As a business, how do you look after your machinery?

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Wondering how you can increase the longevity of your machinery at work? Maintenance of work equipment is important for several reasons, from safety to creating a more efficient workplace. And with more and more workplaces becoming reliant on machinery, it’s important to get a plan in place to help look after your equipment.

From photocopiers to more complex machinery across industrial sectors, each piece of equipment should be monitored and looked after. On top of general safety around machinery in the workplace, there’s other guidance you should follow to maintain and embrace it.

Read the user guide

While it might seem like an obvious tip, reading the user guide will equip you with key information on how to look after any machinery. To make things easier for employees, you could extract key learnings from the guide and print out a bullet point list for people to take note of. This way, you can create good habits across the workforce to keep that piece of machinery intact.

Based on your findings, you might uncover the need to run tests every so often, which in turn will help with the longevity of your machinery. It may be that you need to implement a routine to stay on top of this, delegating certain employees to take on this responsibility. This might differ to more thorough maintenance checks, which we’ll cover next.

Maintain the machinery

On top of getting to know your machinery, it’s important to maintain it properly with the correct tools and equipment. This might simply involve using a lubricant like these or replacing parts when needed.

Routine maintenance checks will help make sure any problems are caught early on, preventing damage further down the line. This should be done by those competent enough to take on this responsibility. If nobody in-house is capable, you should install help from contractors who are qualified to assist with the issue.

Keep it clean

A clean machine is a happy machine. Something as simple as dust can create issues within machinery, so be sure that the equipment in question doesn’t sit neglected in the corner of the workplace for months.

A frequent clean will help your machine operate for longer. Integrate this task into generic cleaning schedules to avoid creating any unwanted issues leading to costly repairs.

Repair things sooner rather than later

While prevention is better than cure, sometimes incidents happen. In these circumstances, machinery should be repaired as soon as possible to prevent other workers from exacerbating the problem or putting themselves or others in danger.

It’s recommended that you ask workers to report any issues immediately to prevent any further damage from being created. New machinery is a big expense and could take its toll on business budgets, so it’s worth assessing your options when it comes to repairs.