By using the latest condition monitoring systems and services, manufacturing companies can reduce unforeseen breakdowns. Schaeffler UK's managing director, Kate Hartigan, explains
When owning and managing high value items like cars or homes, most people are comfortable paying insurance premiums. So, surely manufacturing companies need to ensure their high value capital goods are adequately insured against unforeseen breakdowns? After all, lost production could equate to tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of pounds per day. Although the cost of machine components like bearings and motors is small compared with the total machine price, the cost of production downtime and consequential losses resulting from a component failure, are often significant.
Take a steel or aluminium manufacturing plant. The typical cost of production downtime is