But at times when profits are under scrutiny it’s sometimes tempting to lower operating costs by not incurring the expense of equipment maintenance. This however, really is a false saving - because doing less now invariably means you’ll pay more later. And what’s more, poorly maintained equipment doesn’t operate as efficiently so your running costs slowly (and often silently) increase.

The reality is that a regular preventative maintenance program for your commercial refrigeration equipment simply makes good business sense. At MP Commercial Refrigeration, we regularly service thousands of equipment assets across hundreds of location, so we’ve go the data to back up the numbers – and our numbers show that a regular maintenance program can actually cost you less over 24 months than an ad hoc repair program. If your business operates on the “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it principle”, consider this:

1. Repairs cost more – if you wait until something breaks, the service call costs you more, and the technician spends longer at your site. When parts fail during normal operation, they usually damage other parts, so your repair bill cost more.
2. More large scale repairs – a regular preventative maintenance program will make sure individual parts are replaced as needed, meaning you need fewer large scale repairs.
3. Running costs increase over time – poorly maintained equipment doesn’t operate as efficiently and that adds up to increased power consumption and increased stress on auxiliary components, which usually leads to catastrophic failure and larger repair costs. You may not notice it as a line item on your profit and loss account, but a 5% increase in energy consumption definitely takes its toll on your operating costs.
4. Equipment life reduces - you’ll get a lot more years useful, productive running life from well maintained equipment than you will from equipment that only gets serviced when it stops working.
5. Revenue loss – a planned preventative maintenance program is designed to avoid unplanned servicing. If your equipment breaks, chances are you probably won’t be able to sell any of your refrigerated or frozen goods until the equipment is fixed.
6. Emergency response – if you have a preventative maintenance program with a reputable service provider, you’ll have access to 24-hour emergency call outs. If your equipment suddenly stops working, you know it will be fixed fast.
7. Spoilage – it’s Murphy’s Law that equipment always breaks at the most inconvenient time. If this happens to you at 5:00pm on Friday, how long will you need to wait until it can be repaired, and how much food will you need to discard because it hasn’t been kept at the right temperature?
8. Environmental footprint – in this environmentally aware age, we all do what we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But poorly maintained equipment can and does leak refrigerant – that’s Co2 emissions depleting the ozone, courtesy of your business.