Posted at 04 February 2020

No need for panic with the ERIKS Hose Asset Management Van

Paul Skade
By Mark Carpenter
Product Manager, Industrial Hose

I am a former Engineer on Submarines in the Royal Navy and got in to the Hose industry in 2010 becoming the UK Sales Manager for Norres in 2014, ERIKS was my majo...

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If a vehicle with hoses turns up at your site, you don't want it to be bright red with sirens. But if it's the ERIKS Hose Asset Management service van, there's no need to panic. It's there to make sure it's not your money going up in smoke.

 

When they're poorly maintained or managed, industrial and hydraulic hoses can lead to problems ranging from energy inefficiencies, unplanned downtime and lost production, to catastrophic failure, environmental contamination and even critical health and safety risks.

But arriving at your site with a van loaded with equipment, hose and know-how, ERIKS can help you take care of a vital part of your production processes. A part that's often the weakest link, and often overlooked until it's too late.

 

Know your hoses

Maintaining your hoses in good condition starts with knowing what hoses you have, and where. Only when you fully understand your hose assets can you establish a planned maintenance and management scheme to keep them in optimum condition.

And when a hose or hoses needs replacing - either as part of a planned maintenance regime or in an emergency - then knowing your hoses will help the engineer to know which replacement to bring, so production can be back up and running much faster.

However, when ERIKS' application engineers attend a customer's site, all too often there's no-one with a proper overview of hose assets. So part of the ERIKS Hose Asset Management chargeable service is a comprehensive review of your industrial or hydraulic hose.

 

Cool under pressure

For your industrial hose, our engineers carry out a visual inspection, and electrical conductivity and pressure tests. Sizes, pressures and temperature ratings of hoses throughout your site will be accurately catalogued, and a printed report provided - identifying hoses which have passed, and those which need replacing.

And if you take advantage of ERIKS' cloud-based Hose Maintenance System, you'll be alerted in good time when the hoses are next due for testing, and the ERIKS van will arrive with a test rig, ready to pressure-test your hoses on site.

At the end of testing, and after any necessary replacements have been made, ERIKS will also provide the appropriate certification.

Maintain, manage, manufacture

For your hydraulics systems it's different hose, same problems. Most customers are unaware of the age and condition of their hydraulic hoses, and unsure which hoses do what.

As a result, instead of hose maintenance, they have hose emergencies, where an oil leak can mean unplanned downtime and an expensive emergency call out at best, or an environmental or health and safety incident at worst.

 

ERIKS' answer is to undertake planned maintenance before hose problems reach a head, by putting a hose control solution in place. The planned maintenance can be carried out during a scheduled shutdown, for example, when all hydraulic hoses can be assessed, reported on and replaced if required.

The fully-equipped ERIKS Hose Asset Management van makes the process faster and more efficient, by carrying a comprehensive stock of hoses on board, and by coming equipped with the necessary tools to cut and crimp replacement hoses on site.

The next step is a comprehensive hose review, providing information as the basis for putting an hydraulic hose asset management system in place.

The review will assess age, condition and function of all your hydraulic hoses, and tag them with colour-coded tags: green, for assess as safe until next survey; red, for replace as soon as practicable.

With all your hoses catalogued and placed on a personalised Hose Asset Management database, all future maintenance can be carried out to a plan, with the support of the ERIKS hose van. And no need for sirens.

Hose lessons learned

The best place to find out about taking care of hoses isn't on the factory floor when there's a problem, but in the classroom.

In association with the British Fluid Power Association, ERIKS offer a useful training course entitled Working Safely with Hydraulic Hose and Connections. A foundation course covering best practice and real-world operation, it's the ideal starting point for helping you to better manage your hose assets for long-term efficiency and safety.

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