until something goes wrong, you’re already too late and chances are you’ll wind up spending way more money than you thought you’d save, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars just for repairs in some cases, and potentially millions in lost revenue during downtime. Irregular maintenance is better than none, but systems are complex and going to long without looking in on it opens up plenty of opportunity for disaster.

The long-term view is the more financially responsible one. The more you invest in maintaining your engines, the lower the cost will be over multiple years.

If power gets shut down unexpectedly at any time, that can translate into major losses in revenue, which can have a serious effect on labor. Wages may stagnate if revenue is impacted in a long-term manner, layoffs may happen -- and when these things creep into corporate culture, morale and productivity suffer. That means the company’s bottom line suffers, too.

So keep your technicians up to date and always working. If you can’t hire your own full time maintenance crew, you can hire specialists on retainer. Plenty of companies specialize in this sort of thing. Some may even offer training to take care of you now and prepare your staff for the future.

In the power industry, skill training is as valuable as gold. Skilled labor that is both qualified and available is increasingly rare, and industry technology is evolving rapidly. If you have the opportunity to hire a team to handle immediate duties as well as train your own staff, you should jump at that chance. You need a trained eye at all times, and yesterday’s eye may not be good enough for today.

It’s also a safety issue; power equipment is powerful, and when things go wrong, safety can be highly compromised. Fires can start if heat isn’t managed. Preventative systems can fail if power is improperly routed or underserved. Human lives are the highest cost of all when power generating equipment isn’t maintained.

Even if you think “just maintenance” is an unnecessary expense, think of it like insurance: you need it BEFORE you need it. Testing and maintenance keep the repair jobs at a minimum and keeps safety measures in place.

Your options on how to keep your Caterpillar natural gas engine maintained are plentiful. The one option you should avoid is not doing it.

About the Author:

RLN Energy Services is an Edmonton, Alberta based company that specializes in the sale and resale of heavy power equipment. It is a privately held corporation with a team of highly experienced & skilled technicians in mechanical and electrical industries. RLN Energy Services provides sales of various power system equipment that includes natural gas equipment, portable power plants, diesel generator sets, turbine powered equipment & more. Along with the sale of power equipment, they also focus on training specific services for the maintenance, safety, switching operations & associated tools in the industry.