Est reading time: 5 minutes
Do you experience frequent equipment breakdowns?
Panicking through emergency procedures, rectifying critical failures?
Have you then had frustrating moments where you looked at your maintenance budget and wanted to scream because of how much money you have wasted on expensive repair costs?
Could you have prevented this?
Imagine a world where your maintenance efforts are doubly as effective. Where you never have to worry about having nightmares of another sudden equipment failure that could cost you over $100,000s on repairs.
Today, big companies have adopted Infrared Electrical Inspections into their preventive maintenance schedules. This is simply because they have seen huge benefits in their operations.
In March 2015, a 12 hour Apple store outage cost the company $25 million.
So, you might be asking:
- How can Infrared Electrical Inspections benefit me?
- What are the common faults you can instantly identify using thermal imaging?
- Why are companies splurging on Infrared Electrical Inspections?
- How much money can I save?
- How much do Infrared Electrical Inspections cost?
Let’s find out more below.
1) How Can Infrared Electrical Inspections Benefit Me?
Immense heat from your equipment is often an early symptom of serious malfunction or even disastrous failures.
This raises the significant importance of using Infrared Thermography to reveal these hidden risks.
Research has shown that electrical failures are believed to be responsible for 24% of industrial fires, thus should not be taken lightly. It could also jeopardize your workplace safety, resulting in severe injury or even death.
With Infrared Thermography Inspection, electrical faults and anomalies can be easily detected before unexpected breakdowns happen.
These faults can then be rectified fast, massively reducing the chances of equipment failures. Huge repair costs and engineer call-out charges from reactive maintenance can be prevented.
Thermal Cameras take non-contact infrared temperature measurements which capture an object’s temperature as a 2D picture. Thermal Cameras can also capture temperatures fast and reliably from critical components.
To make comparisons for your maintenance reports, these Thermal Cameras can display both thermograms and digital images.
So, how can Infrared Thermography benefit my business?
Here’s the secret: Preventive maintenance does not require additional maintenance measures to save funds. The aim is to reduce agonizing emergency repairs and focus your maintenance efforts on routine Infrared Inspections of critical infrastructure. This will benefit your company by saving precious time, money, and resources. A trained in-house Thermographer can single-handedly solve these issues for you.
In August 2016, a 5-hour power outage in an operation centre caused 2,000 cancelled flights and an estimated loss of $150 million for Delta Airlines.
2) Common Faults You Can Instantly Identify Using Thermal Imaging
Thermal Cameras have incredible capabilities.
A single Thermal Scanner can effortlessly detect a wide range of issues. This allows you to troubleshoot problems faster and provide you with peace of mind with your business operations.
Because of how versatile a Thermal Scanner is, Infrared Thermography is not only used for electrical.
Here are some common faults you can instantly identify using Thermal Imaging:
- Identify “hot spots” in electronic equipment
- Discovery of moisture entrapment in flat roofs
- Bearing problems in large motors or other rotating equipment
- Insulation degradation in boilers and steam systems
- Detection of potential termite activity in buildings
3) Why Are Companies Splurging On Infrared Electrical Inspections?
If your business faces painful operational difficulties. You might already be suffering huge loss of resources, creating unnecessary downtime.
This inevitable downtime is extremely infuriating. We know it is.
Infrared Electrical Inspections is used diversely in many industry sectors because of their endless list of benefits. This is because they can greatly reduce the risk of operational interruption.
Thus, big companies are heavily investing in Infrared Thermography to “do more with less”.
Many are even sending their own engineers and technicians for Certified Infrared Courses.
Here are several reasons why businesses are heavily investing in Infrared Electrical Inspection:
- Prolonging your equipment’s lifespan: Performing regular Infrared Inspections can offer early detection of electrical faults. This will prevent operational failures while protecting your uptime. You will experience little to no equipment breakdown. This optimises your equipment lifespan and greatly improves the reliability of your operating system.
- You can prevent catastrophic failures: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Electrical failures are disruptive and can even be fatal. According to statistics published by the Singapore Civil Defense Force (SCDF), 660 horrific electrical fires were reported in 2016 alone. Infrared Inspections are proven to prevent tragic workplace accidents. You can eliminate the horror of losing your entire facility to electrical fires.
- Improved accuracy and speed in your production: Infrared Inspections are less time-consuming than maintenance servicing. Infrared Inspections can be completed in less than a day as it is a non-contact form of inspection. This would mean that your business operations will not be disrupted. Infrared Inspections immediately detects anomalies with a single snapshot. This is done by measuring the temperature distributions of electrical equipment. Maintenance servicing, on the other hand, can take ages to complete.
In March 2019, a 14-hour outage cost Facebook an estimated $90 million.
4) So, How Much Can You Save?
