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Can You Guarantee Access to the Generator Spares You Need?

Whether you depend on electricity produced on-site to supply all of the power for a large manufacturing plant or just as an emergency backup option made necessary by frequent mains outages, you need to be sure that you can rely on your genset. As a general rule, adopting a schedule of regular maintenance will provide you with that assurance. However, this will also require that you either stock or have easy access to a supply of those generator spares that will most often be called for.

In fact, the maintenance schedule is intended as a preventative measure that will minimise the need for repairs, which could prove far costlier. In addition, strict adherence to that schedule might also be a condition of the manufacturer’s warranty. Either way, it is in the interest of the owner to implement any measures that may prove necessary to avoid prolonged periods of downtime.

From a practical viewpoint, a backup machine is one of the most useful generator spares to consider. Owning one will ensure that, whenever it may become necessary to take a machine offline to conduct routine maintenance or to perform repairs, the backup machine can then be brought online. In this way, machine downtime and any related production losses can be kept to a minimum.

This, however, should be seen as a way to simplify the maintenance procedure and not as a means to replace it. It also means that the need to maintain an adequate supply of the recommended generator spares will remain important. All that remains to be decided is which items it will be necessary to stock.

Invariably, the answer will be found in the user manual. The manufacturer’s preventative maintenance schedule is likely to include the names and part numbers of those components that need to be routinely replaced, as well as indicating the intervals at which these replacements need to be performed.

All of this assumes, however, that the owner has both the time and the human resources with the necessary skillset to undertake in-house servicing and repairs. In practice, a maintenance contract could transfer the entire responsibility for stocking the necessary generator spares, along with the servicing obligation to the contractor. For convenience, the contractor may sometimes elect to maintain that stock on the client’s premises, as part of the agreement. Failing that, others might undertake to reserve a cache of the client’s items in their own stores in order to avoid any unnecessary delays.

Whether kept on-site or with the contractor, that cache should consist of basic items, such as air and fuel filters, gaskets, and lubricating oil, as well as replacement exhaust, air inlet, and fuel inlet valves for each model of genset in use. More specialised generator spares could include additional items, such as main and connecting rod bearings, piston rings, gaskets, and fuel injection pumps.

Maintaining an inventory as extensive as this could tie up a significant amount of one’s operating capital and it is, therefore, a responsibility that might be better left to the supplier. By contracting the services of a reputable company to undertake the routine maintenance of your gensets, you will then be left free to focus solely on your core business, safe in the knowledge that your on-site power source will continue to perform as required.

For quality generator spares and maintenance, as well as for innovative power solutions ranging from bespoke gensets to uninterruptible power supplies and solar arrays, PacB Group has long been a preferred supplier to many of the leading industries in South Africa and many of the other countries with whom we share this continent.

Source all of your power requirements from PacB to ensure world-class products, professional support and the assurance that you will have access to your essential generator spares whenever you need them.