If you are ever invited into a high volume assembly plant where the products are fast moving consumer goods, perhaps toys, you will see people sitting at benches stretching for what seems to be miles. Suspended above each work station will be a pneumatic tool, usually a small, rather inexpensive screw driver or nut runner. When one of these tools fails it goes in for air tool repair and is quickly replaced on the line by one which has been repaired or new.
This is one side of the air tool coin, clean, not hard duty and rarely dropped as they are suspended over the work station. Now, think of the other side of the coin, a job site. Here you normally have large, complex air tools, many of which are designed for a specific function and not available on site in multiples. All of these tools which can consist of concrete breakers, rams, air hoists and various demolition tools are subjected to hard service and in many times they are used by general labor which is really not fully educated on the “how to’s” of air tool use. These tools are frequently damaged and when this happens they must be sent off site for air tool repair.
This can have a significant effect on the job progress as so many things on a construction site are tied into the completion of one task before the next task can begin. This means that the tool must be sent out, repaired, tested and returned as quickly as possible.
As much as the rapid repair of the tool is required, the cost of repair and the long term viability of the tool are also important. If the repair company report back upon their receipt of the tool that it has gone beyond the point of economic repair, then it is imperative that either a new replacement is immediately available or a rental tool is available.
Productivity is the name of the game, whether the tools are being used in a high volume assembly shop or on a large job site, when air tool repair is needed, it is needed now. Any repair that can be done which extends the life of the capital equipment is well worth doing but it must be quick and fully operational upon return.
