New report highlights rethinking maintenance as key to enhancing industry ’ s commercial resilience
EDITOR ’ S CHOICE PRACTICAL GUIDANCE
ALFA LAVAL
New report highlights rethinking maintenance as key to enhancing industry ’ s commercial resilience
Production , process , and plant managers operating across various industries have been urged to rethink their approach to heat exchanger maintenance following updated insight from a new industry whitepaper . more pertinent . Energy-hunting uses calculations to estimate energy savings and aims to find new ways of reusing waste energy by changing the cleaning and maintenance program or updating configurations .
The message comes at a pivotal point for industry , as increasing energy costs , aggressive competition from overseas , and decarbonisation targets risk limiting industry recovery .
In particular , high-energy users are being warned that running key equipment to failure will result in additional costs in the form of equipment repair and poor efficiency levels .
To provide practical guidance , global engineering company , Alfa Laval , has launched the whitepaper Taking the Heat – which aims to make proactive maintenance of plate heat exchangers ( PHEs ) a priority for manufacturers .
According to the report , poor maintenance of PHEs across industry plays a major role in increased global carbon emission levels . Although viewed as ‘ one piece of a larger puzzle ’, without proper servicing and maintenance , the risks of production line failure , low levels of output and unsightly balance sheets are dramatically increased for businesses .
Relying on reactive maintenance not only perpetuates a false economy but increases the risk of
Poor maintenance of PHEs across industry plays a major role in increased global carbon emission levels .
unpredictability in machinery and costs . Remarkably , an academic report from 2013 found that around 15 % of all factory maintenance costs are credited to heat exchangers , with half of that figure due to fouling .
A report from OneServe also found that machine downtime is costing manufacturers in excess of £ 180 billion each year . Experts at Alfa Laval say taking a groundup approach to PHE maintenance could drastically lower the chance of line failure and downtime .
PHEs are also commonly specified years ahead of becoming fully operational within a plant , making Alfa Laval ’ s case for energy-hunting and lean manufacturing even
The report continues to highlight the measures businesses can implement to achieve lean manufacturing and a proactive maintenance schedule .
Rachel Bridges , Managing Director at Alfa Laval says : “ Now is the time for renewed focus on effective maintenance strategies , not only to make the most of installed assets , but also to correct the course as commercial resilience is stretched to its limit . We project there are thousands of PHEs in operation that are not working efficiently which could be unnecessarily draining businesses . It is now time to make maintenance a priority for PHEs , not a reactive response to failure .
“ The current situation makes it critical that businesses manage the issues that remain in their control ,” Rachel continues . “ We hope this new report reinforces the importance of establishing a proactive and considered maintenance strategy and that PHEs are acknowledged as a significant part of a complex picture .”
1
Fouling In Heat Exchangers : A Costly Problem | IMPO ( impomag . com )
2
Machine downtime costs UK manufacturers £ 180bn a year ( theengineer . co . uk )
To download the full report , www . alfalaval . co . uk / takingtheheat
8 PECM Issue 69