When harvest is in full swing and a processing line goes down unexpectedly, the “downtime” can be costly. Not only will you be paying for the equipment repairs but revenue is being lost due to unprocessed product. Staying ahead of the repairs and potential issues will save money, time and headaches.

In addition to quarterly and yearly equipment service checks, our customers will schedule pre-harvest maintenance with American Ag Systems, our affiliate construction company. This allows for necessary fine tuning of the production line, reduces unexpected breakdowns and elongates the life of the equipment. Scheduled maintenance does not always have to result in a complete line shutdown. Tending to the plant on a day-to-day basis, or focusing on one section of the line in a rotating manner, is a great way to continually run product while maintaining the life of the line. The cost savings of maintenance well surpasses the costs incurred with unexpected breakdowns.

Another time, and cost, saving pre-harvest preparation includes stocking up on consumables such as twine, ink, oil boards, screens, and other smaller items imperative to day-to-day options. With this preemptive plan, the likelihood of unexpected breakdowns and time consuming supply runs during key processing times is greatly reduced.

Dust control should always be a key focus in continued preventative maintenance. Dust control provides safe ventilation for employees, reduces damage to processing equipment and assists in fire prevention. For these reasons, it’s important to regularly change bag filters. Doing so before high times, such as harvest, is important as this process can be labor intensive and time consuming, especially if replacement bags are not in stock. We work proudly with Donaldson Torit products and machinery. Partnering with them allows us to be of assistance to our customers for their dust collection needs.

We encourage all our customers to utilize us in preparing for these scheduled downtimes as well as have us in mind when things don’t go according to plan. Contact us today to learn more about how we can prepare you for whatever downtime may be in your future, planned or unplanned.