Benefit from dedicated service
September 1st 2004

When companies look at cost savings, it can prove to be a false economy to reduce maintenance budgets, particularly on compressed air systems.

As the efficiency of the system deteriorates, the increased energy required pushes up the electricity bill. This, in turn, can quickly offset any perceived saving. Poor compressed air quality can also have a lasting impact on plant performance and reliability.

It can lead to system malfunctions, reduced operating life and loss of production, all of which are avoidable if systems are checked and regularly maintained.

According to Donaldson’s Industrial Filtration Solutions Group, typically, over a 10 year period, the cost of a compressed air installation can be split as 75% energy costs, 10% maintenance costs and 15% capital costs.

Donaldson operates a dedicated regional service team. Its service plans are designed with flexibility to accommodate production processes and manufacturing requirements in full and the plan can be individually tailored to a given plant’s requirements.

The tailored service plan ensures the compressed air system is running efficiently and cost effectively, with improved costs, increased plant life expectancy, reduced downtime and availability of compressed air is boosted. The work also helps eliminate costly plant breakdowns that can have devastating effects on product manufacture and output.

Such failures can manifest themselves in poor finish quality, rejected components and considerable downtime, bringing with it all the associated penalties of lost production, underachieved targets and lost sales.

To keep manufacturing facilities operating at peak efficiency, it is imperative to have a scheduled maintenance programme for compressed air systems. This not only avoids unforeseen breakdowns, but addresses energy efficiency and compressed air quality.

If maintenance is cut, efficiency of the system decreases through wear, contamination, air leaks and ineffective take-off of condensate, resulting in energy costs increasing.

The entire system is put under significant pressure, with increased energy use, contamination, excessive condensate generation and erosion due to increased throughput of air necessary to provide sufficient pressure for effective operation of the plant.

Monitoring of the plant’s performance is particularly important to provide detailed information and a ‘moment in time’ analysis of the plant’s efficiency.

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