Considerations for Partnering with a Hydraulic Equipment Expert

Hydraulic systems are extremely complex yet delicate systems that can be brought down by dust and moisture. When hydraulic equipment does go down, the entire operation often goes down with it, unless there is backup equipment handy. Expert maintenance and repairs are critical to keeping hydraulic machinery up and running, and if you are partnered with an expert, they’ll be able to do the following for your hydraulic system:

• On-time preventative maintenance – The most important step that crews can take to reduce hydraulic equipment failures is to schedule on-time preventative maintenance for critical equipment assets, like hydraulic pumps and cylinders.
  

   

  Preventative maintenance includes a range of essential maintenance routines that ensure your hydraulic system is operating at peak capacity and is protected from any near-time problems. Some of these routines are basic, such as checking and replacing fluids, cleaning out the system, testing the system’s performance and flushing it out. It also includes more technically complex tasks, like opening each piece of hydraulic equipment and inspecting internal components for wear or corrosion. Your hydraulic fluid will also be inspected for its quality, as it only takes a tiny amount of contamination to cause downtime. This involves sampling the fluid and performing a lab analysis to find those impossible-to-see particles.

• Rapid repairs and service when downtime happens – Preventative maintenance can catch most imminent breakdowns, but not all of them. Eventually, your hydraulic equipment will experience a failure that results in significant downtime. The faster that equipment can be brought back online, the faster your operations can resume.

  If you are partnered with a hydraulic equipment expert, you will have a go-to technician to call on when prompt repairs are necessary. For many hydraulic system operators, opening a piece of hydraulic equipment for repair is beyond their experience. It is best to leave these complex fixes to the experts, as the equipment will need to be carefully reassembled once repair services are complete. Any mistake during this process will result in additional, likely immediate, issues with the equipment.

• Detailed inspection and troubleshooting services – There are several potential causes behind a hydraulic system failure. The majority of the time (around 90 percent of cases), contamination is the reason for a major breakdown. However, contamination can enter a hydraulic system through many potential points, and it is not the only thing to be concerned about. Failing seals, corrosion inside the hydraulic pump or cylinder barrel, improper system calibration, and excessive temperatures can all factor into hydraulic equipment failures.
  
  
• Access to a large inventory of replacement parts – It is common for hydraulic equipment repairs to involve some degree of component replacement. When hydraulic systems experience problems, it is often due to excessively or unusually worn components. These will need to be replaced to restore hydraulic system performance.

  If your company is partnered with a hydraulic equipment expert, you will have additional access to replacement components, ensuring your crew can get the part (or parts) it needs to bring its hydraulic pumps and cylinders back into the field faster.

• Access to replacement hydraulic equipment – In some instances, your hydraulic equipment expert may have replacement equipment or hydraulic machinery that may be used in the interim, while the client’s equipment assets are being serviced.

There are a variety of considerations for partnering with a hydraulic equipment expert, and all of them are centered around the same goal: Optimizing your hydraulic equipment’s performance and reliability.