Dock Leveller Maintenance
Why is Planned Dock Leveller Maintenance Important?
Dock leveller maintenance can be easy to overlook, as docks are ideally used to receive and ship goods whilst minimising as much interruption as possible.
Dock levellers play a significant role in your business and you should make it your responsibility to carry out repair and maintenance regularly.
For some businesses, dock leveller maintenance takes a back seat as the core business is given more attention.
However, this is not advisable because the business depends on the perfect working condition of the dock and any equipment breakdown could lead to significant downtime and even loss of revenue.
The typical dock receives and sends hundreds of thousands of packaged goods.
So, when they are down, owners tend to lose a lot of money and sometimes business because some customers may decide to opt for the competition if they feel their current service provider does not offer them the convenience they need to keep their businesses running uninterrupted.
Improper or failure to carry out maintenance is responsible for the majority of equipment failures. For many dock owners, they have a lot more to gain when they carry out planned maintenance regularly than wait for the equipment to fail before they can take action. They can also be eliminating many potential repair and replacement costs. Dock levellers and other similar pieces of equipment can help to minimise energy bills if they undergo planned maintenance. Planned maintenance also eliminates bottlenecks that result from docks becoming unexpectedly unusable.
Secure against accidents
On several occasions, there have been accidents caused by malfunctioning dock levellers, which have raised issues of lawsuits and workers’ compensation.
Therefore, employers should ensure they minimise injuries and accidents caused by poorly maintained pieces of equipment. Workers’ compensation costs have a significant impact on the organisation’s bottom line. While carrying out regular maintenance may seem costly, it is cost-saving in the long run because it extends the service life of the equipment. Performing repair and maintenance provides a good return on your investment and extends the time between major or capital expenditures. This can help you focus on your core business as a dock owner whilst avoiding all manners of disruptions at the dock.
However, it is also important to note that planned maintenance of dock levellers cannot completely eliminate equipment breakdown, as some unfortunate events are abrupt and unforeseeable.
You may have to carry out reactive maintenance at times due to unexpected machine breakdowns. You also have to prepare for emergencies and have some funds set aside to handle emergency machine repairs and parts replacement when they strike.
Therefore, dock owners and managers should understand the importance of planned dock leveller maintenance to ensure they experience fewer interruptions caused by machine breakdowns. Besides having an active planned equipment maintenance program in place to minimise downtime and interruptions, dock owners have to prepare for reactive maintenance. Remember that these are technical programs that should only be conducted by trained and qualified professional engineers and technicians near you, whether you live in London, Kent, Heathrow or Essex.
