Whether you’re running a retail store, a restaurant, or a processing plant, your profitability relies on uptime to drive profitability. Downtime not only disrupts productivity, but it can cost you a fortune. You can’t predict or avoid every instance of downtime, but you can be ready to deal with it and mitigate the negative impact on your business.

Be proactive to preserve your profits

Experiencing downtime can be a costly occurrence. For example, when a power transformer fails at a manufacturing plant, just one hour of downtime can cost millions of dollars. Businesses that want to avoid this issue replace their transformers when they’re close to the end of their useful service life, which is typically around the 30-year mark. Although a good transformer can function for around 40 years, replacing it early with a well-made unit avoids the damage from a catastrophic failure that can happen out of nowhere.

Being proactive requires being realistic about the potential for downtime and taking steps to mitigate those potentials in any way possible. Replacing large equipment, like transformers, before they have a chance to fail is just one example. Other proactive solutions can include:

• Purchasing the highest quality equipment from the start to minimize operational disruptions.
• Prioritizing worker safety to reduce the potential for injuries that will take key people off the floor.
• Fixing problems immediately so nothing spirals out of control.
• Using data analytics to perform predictive maintenance.
• Creating a disaster response and recovery plan.
• Performing preventive maintenance on equipment you know needs regular care.

How you get prepared will depend on your industry and specific circumstances.

Schedule your downtime for repairs and maintenance

If you need to conduct periodic maintenance or perform repairs, schedule your downtime to minimize the disruption to your business. Planning maintenance ahead of time gives you the chance to schedule it during off-peak hours when it will have the least impact on your business. If appropriate, you can even send out notices ahead of time to allow your customers and clients to plan their needs around your scheduled maintenance.

Perform risk auditsz 

A simple risk audit will tell you if you have equipment that is obsolete, about to fail, or will soon stop supporting your needs. For instance, you might not even be aware that one of your transformers is approaching the 40-year mark and should be replaced until you perform a risk audit. Or, you might be using equipment that is losing efficiency, or that costs more to repair than newer options.

Performing a risk audit can also alert you to any physical safety issues that impact your teams, along with potential cybersecurity weaknesses.

Thoroughly train your teams

Training is a critical foundation for success, yet it’s often overlooked and deprioritized. However, consider that thoroughly training your team will greatly reduce the potential for errors that can cause downtime. When employees are trained to follow protocols that are designed to optimize their workflow, and they are trained to mitigate the risks they might encounter, there’s less of a chance that human error will create downtime.

Another benefit to training your employees is having them perform routine maintenance where appropriate. For example, it can be as simple as training them to clean your laser printer or flush certain pieces of equipment.

You can also cross-train employees so they can properly cover other positions when needed. Too often, businesses ask their employees to fill in for people who are absent, but fail to train them for the position. The last thing you want is someone who hasn’t been trained to be responsible for taking actions or making decisions that can impact operations.

Hire professionals

Anytime you need expertise or a specialist, hire a professional for the job. Your employees can handle small maintenance and repair tasks, but don’t let them do anything dangerous or that might risk downtime if they make a mistake.

Track your data with software

Last but not least, tracking data with automated software will go a long way to prevent downtime. You can automate your preventive maintenance schedule, collect data on equipment fitted with sensors to catch performance issues before there’s a problem, and track historical downtime for each piece of equipment you own.

Having all of your data tracked automatically and accessible in one spot makes it easier to see what’s going on with your equipment and is the best way to catch issues before they turn into unexpected downtime.