Many times, the actual repair doesn’t take long. The steps you must take to get set up to do the repair may take an order of magnitude longer. Consider, for example, a cooling fan in the middle of a large robotic stamping/welding machine. Installing a replacement fan motor is a five-minute job.
What’s really time-consuming with repairs on a machine like this is isolating all of the energy sources. You need to shut down and depressurize the pneumatic parts handlers, move the parts crane to its resting position and shut off its power, stop the hydraulic pump, release stored mechanical energy, and so forth. You also need to scrounge up some 4x4s to jam into the access space just in case you missed something.
Just figuring out what all is needed takes more time than changing that motor. What if someone had the foresight to figure this out ahead of time? And even make a kit that contained the necessary tools plus a jamming jig for that access space? Think ahead.
