Five Ways To Show Your Machinery You Care

When you work in a blue collar industry, large, heavy machines are pretty commonplace. In fact, most workers walk by the machinery at their place of work every day without giving them a second glance. Even so, properly monitoring and maintaining your heavy equipment is important for business profits and employee safety. Although you may already be inspecting your equipment every year for wear and tear, we suggest five more things you should be doing on the weekly basis that will show your machinery some love, allowing them to work efficiently and raising the standard for work safety. 1. Clean and lubricate your machinery on a regular basis. Large machines, especially those with moving parts, need to be maintained often to ensure they work properly. Creating a cleaning and lubrication schedule can help businesses determine how often different types of equipment need attention. Although it may sound silly, simply keeping large pieces of equipment clean and lubricated could dramatically expand their lifespan. 2. Inspect and monitor pieces of equipment for wear and tear problems. If you’ve already created a schedule for inspecting machinery parts for damage, then you’re ahead of the game. However, sometimes machine parts can break without warning. When this happens, catching the issue early can prevent further damage to the piece and protect unsuspecting workers from a potential injury. To ensure that problems are caught early,  encourage your workers to inspect the machines they use for any signs of wear and tear before and after they use a piece of equipment. If something does seem odd, make sure the workers know where and how they can report problems. 3.Store unused machinery in the proper conditions. When it comes to equipment in storage, it’s always a good idea to leave things covered. This prevents dust and other damaging substances from making their way into cracks and grooves in the machine. Pieces with spinning parts such as fans, turbines, and mixers should be turned frequently while in storage. And before employees take machinery out of storage, the equipment needs to be inspected for rust or other types of wear. 4. Record who uses the equipment and when. Keep a daily log of who uses the machinery and when they finished. Sometimes damage done to the equipment is caused by an unskilled or untrained worker. If you happen to see a problem with the device, check the log and then address the worker. This could also be the opportune time to make sure your workers follow protocols they should have learned in their trainings. 5. Schedule and follow a planned upgrade timeline. Machinery gets more advanced as technology advances. When you choose to ignore the latest equipment on the market, you miss out on upgrades that could help your business grow. Outdated equipment could also become a safety concern for the workers who have to use older pieces of machinery on a regular basis. Because of this, make sure you keep yourself in the know about all the latest technology and machinery in your industry – and never skip a crucial upgrade. Showing your machinery some extra love and following safety and maintenance steps like these can benefit employees and owners alike. Keeping up to date with maintenance and upgrades will ultimately provide businesses with a level of security, as they’ll know that their equipment is the best it can be.