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Top 3 Pain Points That Drive Your Maintenance Technicians Crazy

Top 3 Pain Points That Drive Your Maintenance Technicians Crazy

Maintenance technicians hold a number of important duties, not the least of which is keeping their production facility fully operational for as much time as possible. As demands for productivity and profitability increase, these technicians must grapple with more challenges than ever before.

While in-house technicians can always enlist the help of reliable, talented field technicians through an industrial machinery services contract, they more often than not are left somewhat unsupportedfloundering hopelessly on their own. Relying on manufacturer service technicians can also sometimes let them down as a result of the bureaucratic complexity these brands have in place.

Yet, maintenance service technicians often persist even as they face these three following pain points that tend to make their job more difficult than they like.

Poor Training and Limited Skill Sets for Floor Workers

It is a simple fact of the manufacturing world that factories work from a limited pool of skilled labor. According to a comprehensive study from Accenture, over 75% of manufacturers report that they have a moderate to severe shortage of skilled workers. Acquiring the needed labor often creates a question of balancing competitive pay with profitability, ultimately leading to a struggle to find the right balance of experience and knowledge.

For maintenance technicians, poor training can manifest itself in the form of several headaches. One of the most common are simple operator errors that nevertheless cause a complete shutdown of the production, packaging, or coding lines. Sometimes equipment failsafes correct themselves after a brief timeout, but other times the equipment must be examined, readjusted, and reset before production can safely continue.

These operator error incidents are all the more devastating when they lead to worker injuries, which often require an extensive investigation process before machines can be restarted.

Proper training upon machinery often comes from the top down. Those installing the machinery can provide initial troubleshooting and educate top-level staff so that they can train their workers effectively. Factory-trained field technicians can often provide a means to reduce errors when they can educate their clients in this way.

Incomplete Information When Solving Challenges

Maintenance technicians sometimes act as doctors trying to suss out a diagnosis based on symptoms. Since traditional industrial machines cannot tell them what is wrong, the technician must rely on readouts and reports from people working directly with the machinery.

Unknowledgeable workers can tend to make troubleshooting machinery in these situations more difficult. A worker may not be able to describe the exact issue in detail, or they may leave out critical information that is crucial to diagnostics.

Facilities may also have an inadequate reporting system within their service tickets. Without a consistent way to categorize or define issues, the technician may spend precious time getting up to speed with an issue once they reach the site of the problem.

Fortunately, many modern machines break with tradition and offer advanced technical readouts and diagnostics. Field technicians can rely on their own skill set to interpret this data. They can also look to support from factory-trained remote technicians who can assist them with diagnostics and often help re-tool programmed settings to solve nagging problems.

Being Overworked and Understaffed

At the end of the day, the biggest problem maintenance technicians face is that there are only so many of them to handle the needs of exponentially more machinery. They may not have the time to handle scheduled servicing and preventative maintenance, which can lead to a vicious feedback loop of compounding problems.

They can get the assistance they need from a reliable team of factory trained field service technicians, like the ones you will find at Raab. Raab now offers a variety of field and in-house industrial equipment services designed to increase uptime and decrease stress for your own staff.

While getting assistance for some machinery requires being juggled on the phone across multiple departments and sometimes multiple brands, Raab can provide one simple solution for maintaining, repairing, and troubleshooting all of your industrial packaging and coding equipment.

Better-than-factory Service

Reduce the pain your in-house technicians by giving them outside support that offers one consistent contact across multiple machinery brands. With our expertise, experience, and reliable service, you can give your in-house technicians a leading edge over their most pernicious problems – and give yourself a good night’s sleep knowing that your equipment is in good hands.

Learn more about how Raab’s industrial packaging and coding machinery services can benefit your operation when you contact us today.

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