Air compressor life cycle
The air compressor life cycle refers to the time elapsed from the time the air compressor is put into use to the time when it is unsuitable for continued use in performance or economically. During this life cycle, the air compressor is either scrapped due to physical loss of use due to wear, or because of aging, the failure rate increases, the usage cost rises sharply, and the economic value decreases and the use process is withdrawn.
Different stages of the life cycle
Customers invest in air compressor equipment to get a return on their value in production, but at different stages of the life cycle, due to the different operating conditions, the value return of the equipment to the customer is different.
Warranty period - During the quality assurance period, the air compressor has just been put into use. At this stage, the failure rate is high, mostly due to installation problems, the user is not familiar with the equipment or possible defects in the manufacturing process. Excellent equipment suppliers can provide reliable support during the warranty period. Therefore, at this stage, the air compressor can provide customers with higher production guarantee and value return.
Use and operation and maintenance period - Once the customer completes the design, procurement and installation of the compressed air system in the early stage, the air compressor enters the equipment use and operation and maintenance stage. At this stage, the air compressor is running stably, but the use condition is declining with the wear of the power unit, mechanical parts and electrical components. It may cause downtime due to sudden failure, which affects the continuity of production and the stability of value return. Therefore, preventive maintenance is a must. Targeted and tailored optimizations can also create additional value returns for customers based on normal usage.
Replacement and payback period - At this stage, the air compressor enters the aging phase, the failure rate increases, the energy consumption increases, and the customer faces the replacement of equipment.
Two basic demands of customers in the life cycle
The equipment operating rate is the highest - the single equipment integrity rate refers to the proportion of the normal use of this equipment after the failure of the downtime accounted for 365 days a year, is the basic basis for evaluating the equipment operating conditions, but also the equipment management level An important indicator. A 1% increase in the perfect rate means a 3.7-day reduction in factory downtime due to air compressor failure. This is of great significance to companies that are continuously producing.
Minimization of life cycle costs - The cost of all users' costs during the procurement, installation, maintenance management, and complete retirement of an air compressor is called life cycle cost. Practice has proved that in the cost component of most customer expenditures, initial equipment investment accounts for 15%, maintenance and management costs during use account for 15%, and 70% of the cost comes from energy consumption. Obviously, the key point for customers to minimize the life cycle cost of air compressors is effective energy efficiency control.
How does after-sales service meet the basic demands of customers?
In fact, it is an ideal goal to require the highest equipment operating rate and minimize life cycle costs. In actual production, customers will strike a balance between achieving the highest equipment operating rate and minimizing life cycle costs. Customers with different industry properties, different benefits, and different equipment management concepts have different priorities. Excellent after-sales service providers will analyze the different priorities of different customers to help them achieve their goals.
Improvement of equipment integrity rate - Enterprises that have the highest requirements for equipment operating integrity have the following characteristics: continuous production, high added value of products, and good efficiency. The service's appeal is to ensure that the equipment is in good condition, zero inventory, and the budget is fixed and controllable. This part of the users are often large state-owned enterprises, multinational foreign companies and so on. After-sales service providers should provide full responsibility for this part of the customer. The full responsibility service covers the “standard maintenance content + comprehensive liability guarantee + 99.5% commitment” of the equipment required during the whole year of use, which is the highest level of service guarantee. For those customers who have control requirements for maintenance costs, the after-sales service provider should provide “standard maintenance content + core component insurance guarantee + 99% commitment” or “planned preventive maintenance content + good rate 98%” The promise" gives users a variety of service options.
In addition, the situation of some enterprises is completely different: intermittent production, low added value of products, winning by quantity, unstable efficiency, and cost control. The service's appeal is that the cost is transparent and controllable, with the change of efficiency, the equipment integrity rate is required, and the production period cannot be stopped. This part of the user is often a private company. After-sales service providers should provide flexible and customized services for these customers. Customized services cover the “Basic Equipment Operational Assurance Content + On-Time Billing Service”.
The service provider's guarantee of the integrity of the equipment is not in the text, which means that the service provider not only needs to provide the whole machine warranty, the core component guarantee ability, but also must run the data monitoring, service personnel scheduling, service engineers from the equipment. And the skills, logistics and transportation, on-site service quality control to form a complete set of after-sales service guarantee system.
Life Cycle Cost Control - Energy consumption in the air compressor life cycle accounts for 70% of the cost, and energy efficiency control is the core of cost control. At present, energy consumption concepts such as “specific power” and “gas-to-electricity ratio” have been widely applied to energy efficiency monitoring and control at customer sites. For air compressors that have already been installed and used, the control of energy consumption is focused on the later optimization. For daily use, the pipeline leakage check and trapping can be optimized in order to meet the buck operation under the use requirements.
At the transformation level, firstly, a centralized controller with energy optimization algorithm can be considered to centrally control and optimize the high-power atmospheric air compressor, low-power small-capacity air compressor and variable frequency air compressor in the entire air compressor station. Running logic, under normal circumstances, can save about 5-10%.
Secondly, the heat energy recovery of the air compressor can use waste heat to replace the heat source in the customer's original production process, saving energy expenditure.
Thirdly, for the centrifugal air compressor that deviates from the optimal gas curve due to process changes, and the energy consumption rises, the user can save a large amount of electric energy by means of a three-stage step-down of the centrifuge and a three-stage change of the second stage. When the air compressor enters the final stage of the life cycle - "replacement and payback period", the maintenance expenses of the machine will increase greatly. If there is no plan to purchase a new machine, you can consider adopting the method of "returning the factory for remanufacturing" to let the old The device renews its life, prolongs its life cycle and reduces the cost of use. The energy efficiency after “returning to the factory for remanufacturing” increased by 5-10%.
in conclusion
The value of the after-sales service in the life cycle of the air compressor is reflected in two aspects. The first is to ensure the safe and stable operation of the equipment. The core measure is the “equipment integrity rate”. The second aspect is life cycle cost control. The main focus is on “energy control”. Through the user's production process analysis and gas demand analysis, we can find a variety of ways to achieve energy saving and consumption reduction for users in the use of compressed air systems. Create more value.
