Here it is, spring again. Time to ramp up operations, burn a few rocks, sling a little oil do what we truly love to do - make hot mix. Northern plants are all finicky sometimes after sitting through the winter without running. Southern plants that run year round don’t have that problem, but they can benefit from the following advice too.
Preventive maintenance is an often overlooked but essential part of any successful paving operation. Downtime is the single most expensive commodity at any asphalt plant. Most people only think of the "lost production" while the plant is down. But in fact, there is a lot more costs associated with a breakdown.
Let’s begin with the trucks. How may trucks are sitting idle in the yard while the plant is down? Two or three? More? They don’t go on lunch, so each of those trucks is costing the company between $75 and $150 per hour. You also have a paving crew on hold. How much does that cost? Five or more guys, the paver and rollers all sitting idle, but the cost go on.
And then there is the “ill will” from the customers who are buying mix at your plant that day. We’ve just disrupted their schedules. They usually have choices on where to get their hot mix and we don’t want them even thinking about the competition. So preventive maintenance needs to be one of the main considerations in our plant operations.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s when I was coming up through the ranks, learning the myriad things that would eventually allow me to form C.M. Consulting, I discovered early on that organization is everything. The company I worked for almost my entire career slowly grew to 39 asphalt plants. I learned the “downtime” lesson very early.
First I worked out a scheduled maintenance plan for myself at the plant I was running. Then, as I grew in the company it became very important to develop a organized checklist for my operators to use at all of our plants. Since the company had both drum and batch plants it was obvious that I needed to come up with two separate checklists, one for the drum plants and one for the batch plants.
Over the years I modified my checklists to fit all of the plants we had. A few years ago I decided to share these with readers of Asphalt Contractor magazine.
These checklists can be found on my website at hotplantconsulting.com. Feel free to copy & paste them.
Drum Plant
hotplantconsulting.com/articlenine.html#howto
Batch Plant
hotplantconsulting.com/articleten.html#howto
Please remember, if you have a problem and need some advice you may either email or call me. All of my contact information is on the webpage. I will be happy to help. Now and anytime in the future.
