Maintenance, Repair & Operations

Manufacturer’s Recommendations

July 20, 2021

Use common sense when maintaining equipment per the manufacturer.

Do you maintain equipment per the manufacturer’s recommendations? That would seem to make sense, especially if that equipment is under warranty. However, you may want to consider some other things:

The typical manufacturer is not a maintenance expert. Likely, someone at the company pulled the maintenance specs from an older product. For example, it says to change the air intake filter on the control cabinet quarterly. But if you use differential pressure sensing to know the condition of the filter, you will change it when needed — no dirty filter means no needless change.
NFPA 70E does not say to follow the manufacturer’s maintenance instructions. It says to do that or to follow industry consensus standards [205.3].
Time-based work is guesswork while condition-based work uses measurement. The more you can replace time-based work with condition-based work, the lower your costs and the higher your reliability. The trick is to establish the correct measurements to give an accurate condition assessment.
Automate where possible. For example, the manufacturer recommends measuring the supply voltage during each afternoon. Anything critical should be automatically monitored.

About the Author

Mark Lamendola

Mark is an expert in maintenance management, having racked up an impressive track record during his time working in the field. He also has extensive knowledge of, and practical expertise with, the National Electrical Code (NEC). Through his consulting business, he provides articles and training materials on electrical topics, specializing in making difficult subjects easy to understand and focusing on the practical aspects of electrical work.

Prior to starting his own business, Mark served as the Technical Editor on EC&M for six years, worked three years in nuclear maintenance, six years as a contract project engineer/project manager, three years as a systems engineer, and three years in plant maintenance management.

Mark earned an AAS degree from Rock Valley College, a BSEET from Columbia Pacific University, and an MBA from Lake Erie College. He’s also completed several related certifications over the years and even was formerly licensed as a Master Electrician. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and past Chairman of the Kansas City Chapters of both the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Mark also served as the program director for, a board member of, and webmaster of, the Midwest Chapter of the 7x24 Exchange. He has also held memberships with the following organizations: NETA, NFPA, International Association of Webmasters, and Institute of Certified Professional Managers.