Working With Your Motor Service Center

Abstract

For the end user of electric motors, it is important to maximize repair quality at minimum cost. At the same time, most recognize the truth in the old adage "You get what you pay for." Coordination of the expectations of the end user and service center is important to ensure that the end user gets the level of quality desired without paying too much for unnecessary features. The amount of testing and documentation required by the motor end user varies widely by industry. Additional testing takes time, and time is money. This paper offers guidelines to assist the end user in selecting and working with the service center. Equipment needed to perform a quality repair is described, with suggestions for evaluating service centers as potential vendors. Numerous so-called decision models are used by industry to direct the decision process when a motor fails. Most are simple and do not consider the reality of downtime costs or manufacturing timetables. A portion of this paper presents a more realistic repair-replace decision model.