Ways to Purchase Compressed Air
Have you ever wondered how compressed air plays around little things in your life? You can find its role in many of your experiences such as riding a roller coaster, visiting a dentist or even opening the bottle of an aerated drink. Compressed air can be used both as blowing air or a power source. Therefore, it is the source of energy behind every product or process you see everyday.
Compressed air is a crucial asset or tool when it comes to manufacturing or operating utilities like – Power Plants, Air separation or chemical industries. It is also an indispensable part of process manufacturing – like food or pharmaceuticals, for operating instruments on production floor, pneumatic conveying and more.
In this article, we discuss what to consider when deciding to purchase compressed air.
Flexibility of buying air only
Though there is the conventional way of buying compressors, either directly or through low financing programs, compressed air equipment purchases are now made easy with leasing choices. It means you can get the equipment on lease for a particular period of time and then have this option of buying it at the end of the lease. An exclusive option which is now being offered by the air compressor manufacturers like Atlas Copco is to provide easily accessible compressed air for your production.
Design services
If you choose the right compressed air supplier and suitable AIRPlan, design services are furnished for the entire system along with fulfilling all operation and maintenance needs.
Making investments
Before you make a decision, take a look at the last time you purchased a compressor. If this exceeds the lifespan of a typical compressor, which is about 10 to 15 years, it may be wise to replace instead of maintaining the older units – considering total life cycle cost. In a case where large quantities of air are needed, buying compressed air can be a good option without having to make large upfront capital investments and at the same time payback from your operational savings.
Change in production
If you are foreseeing changes on your production process in near future like – up scaling, new facility expansion, upgrade to newer and efficient technologies, consider purchasing only the air.
Consider a supplier with approach to not only taking care of your plant air needs but offering an attractive investment plan as well. With AIRplan from Atlas Copco, we handle your pressure!
Carry over maintenance needs to the manufacturer
Maintenance and downtime planning is another aspect to compressor ownership. With aging units, not just the maintenance cost, but number of service interventions and unexpected downtime also increases. At times, this can cause significant disruption to your costly production process where every minute of the day counts.
A reasonable way forward in such a case would be to consider replacement over repair to make sure a lower total cost of ownership.
If you wish to defer maintenance services and downtime planning to the manufacturer, it is important to choose the right provider that ensures a consistent flow of quality air meeting your production requirements.
Need for a back-up compressor
For a continuously running operation, it is essential to maintain a back-up sized enough to meet the minimum demand. In case of any emergency breakdown or to allow for routine maintenance, mostly everyone prefers to have a back-up compressor that gives no space for down timing. Add a compressor suitably sized to respond in such cases meeting your needs and guarantee peace of mind contributing to overall system reliability for all stakeholders – maintenance, production, finance teams etc.
Conclusion
In addition to all the above factors, buying just compressed air will have a positive impact on your capital expenditure, transport, administration, and installation charges as the purchase essentially cuts all these costs down. A significant benefit is that maintenance services and upgrade facilities are provided regularly for the equipment along with meeting any new requirements.
If you think purchasing compressed air is the right choice for your business, look no further. Atlas Copco offers AIRPlan, an all-inclusive contract for compressed air delivery.