MIAMI — Reactive: showing a response to a stimulus.
Proactive: acting in anticipation of future problems, needs or changes.
Guess which of these words more often describes commercial and on-premises laundries’ equipment maintenance habits.
“Traditionally in this industry, commercial and on-premises laundries are reactive, not proactive, with routine equipment maintenance,” says Joe Rollar, Southeast regional director of service training for EVI Industries Inc., a distributor of commercial laundry products.
“So as technicians, we’re constantly acting as first responders.”
Rollar — who is responsible for developing technical service training for all EVI business units and distributors — says this is similar to people who skip physicals and checkups. Ultimately, they end up in the emergency room.
“By performing routine maintenance, you can stop problems before they occur — saving money and time,” he points out.
Jeff Large, EVI’s Southeast director of operations and president of Laundry Systems in Sevierville, Tennessee, agrees. He has 29 years of service technician experience.
“Either you take charge of when machines get serviced or the machines will tell you, and you can’t plan for that,” he says. “If you do it the smart way through planned maintenance, you’ll eliminate and prevent the vast majority of breakdowns.”
Moreover, machines will likely perform more robustly and last longer. You might even enjoy lower utility costs.
AVOIDING A NIGHTMARE
So, what kinds of horrible things can happen when preventative maintenance is overlooked?
Large recalls an instance when a laundry didn’t recognize the importance of maintaining an ironer. They failed to check the ironing pad. By the time the decision was made to check it, the springs had worn through and grooved the ironing chest.
“It was an extremely expensive $100,000 repair that could have been completely avoided,” he says.
Rollar describes a similar scenario. A laundry purchased an all-in-one ironer that eventually needed belts and bearings. Finally, after three years of sitting there, the decision was made to fix the machine.
“By then, it wasn’t cost-effective to repair it,” he shares. “Now there is a 5-year-old paperweight in their basement.”
The point being, it’s important to perform preventative maintenance. You never want to be in a position where equipment is down for weeks at a time — especially when you lack machine redundancy.
YOUR DISTRIBUTOR ‘SUPPORT TEAM’
The good news is that laundries don’t have to face preventative maintenance alone.
“Most industrial laundries employ staffed engineers who perform needed maintenance,” says Large. As laundries get smaller, they often need a hand.
“I wish the name ‘distributor’ was actually ‘support team,’” he continues. “Once equipment is installed, a distributor serves as a customer’s support team for the next 20 years.”
It’s important, especially for laundries without service technicians in-house, to engage distributors early on, according to Large.
Other laundries perform at least a portion of routine maintenance in-house — calling on distributors for assistance when needed.
“Personally, I feel like the more you can handle maintenance in-house, the less stressful the day-to-day operation,” says Rollar.
That’s why EVI provides distributor service training and eventually plans to offer it at the end-user level.
Check back on Tuesday for the conclusion about maintenance by equipment type.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
