Your farm equipment is significant for the smooth running of your farm operations. It is important to maintain it regularly. Preventive maintenance of farm equipment plays a significant role in extending equipment life, which saves you time and money in the long run. While some people think that preventive maintenance is an unnecessary expense, doing without it will leave you with more expenses on costly repairs.
The Importance of Professionally Servicing Your Farming Equipment
1. Ensures Smooth Running of Equipment
When farm equipment runs efficiently, you finish your projects ahead or on schedule leading to a better bottom line. Your farm equipment should always be in top-notch condition to ensure that your farm tasks get completed on time without any downtime.
What should you check in your farm equipment daily?
Equipment parts wear out over time; hence you should look out for loose cracks and tension on chains and belts, broken or loose bolts and pins, leaks in hydraulic lines, cylinders, fuel lines and hoses, strange odors or noises, and breakage and pitting.
2. Prevent Small Problems from Turning into Big Problems
When something is not working the way it should, but does not affect our job in a significant way we tend to ignore the problem. We may even go further and adjust the equipment to keep it going, without rectifying the problem. Doing this may seem like the best thing to do as it saves time and keeps things in the farm moving, but it is only a short-term solution. If left unattended for long, it will soon become a major headache. This can bring operations to a halt in the farm as the equipment will require major repairs.
Common problems with farm machinery
• Dull blades
• Dysfunctional fuel system
• Electrical issues
• Engine problems
3. It Is Expensive To Fix Big Problems
When you ignore the small problems in your farm equipment, you will spend more money and time when the problem escalates to a bigger one. Apart from the costs incurred in replacing larger machinery parts, there are other consequences of grounded farming equipment. Big equipment problem mean that you will suffer downtime, which translates to being behind schedule or inability to attend to new projects.
Your employees who work using the grounded equipment still need their pay. They will still get paid despite them not working because of equipment downtime. When you reach this point, you have to do everything you can to get the equipment running again. This will cost you more as expedited shipping of equipment parts is charged more. Therefore, do not wait for the problem to escalate; regular farming equipment repair will help you avoid the extra expenses.
4. Decrease Injuries and Fatalities
Equipment failure is a major cause of workplace injury. Farm equipment that does not work properly has higher chances of causing workplace injury, which may sometimes be fatal due to equipment failure. Despite your employees having adequate safety training, they do not have power over equipment failure. Although you cannot avoid unexpected breakdowns, you can reduce them through preventive maintenance and repairs. Workplace injuries are disastrous and costly but farming equipment repair and reduce this. Company morale is affected as well as your bottom line. You can also incur additional expenses if you have to compensate the injured employees if they decide to take legal action.