The opportunity to keep it going

I just need you to make it work!" Gabriel told his maintenance manager.

But, Engineer, we had already warned that the equipment could have failures and that if so, it would be extremely difficult to find spare parts, the equipment is very old. Gustavo replied with a clear expression of anguish.

I already know that! I also commented on it to the directors, but the answer was very forceful "this year there will be no investment in new equipment, we do not know what may happen and we cannot assume that level of risks, increase maintenance programs if it is necessary but there will be no new equipment".

Armando, the production supervisor, raises his voice as if speaking to himself with a blank stare. It is the nightmare that we always describe, we cannot depend on such old equipment in a nodal center of the 4 lines, the day the machine stops, we are going to halt the production of the entire plant.

Armando, that doesn't help at all right now! Gabriel demands, we need solutions. What did suppliers respond? Did they find the servo? Did they not locate a substitute?

Nothing. Gustavo answered. Purchasing is looking everywhere, but we have nothing.

There are enough indications to affirm that this relatively common scene in our country will occur much more frequently in the coming year or years. The tremendous uncertainty caused by the political changes in both Mexico and the U.S. are setting off all the alerts and the most common strategy will be to try to keep things as they are and wait to see what happens to try to react. Not to mention that the regulations for the import of Chinese components into Mexico will most likely be tightened made it difficult to supply components and spare parts.

This scenario is not new in the industry in Mexico. For those of us who have enough gray hair, we know what the effects will be on the market in the face of a possible crisis.

Measures such as dollarizing price lists, strengthening local supply chains, having reliable equipment for preventive and corrective repairs will be decisive. 

But not only that, experience dictates that good planning using predictive maintenance models can translate not only into avoiding machine stoppages but also into substantial savings for the company.

Have an inventory of critical parts to have them in stock,  

Check broken spare parts in the warehouse that are susceptible to repair.

Making agreements with specialized suppliers of key components in case of emergency and agreements with fixed prices for repairs or spare parts can undoubtedly be a winning combination.

It will be necessary to rethink process designs in line with old systems with new ones. Inventiveness in integration will be a huge business opportunity for the coming years.

Naturally, the more challenging aspect, when it comes to finding low-cost solutions to update processes, will be determining how to effectively communicate them to the market. Additionally, an intriguing consideration will be how large companies adapt their processes to become more flexible, allowing them to explore new opportunities or alternative supply solutions such as the purchase of remanufactured equipment, which has not traditionally been used in our country.

Ready Engineer! the machine is already working; commented Gustavo satisfied, the supplier agreed to change the remanufactured equipment they had for our broken equipment but in any case, we requested its repair, and they gave us 2 years of warranty. 

We are going to do the survey of key parts so that they have them in stock and they want to see with you, if you are interested in a pricing agreement for repairs for the whole year and emergency inventories of obsolete parts.

Dear Gustavo, Gabriel replied. Any proposal to avoid more losses due to breakdowns like this and the anguish and frustration we have gone through interests me very much.

Many of us might do not like what is happening, while others may be reluctant to accept it, but the reality is that Mexico is entering a moment where the industry only wants the country to "continue functioning", and for this it will depend on characters like those described here. All of us will have to do our best and the main reason is that Mexico ..... has no spare.