Does Your Robot Just Need Maintenance, Or Should You Decommission?
At what point do you stop robot maintenance and plan to sell or decommission?
Many manufacturing lines have older industrial robot models that continue to undergo maintenance. Some of these robots may be a few years old, while others have been around for decades.
Remember that an old piece of equipment does not automatically mark it ripe for decommissioning. Some of these machines feature stable components designed to handle the job well for a very long time.
The problem starts when you keep incurring downtime as the robot undergoes maintenance.
How can you tell when to simply perform maintenance and when to decommission? Read on to learn more about appropriately using and selling your robots.
Should you perform maintenance or decommission your robot?
Industrial robot maintenance
Whether you have new or used industrial robots, maintenance is part of the important undertaking that you cannot afford to ignore. Used robots may require more frequent maintenance than new ones, but your production throughput should rarely be impacted.
Working with any industrial machinery requires you to have a maintenance schedule. Remember that every robot undergoes three types of maintenance:
· Reactive maintenance – The type of maintenance done after the industrial equipment breaks down. Whereas this approach saves money in the short run, it can be costly in the long run. Not only does it cause efficiency loss, but it also triggers a premature failure
· Preventive maintenance – This approach sets specific time intervals per industry guidelines for scheduled maintenance that avoids untimely breakdown. It typically covers routine tasks like tightening external bolts and checking the robot repeatability.
· Predictive maintenance – As the name suggests, it involves assessing the current status and using that information to perform only the needed maintenance. Doing so is estimated to save maintenance costs by 18 to 25%.
Pointers to decommissioning the robot
Robots have a certain usable life that ranges from five to 20 years based on the care and type of service it delivers. Here are some of the factors that will let you know it is about time to sell or decommission your equipment:
1. Spare parts are no longer available
Evaluate the cost you normally incur on spare parts annually to keep your system running. Additionally, check the difficulty level over time of getting required spare parts. If vendors start taking longer than usual to get replacement parts or turn down orders because the materials are not available in the market, it could be time to let go of your equipment.
2. The robot breaks down more frequently than it used to
Keep a record of all the breakdowns associated with the robot. Consider important details like the timeframe of the breakdown, the extent of the impact, and the cost of repair. If your report shows that it has been breaking down more frequently in the last few months than it did before, it is likely no longer worth keeping your robot.
3. Quality of products or packaging has gone down
Robots are designed to enforce factory automation, effectively improving the quality of products or services delivered. If you notice that this is declining despite repeated maintenance and components replacement, you would likely have to decommission the industrial equipment. Note that sometimes low-quality service often points to poor maintenance practices. Check existing guidelines to confirm whether something is being done wrongly.
4. Do you still have the skillset to keep the robot operational?
As much as the robot brings automation into your business processes, it will often need someone who knows how to handle it. The older models tend to be complex and require craftspeople to help keep them running. If you have a shortage of those skills, there is a high chance that no one will be able to fix it when it breaks down. In that case, you do not need to wait for failure to happen to start planning on phasing out.
5. Incurs more costs and time on maintenance
Most businesses operate with a certain maintenance budget and an allowed timeframe for maintenance. If you are spending more than usual, you need to seriously consider letting go of the troublemakers. That would help free your resources for more productive work.
NRTC IS YOUR GO-TO PARTNER FOR ROBOT MAINTENANCE AND DECOMMISSIONING
At NRTC, we believe that you should always use highly-efficient equipment to deliver the desired level of automation. When it no longer meets the required threshold, you need to safely let go of it without causing harm to the environment and disrupting your operations.
You can confidently rely on us to decommission your robot when it no longer functions effectively. We have trained personnel with relevant skills and toolsets to get the job done correctly. Visit our site to learn more about our decommissioning services.