According to a study in the U.S., it is estimated that the cost-benefits of adding Infrared Thermographic Inspections to your preventive maintenance program will lead to greater savings of 30-40% for your business. This is extremely beneficial for:
- Contractors looking to offer Thermal Imaging Inspections to clients.
- Maintenance teams looking to conduct in-house Thermal Imaging Inspections.
Because Infrared Thermography can reliably spot anomalies long before they become worrying problems, maintenance teams can now overcome technical difficulties early.
This remarkable ability of early detection allows businesses to instantly save a fortune. Companies don’t have to suffer outrageous repair costs which can total up to $100,000s.
Malfunctioned equipment runs at a substantially higher temperature than normal, consuming more energy to operate normally.
This leads to a massive spike in energy cost that quickly adds up to bigger operating expenses.
Additionally, this could create a substantial amount of downtime which can be suicidal for your business operations.
Businesses that choose to repair faulty machines can expect to pay up to $100,000s, not even including insurance, taxes or depreciation.
In terms of unplanned downtime, the estimated average cost is $17,000 per incident. Every year, manufacturers face a nightmare of 800 hours of downtime on average.
That’s a crazy amount of loss to suffer which could cripple your business.
Here are some figures to illustrate the magnitude of such downtime:
- In 2016, the total cost of downtime was $260,000 per hour for all industries. This was a 60% increase over 2014. (Source)
- In certain sectors, the price is even higher. Downtime in the automobile industry can cost up to $50,000 per minute, equivalent to an exorbitant amount of $3 million an hour. (Source)
- A common cause of downtime is faulty equipment. A 2017 study showed that 70% of businesses are not fully aware of what equipment is due for maintenance or upgrade. (Source)
Infrared technology has evolved into one of the most effective tools for failure prevention.
In addition to large financial savings, valuable time is saved by incorporating Infrared Electrical Inspections into your maintenance program.
A single Infrared Electrical Inspection can save your business up to $20,000s depending on the number and category of anomalies found.
Essentially, Infrared Thermography Inspection is good insurance for your business.
Here are 7 KEY FINANCIAL BENEFITS of adopting Infrared Inspection which includes:
- Maintenance costs – down by 50%
- Unexpected failures – reduced by 55%
- Repair and overhaul time – down by 60%
- Spare parts inventory – reduced by 30%
- 30% increase in machinery mean time between failures (MTBF)
- 30% increase in your uptime
- Eligible for a discount on insurance premiums
For the typical manufacturing plant, a 10% reduction in maintenance cost is equivalent to a 40% increase in your sales – easily saving you up to $1,000,000s in the long run.
Clearly, there are positive financial impacts by investing in Infrared Thermography Inspections.
5) How much does Infrared Electrical Inspections Cost?
So by now, you have seen the amazing benefits Infrared Electrical Inspections has to offer.
But is it worth it for me?
A typical Infrared Inspection can cost from $1,000 to $3,000, whereas a larger project that takes more than 2 to 3 days can easily cost more than $10,000.
Thermal Cameras has become insanely cheaper, easy to use, and widely applied in many industries. The cost of a Thermal Camera in this present day could cost you as low as $1,000.
In the 1990s, a high quality Thermal Camera could cost you up to a whopping $50,000!
With the cost of Thermal Cameras falling dramatically, companies are now sending in-house maintenance teams for Infrared Certification Training.
Why?
Because every engineer and technician can be professionally trained and qualified to conduct independent Infrared Inspections.
These are 9 IMMENSE BENEFITS of having your own maintenance team trained and certified to perform independent Infrared Inspections:
- You will be able to conduct Infrared Inspections on a more regular basis. Your power system is healthier with almost no breakdowns.
- You won’t have to worry about constantly engaging external thermographers to do the job. You can trust and have faith in your highly trained and qualified in-house team.
- Instantly identify maintenance faults before failures happen.
- Have your facilities taken care of by your own group of competent and Certified Thermographers.
- Easily detecting water seepage in building facade & roofing
- Proven methods to add massive value to your facility maintenance services
- Completely optimising reliability in your M&E systems
- Become An Industry-Recognised Infrared Practitioner
- Level 1 Infrared Thermography Certification Course costs as low as $2,500 to $3,000s. This is cost-effective compared to the absurd price of your equipment’s repair cost.
To conclude, data and statistics have shown that Infrared Electrical Inspections is powerful and further proven to be extraordinary.
The improved reliability and efficiency from Infrared Thermography are unrivalled compared to conventional servicing and repair works.
You would be shocked to discover how valuable Infrared Inspection can be to your business.
Imagine the $1,000,000s you can save in repair and maintenance costs by detecting anomalies before accidents happen.
Isn’t it about time you invest in Infrared Inspections?
Find out more details on Level 1 Infrared Course HERE.