True Costs of Machine Downtime

Top 5 reasons to take control of your hydraulic hoses repair and maintenance. 

For the last 7 years, BOA has been determined to bring about change to the hydraulic hose industry. Helping customers to understand the true cost of their burst hydraulic hose and machine downtime and giving them the ability to undertake their own repair and maintenance work, using their own tools and inventory.  This might seem intuitively obvious, and it is, but for years the sector has been trained to solely outsource this to localized mobile hose repairers. This reliance on the traditional business model costs the end user significant downtime, higher operating costs, and loss of autonomy. Read more about how to make the change:  

1. Machine downtime  

When a hydraulic hose blows and you’re in the middle of the day’s job, time is of the essence.  

The losses due to downtime in the mining, forestry, and civil industries can be huge, falling behind due to lost machine time means deadlines are not met and project adjustments must be made. Some forestry companies have calculated about $20 for every minute their machine is not operating during working hours. This can add up very quickly when remote staff can be waiting in excess of 2 hours.  

The impact of machinery not being utilized has a knock-on effect on staff and their time ‘off the tools’.  

With the BOApod you have the facility right there on-site, allowing you to get your machine back up and running in as little as 20 minutes.  

2. Staff downtime  

With staff in remote mining or forestry locations waiting in excess of 4 hours for a mobile hose repairer to come to site, means staff downtime becomes a huge concern for not only the bottom line but also for staff morale.  

Losses due to staff downtime can be very costly as contractors still need to pay their staff for any time spent waiting. BOA has calculated that the forestry industry alone is bleeding in excess of $130m annually in lost productivity which equates to 800 + forestry crews losing 10 to 15 hours per month at an average cost of $1200 per hour. This is just one industry with more remote mining operations sometimes waiting days.  

Having the facility to be able to repair and maintain the hydraulic hoses on site not only reduces your staff downtime but also has other positive impacts like employee retention, through up-skilling and keeping staff engaged and familiar with the large expensive machines they are operating.   

3. Extra costs  

Did you know that 37% of unscheduled downtime for a hydraulic machine is due to hydraulic hose failure? The costs begin to mount from the minute the hose blows and the machine stops.  On top of the machine and staff downtime, the costs can extend to project delay costs, loss of personal time due to overtime, higher hose and fitting costs, and travel costs for contractors to visit your remote site. It all adds up to cut into the profitability of any job.  

BOA enables companies, which rely on hydraulic machines to repair blown hoses on-site and therefore avoid costly delays from waiting for a service provider to drive to them.  Furthermore, BOA’s direct sourcing strategy through our buying collective enables BOA to pass significant cost savings for hose and fittings on to our clients.  

4. Reliance  

Autonomy is such an important part of running a business and suppliers should feel more like partners than an expensive cost that must incurred.  

Reliance on one party to keep your business running takes the control away from the business operator. Having to wait hours, sometimes days for a hose to be repaired takes away the control to keep projects on track and on budget.  

Repairing and performing preventative maintenance directly on your work site gives companies greater autonomy and delivers increased productivity and profitability to their operations.  

Control is back in the hands of those who need it: operators can ensure the greatest machine uptime during operational hours when it counts.  

5. Environmental  

BOA’s own research with existing customers has shown that based on a conservative average of oil spilled per hose blown in service, savings of at least 80 litres per crew per month can be achieved. Leaked or spilled oil can have dramatic environmental consequences to plant and marine life. This can be avoided through preventative maintenance, and minimized when blown hoses can be repaired quickly.  

Greater hydraulic uptime during operations also reduces the risk of environmental contamination; less unexpected hose failures means less unexpected oil spills that can’t easily be contained.  

BOA is certainly challenging, “the way things have always been” and we know that customers will look back on this time before they invested in a BOApod and ask themselves why did it take so long to change our operating model?   

Talk to us, or one of our many satisfied customers and change the way you do business today- take a positive step towards greater control, efficiency, and profitability.