What would happen to your building if one of its critical systems stopped working? What if you lost power completely? No one wants to believe they’ll suffer from unplanned downtime, but it can happen, especially if you don’t have redundant systems in place to pick up the slack if the power goes out or a component fails.
Consequences of Equipment Downtime
The damage from downtime varies depending on the scope of your equipment issues, but the possible outcomes include:
1. A single building system fails. The loss of one building system is costly enough. An HVAC failure won’t completely cripple operations in an office building, but it can create an uncomfortable work environment that hinders productivity. The loss of productivity then leads to a loss of revenue.
2. A building system failure takes out other interconnected systems. The emergence of the Internet of Things, virtualization and cloud computing requires more reliability than ever and drives up the cost of downtime. Building systems are increasingly interconnected, and a problem with one can easily lead to collateral damage in other systems.
For example, a building automation system might use sensors to measure room occupation or space utilization in an area and adjust the HVAC system accordingly. A problem with the space utilization sensors could mislead the HVAC system into over-conditioning a space or scaling back, both of which could make people in the area uncomfortable and potentially waste energy.
3. All building systems are unavailable. Power outages and other causes of whole-building downtime add up in costs much more quickly than the costs from the loss of a single system. In data centers, the average outage totaled $740,357 in 2016, with an average per-minute cost of $8,851, according to a Ponemon Institute study.
Other building types will also lose revenue during an outage because it will become impossible to work, process payments and do other tasks that require electronic devices, but the sheer scope of damage an outage causes in a data center truly underscores the importance of preventing downtime.
The numbers also don’t factor in the damage that downtime can do to your reputation. A data center that can’t withstand an outage because it doesn’t have the recommended redundancy in backup power will be much less appealing to potential clients who need a reliable facility.
An office building with repeated HVAC failures will not only suffer from a loss of productivity during every failure, it can also lose the respect of the people who work there. Equipment failures and outages tell an unflattering story about your business.
Invest in Reliability
Maximizing uptime is all about investing in equipment that won’t let you down. You can measure reliability in components and equipment with a few key factors.
- Callback ratio. You need your building systems to perform without constantly calling someone back to your facility. Mitsubishi Electric’s industry-leading callback ratio extends across a wide range of products.
- Verifiable quality. Look for manufacturing and installation processes that meet rigorous quality standards. Building equipment is only as good as the sum of its parts, so your equipment should use the highest quality components possible to ward off degradation and malfunctions.
- Maintenance. All building equipment needs regular preventive maintenance. Mitsubishi Electric offers a scheduled maintenance program that replaces parts before they wear out, letting you avoid downtime from component failure. Their products are designed to last for more than 30 years, far beyond the industry average, so you can reliably maintain equipment operation.
Resilience and redundancy are critical in every building. The potential costs of downtime—and the benefits of uninterrupted uptime—are too important to ignore. Learn more about how you can prevent downtime at [URL].
