When you’re running a heavy industry business, too many low production hours in a row can send your bottom line to zero. You could lose clients, you could lose contacts, and you could even need to lay off a good portion of your employees.
In other sectors, downtime usually just brings a short term dip in profits. In the heavy industry, a lack of control over downtime is often sink or swim.
But you can put the power back in your hands. A little bit of preparation means you can prevent your machines from going haywire when you’re not ready for it. Incorporate the safety points below into your day to day work and you may just find you never have to worry about downtime again.
Track Machine Efficiency with Automation Software
You can’t be everywhere at once, and neither can your workforce. That makes keeping an eye on your operations extremely difficult. If your engineers are all tied up at the moment, no one will be available to stop the production belt in the back from grinding to a halt.
So rely on software to do this job for you. Automated tech has a lot of industrial applications, but you only need a simple management platform here. That makes this a simple investment that’ll pay dividends on a permanent basis.
You can usually get a one-stop dashboard that allows you to access all areas of your production floor at all times. Then, link it up to the machines that make the business and have a birdseye view of how well they’re performing.
This will then present you with up to date information on how well your machines are working, and if any problems are likely to arise within the next 24 hours.
Regularly Maintain Machines
It might sound like an obvious safety precaution, but there’s a lot of heavy industry companies out there that don’t run their maintenance checks often enough.
Your machines need to be looked over and assessed at least once a day, and ideally twice – usually at the start and end of the day.
This will give you the chance to check for signs of damage both on the machine casing and within. Give more time to the inner engine than anything else, and look for signs that parts are loosening, melting, and/or eroding.
Specifically, you should always be on the lookout for damage to devices like the cylinder head. A Cummins Cylinder Head is a crucial engine element in diesel power engines, and could be the difference between your machine overheating and being able to run its full cycle.
Similarly, plan downtime to avoid unplanned downtime. If a machine has been running non-stop, schedule turn-off points where you can get these checks down with minimum disruption.
Low production hours are killer in a business like yours. Take the time to prepare for downtime related issues and get back on top of your profit lines. Get started with the tips above.