Think of the business continuity plan (BCP) at your organisation. Chances are, it accounts for pretty much everything except one thing.
Cybersecurity threats? Check. Staff absences? Check. Supply chain delays? Of course. But go flip through that document and find the section on equipment reliability — you won’t.
Equipment downtime can be every bit as catastrophic for business operations as any of those other risks. Here’s the issue: Because equipment failures are almost always predictable — and preventable — they never receive the same level of strategic risk treatment. Instead, they get passed off as maintenance headaches.
If you’re failing to account for equipment reliability in your business continuity plan, this guide covers exactly why your BCP is missing a critical piece and how to fix it.
What You’ll Learn:
- The key piece most BCPs are missing
- How expensive equipment downtime can really be
- How inverter rated motors improve reliability
- Building a reliability layer into your BCP
The One Piece Most BCPs Are Missing
Simply put, most BCPs treat equipment failure as a secondary risk. They’ll tuck it under “operational disruptions” on the organisational chart, assign it to facilities, and consider it handled.
Here’s the issue with that approach:
Equipment failure accounts for 80% of all unplanned downtime in manufacturing facilities worldwide. Motors, bearings, drives, and seals are some of the most common reasons for unplanned equipment downtime, not ‘acts of God’.
Motors fail. Bearings wear out. Drive systems age. These aren’t unexpected disasters that keep facilities teams up at night. These are predictable losses of productivity that occur day in and day out, without proper planning.
Any operation that uses motor-driven equipment under variable frequency drives is at risk. Whether your system utilises a single phase motor for smaller duty cycles or something heavier requiring a three-phase inverter rated motor, not pairing the correct motor with your VFD is literally just waiting for that equipment to fail.
Motor manufacturers design standard motors to operate on direct current. Drive systems are designed to send high-frequency voltage pulses through your motor to regulate speed. The two just weren’t built to work together. Inverter rated motors were.
“With faster-paced business and accelerating global complexity, companies simply cannot afford unplanned downtime,” said Siemens. Here’s how costly that downtime can be.
How Expensive Equipment Downtime Really Is
Arguments can be made that equipment reliability is the most important piece of any business continuity plan. Here’s why:
Unplanned downtime costs the world’s 500 largest companies $1.4 trillion annually — equal to 11% of total revenue, according to Siemens’ latest True Cost of Downtime study. For smaller operations, unplanned downtime costs average $14,056 per minute. Lose a piece of equipment for two hours and you’ve cut a whole week of profit margin.
That figure only accounts for the direct costs associated with repairing your equipment. Once downtime hits, a snowball effect of lost productivity follows:
- Lost output until the failure is resolved
- Expedited parts sourcing/replacement at inflated cost
- Missed deliveries and unhappy customers
- Overtime costs to catch back up
Avoid unplanned downtime before it starts and you protect margins on both ends. Want to know how?
Ensure you’re using inverter rated motors with any variable frequency driven systems. Here’s why.
How Inverter Rated Motors Improve Equipment Reliability
Regardless of whether you realise it or not, most businesses specify motors without considering the drive system it will ultimately be paired with down the road. When that motor is placed under a variable frequency drive, problems start to show immediately…and they build over time.
Voltage spikes occur within the motor windings every time the VFD switches frequency. This repeated high-frequency current puts serious stress on the motor insulation — and that stress weakens insulation until it fails.
Inverter rated motors are engineered to combat those voltage spikes and run reliably under variable frequency drives. Here’s how that improves equipment reliability.
- Maximum service life when used in VFD applications
- Reduced risk of unexpected failure during operation
- Lower lifetime maintenance requirements
- Predictable performance at all speed ranges
Not sure if any of your equipment is operating under variable frequency drives? Conveyors, pumps, fans, compressors, and HVAC units are commonly operated this way. Ask your facilities team. If they are, ensure you’re specifying inverter rated motors wherever possible.
Swapping out that one component type is about as close to a fool-proof solution as you’ll find to improving equipment reliability. Read on to learn how to apply that logic to your entire operation.
How to Build A “Reliability Layer” Into Your BCP
If equipment reliability was easy, every business continuity plan would have it covered. Here’s how to know where you stand and what to do about it:
Do an audit. First, identify every piece of motor-driven equipment that would stop production if it failed unexpectedly. That’s your priority list.
Match motors to inverters. Once you know where you’re vulnerable, take a second look at those motor and drive pairings. If it’s not specified as inverter rated, set that replacement into your next scheduled downtime window. Standard motors were not designed to work with variable frequency drives.
Create a preventive maintenance schedule. You know your equipment is going to fail eventually. A 2024 Limble report found that 67% of manufacturers view preventive maintenance as their top tactic for avoiding unplanned downtime. Regular inspections allow you to spot tell-tale signs like abnormal vibration, heat, or current pull long before they become problems.
Stock critical spares on site. Especially for critical equipment, maintain an on-hand supply of inverter rated motors with proven lead times under a week. Sourcing a direct replacement may be cheaper than an hour of downtime.
Know your supply chain lead times. Map supplier risk into your BCP. Know how long it takes to source every critical motor and drive component. If your supplier’s lead time is greater than how long your business can afford to be without that piece of equipment, buy redundancy where you can.
Train staff to spot the leading indicators. All equipment fails eventually, even the correctly specified kind. Ensure your team knows what to look for, and your BCP clearly defines how and when an issue is escalated if maintenance staff suspect a problem.
Working through each of these steps will eliminate the majority of unforeseen equipment downtime risks your business may be exposed to.
Bottom Line: Your BCP is Only as Reliable as Your Equipment
Would you leave your business continuity plan exposed to cyber threats without a cybersecurity protocol to contain the risks? Of course not. But production is often run on motors and drive systems without considering equipment reliability as part of the BCP.
Put another way: If your equipment fails, nothing else in your BCP matters.
Specify the correct inverter rated motor for every VFD application, properly maintain your equipment, and plan for failure before it happens. Until you do, you’re leaving a giant patch of your business vulnerable to unpredictable downtime.
Make equipment reliability the backbone it should be in your business continuity plan. You won’t realise how much you’ve avoided until that expensive shutdown happens.
