Utility services are pretty much indispensable for industries and production plants. These services include regular check-ups and maintenance of supporting machinery and equipment other than the ones used for manufacturing the products. One such utility plant that needs regular maintenance is the substation situated within the manufacturing plants. Without proper maintenance periodically, the mini power distribution plant is prone to faults and ultimately, breakdown. And it’s obvious, that you may incur hefty losses due to a failure in power substation. So how do you avoid any failure from hitting the substation?
Preventive Maintenance
As the title suggests, these maintenance practices help prevent any failure to your substation. Preventive maintenance is intended to follow some common practices such as affirming proper connections, lubrication of all moving mechanical parts, ensuring proper insulation of the wiring system, and alike. With appropriate maintenance aimed at preventing failures, the chances of any fault occurring unannounced are highly diminished. Having said that, it is important to understand how these preventive maintenance measures are implemented.
Step 1. Inspection
The very first step before any repairs or replacements can be done is the proper inspection of the plant. According to the experts at UtilityService.net a utility maintenance service provider would visually inspect each and every element in the substation. The maintenance workers look for signs such as sparks at the wire joints, patches of paint peeling off the metal pillars and machinery, and other symptoms that are indicative of future failures. Once the professional repair-worker ensures that there are no visual signs of failure, they proceed with technical inspection using highly sophisticated equipment.
Step 2. Adjustment
The signs which are detected visually can be mended without using any special tools or the need for special skills. These minor adjustments may include tightening of loose joints, repainting the rusty metal parts, lubrication of mechanical parts, and other similar tasks.
Step 3. Repair
Most of the maintenance jobs do not require any repairs unless there is a breakdown or some serious fault. In case there are signs of failure that require special attention, a skilled repair jobber is appointed to mend the fault. For example, there could be a technical fault in any of the monitoring systems. These faults cannot be adjusted, rather need skilled repairmen to inspect and repair the circuitry faults.
Step 4. Replacement
Furthermore, there can be instances when a complete piece of equipment needs to be replaced. These faults are not that common, but if acquainted with, can cause severe damage and loss. For example, if one of the relay switches are burnt due to short-circuit, there’s not anything that a repairman can do other than replacing the switch. Most often, these faults are detected beforehand. Since every substation has a regular maintenance schedule and the lifespan of every piece of equipment is also defined, replacement tasks are carried out before the faults could occur.
Ensuring a proper maintenance schedule can not only save your plant from incurring a loss in production but also improve the life of your other manufacturing machinery.
