As unexpected failures become a more common problem in the heavy industrial setting, downtime periods are getting longer and longer, especially in the plants which rely on their old mechanical systems with few backup components available in their inventory. In addition to that, repair companies report an increase in the number of cases which require emergency gearbox rebuilding due to the equipment that was expected to be used for several years ahead of its failure.
This is a noticeable trend in the industries where uptime means a great deal for productivity purposes. Bulk handling facilities, continuous processing plants and high-load conveyors cannot afford waiting for brand-new gearbox units with extended manufacturing lead times. Rebuilders now are called to reverse engineer worn out components, recover housings and rebuild gearboxes that became unavailable due to discontinuation by the manufacturers and lack of their spare parts in stock.
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As it is becoming clear that repair could be a better way to go instead of the scheduled replacement, industrial facilities are making sure that they can always rely on repair services when their equipment fails. That is why many of those facilities are holding rebuildable gearbox units in their inventory to cut down possible downtime periods caused by gearbox malfunctioning.
The main challenge of custom repair businesses in that scenario is to provide prompt services while still performing failure analysis. Shops with in-house capabilities to manufacture custom gears and rebuild shafts can be attractive in terms of urgent gearbox repairs; however, customers often request thorough analysis of the problem together with the actual repair works.
Another side effect of that situation is the shortage of qualified workers who have sufficient knowledge and experience to evaluate gearbox issues and perform necessary repair works. In fact, there is a noticeable gap in the number of qualified gearbox technicians. Although many industrial service providers managed to increase their manufacturing capacities to perform timely repair works, finding skilled workers is now a big problem for them.
When working with mixed equipment settings, that problem becomes even more critical for the repair company. Plants that have evolved throughout decades usually use gearboxes from different manufacturers and often include customized gear drive systems. Moreover, documentation related to the facility might be quite inaccurate and contain information only for certain components.
The problem in that situation consists of increased risks for both parties. As a result, buyers expect fast results but don't take into account the difficulties that repairers might face while analyzing and repairing gearboxes in a short period of time. The reason for this issue is quite simple: many buyers don't want to spend more time for purchasing the spare parts.
To decrease those risks, many facilities now prefer keeping their equipment documentation in order. More and more plants store their gearbox parameters electronically, record dimensions, track previous repair processes in order to help repair companies make quick decisions in case of an equipment breakdown.
The problem here isn't that repair demand increases but rather that there is not enough specialized capacity available for repairers when many industrial facilities break down their gearboxes at once. While in the past repair was a local task, nowadays it requires niche expertise which is not easy to find quickly.
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