IPEC Blog

The next year for the chemical manufacturing industry looks bright. Production is expected to continue its post-COVID rebound, with the annual growth rate for 2025 projected to be as high as 3.5%. This represents a significant opportunity for chemical producers to increase revenue and market share, and, as a result, many companies are setting their sights on expanding their reach into new chemical applications. 

No matter the industry, no matter the application, sustainability has become more than a trend in recent years — in fact, it’s actually emerged as a top priority for manufacturers across North America as nearly 70% of industrial companies already have sustainability programs in place.

Unplanned downtime and unforeseen maintenance intervals can be a significant cost for plant operators and rotating equipment operators, particularly those in the oil & gas industry where gaps in production can result in literally hundreds of thousands of dollars lost per day. 

An asset management program can be a valuable tool in helping plant operators achieve visibility into their operational efficiency and equipment performance. This helps industrial companies create more proactive maintenance schedules to reduce downtime and maximize the lifespan and precision of their equipment. 

Here, we’ll take a look at how an asset management program works, and then we’ll discuss the benefits this program provides in helping plant operators and equipment engineers to reduce annual maintenance costs. 

A big hurdle for industrial plant managers is finding ways to minimize maintenance costs without hampering productivity and efficiency. These costs can range between 20% to 30% annually, and, depending on the scale of production, unplanned downtime due to maintenance intervals can cost companies thousands upon thousands of dollars per hour. 

One key in helping to keep annual maintenance costs low is partnering with an authorized service center (ASC) for industrial equipment repair and troubleshooting, especially when it comes to ensuring the long-term reliability, precision, and durability of pumps and compressors. 

While working with a service center that a manufacturer does not back can help plant managers save money upfront, there can be significant ramifications over time, particularly in terms of equipment failure from using remanufactured parts. 

With this in mind, let’s look at a couple of ways that partnering with an authorized service center can help plant managers experience a greater ROI on their maintenance costs, and how choosing the right ASC can help you increase the service life of your equipment. 

What’s the difference between choosing an authorized service center (ASC) and an unauthorized service center for industrial equipment maintenance and troubleshooting? The difference is saving time and money or losing time and money. For plant operators working in highly competitive industries, diminished productivity and efficiency from choosing an unauthorized service center just isn’t an option. 

Recent supply chain difficulties and material cost increases have emphasized the importance of an asset management strategy for plant operators in a wide range of industrial contexts. Plant assets include the property or equipment necessary for production processes — think everything from industrial pumps and compressors to warehouses and transportation vehicles. 

The market for clean hydrogen energy is growing rapidly — the global demand for clean hydrogen grew by almost 5% in 2023, and this rate of growth is expected to continue through the next decade. The push for the development of clean hydrogen in the U.S. is being bolstered by the Biden Administration’s recent $7 billion initiative to support the production of this “green” energy source. 

The use of high-viscosity fluids is common in a wide range of manufacturing environments, everything from food & beverage production to the drilling and refining of oil & natural gas. Regardless of the application, high-viscosity fluids can be challenging to handle and can require specific industrial pumps and flow meters to optimize both efficiency and productivity. 

There is a fine balance to the timing of when plant operators recalibrate their industrial flow meters. Failure to recalibrate your flow meter can hamper performance, diminish your productivity, and reduce your process efficiency. Recalibrating an industrial flow meter too soon can fail to produce desired productivity and efficiency results, and this can result in wasted time, resources, and costs. 

As green energy technology continues to evolve, clean hydrogen has emerged as a powerful and versatile energy carrier that more producers are incorporating into their production processes. This is in large part due to the fact that clean hydrogen that is produced using carbon capture technology can help reduce harmful emissions in a wide variety of industrial and manufacturing contexts where cutting carbon emissions has been a key challenge.