Motor Policy
Motor users are inevitably faced with in-service motor failures and/or aging motors that pose risks of failure and business continuity, and consequently they need to make decisions whether to replace or repair those electric motors.
Rather than having such decisions made solely on the demands of the immediate circumstances and pressures, consistently better decisions will result from having a well-understood replacement v repair policy in place to guide the decision-maker. The policy should be developed taking account of the criticality of the various motor uses and the economics of replacement compared to repair of the motor.
The policy developed should enable an immediate and sound (replacement or repair) decision to be made when an in-service motor either fails or is subject to review as part of a preventative maintenance programme.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority has compiled a guide for the development of such a policy. The purpose of the Motor (Replacement v Repair) Policy Development Guide is to assist managers develop site-wide policies to simplify decision-making on the replacement, compared to retention and repair, of three-phase electric motors in their businesses.
The motor policy development guide is not a policy document – but a template for use to simplify the policy development process.
A policy developed according to the guide should provide identify critical motors/applications requiring standby stock for cover, contain a set of rules covering the majority of in-service motors (grouped into a small number of well-defined categories) and provide guidance for any motors/applications identified as deserving special attention.
Embedded within the Motor (Replacement v Repair) Policy Development Guide document is a calculator that provides a payback period estimate of the motor replacement decision (versus repair) under certain circumstances. The same calculator is provided to enable it to be used in a more general sense to appreciate the economics of the decision, if all other things were equal.