At Laser Maintenance Group (LMG), our industrial laser service and maintenance visits fall into three categories: Routine, Preventative, and Corrective. Almost every service call we make has components of each in it. However, there is a preference as to which type of visit we make … for both of us.
Routine laser maintenance:
Laser maintenance visits schedules LMG professionals to work on your laser centers according to a regular time interval. The suggested time is based on manufacturers’ recommendations, coupled with our experience (nearly 30 years) servicing CO2 laser systems. A prescribed set of tasks is completed that allow us to inspect the laser center as we go. In fact, LMG offers routine laser service as well as other packages, when we come out on a scheduled, periodic basis, according to the number of hours you run your laser centers.
Preventative laser service:
When laser service experts at LMG see a performance problem during routine laser maintenance, we do immediate, preventative laser service. These visits also happen our customer calls us and says their laser system seems to not function as well as usual, or differently than normal.
Close contact and cooperation with you, our customers, is vital to keeping your lasers running efficiently. When we discover laser performance issues, we will show and explain the problem to you. With your permission, we will fix the issue immediately, or make arrangements to get it repaired before it damages the laser center or, worse yet, causes it to fail. We prevent catastrophic laser failures.
Corrective laser service:
When sometime breaks on the laser system and it becomes non-operational, corrective laser service is the work LMG does to return your laser center to full functionality. These situations don’t just mean that your company loses use of a laser until it can be repaired. Unfortunately, waiting until something breaks means it’s probably going to be more expensive and time consuming to fix now, than had you done routine maintenance or preventative service months ago. These problems can also lead to catastrophic laser failure, which can be dangerous to equipment and employees.
An ounce of prevention ….
LMG knows that laser components sometimes simply fail because of age, accidents, use (or misuse). However, 90% of the time, this type of laser service is avoided by doing routine and preventative maintenance.
The laser service professionals at LMG want to avoid doing corrective laser service if at all possible. They would prefer to do routine laser maintenance, on a scheduled basis. Why? Let’s face it: Corrective laser service not only disrupts your manufacturing flow and your schedule. It severely impacts our calendar. We prefer to act rather than react, to step in and eliminate the problem before it bites both of us. Murphy’s law is crystal clear on when the problem will shut your laser down: At the worst possible time. Every time!
Scheduled Laser Maintenance Case Study: A Win/Win
Here’s an example: Our lead laser service technician, “Laser Service Guy” Scott Kiser, is on the road doing routine maintenance on two Cincinnati lasers on the Gulf Coast. He’ll be there Tuesday and Wednesday. Next, he has a scheduled a routine maintenance call for a company in central Georgia. He’ll do that Thursday, which will let him head home to Northwest Georgia on Friday. Based on his schedule, everything looks great.
But then, on Tuesday, as he’s leaving the Gulf Coast, he gets a call from a client in Oklahoma. The manufacturer has a serious problem with their laser. Something went very wrong. The techs had to shut it down, and management desperately needs it to be up and running before the weekend so they can cut the parts they’ve promised to deliver by Monday.
Despite the fact that the emergency laser service call means extra work (and at a higher emergency rate), it’s not something we at LMG want to do. It costs time just to get there from so far away. It inconveniences our other customers. It’s not the best use of our time. And it is not good for the company making that emergency call. (In fact, the only happy company in this scenario is the one on the Gulf Coast that Scott just left. The one that planned ahead and did their routine laser maintenance on time!
Types of Industrial Laser Services from LMG: An Analogy:
Routine industrial laser maintenance is the sticker in your window reminding you to do the oil change, so you will go in every 3,000 miles and have your car serviced.
Preventative industrial laser service is the yellow check engine light, or the mechanic telling you that you need to get something fixed right away … and they can do it for you then.
Corrective industrial laser service is the red check engine light. You have to pull over on the side of the freeway, call a tow truck, and hope you can find someone to fix your car so you can continue.
Remember this truth: As with everything, the more routine an industrial laser service call is, the less it typically costs.
Laser Problems: Avoidable or Unpreventable
There are just two types of problems in this world: Unpreventable and Avoidable. This applies to everything, not just laser service or maintenance. It ranges from physics to medicine, from maintenance (goooood) to former spouses (baaaaaad!). It applies to everything.
No one can defend against unpreventable problems. For example: A lightning strike fries your computer. There is no amount of routine or preventative service that can stop that.
But why fight with both problems if you can eliminate the preventable ones? Your competitor is in the same boat as you, but what an advantage you will have if you are proactive rather than reactive. Scheduling routine maintenance, asking questions when things don’t seem right, fixing potential problems as they are discovered: All these actions help eliminate the preventable side of the equation.
We at LMG are on your side. We will always be part of your industrial laser service solution. We want to be part of your laser service problem prevention.
LMG has both maintenance and industrial laser service packages. Contact us to find out about them, and get on our schedule. We can help you avoid serious industrial laser service problems that could adversely impact your production and your business.
With nearly 3 decades of industrial laser service experience, LMG’s motto is simple:
“The Performance of Your Laser is
a Reflection of the Work We Do!“
Contact Laser Maintenance Group for a Quote
Don’t wait until your high-performance industrial laser center fails. Schedule your laser maintenance visits now with LMG Founder and Chief Technology Consultant Scott Kiser (aka “The Laser Service Guy”) directly at 423-593-7206, or email: LaserSolutions@Comcast.net.
If you need steel or other metal parts cut for your industrial and manufacturing production lines, visit LMG’s affiliate company: InnovativeLaserCutting.com
