Efficiency is everything in a busy industrial setting. Time is the greatest commodity when it comes to measuring output in a warehouse or manufacturing setting, as a delay can throw everything out of whack. Industrial doors are particularly important in terms of maintaining efficiency.
If they jam open, dispatch has to stop, heating costs rise and physical security is compromised. If they jam shut, similar bottlenecks can form. This article explores the typical industrial door failures that working environments can struggle with, as well as solutions and preventative measures that operators should take.
The most common industrial failures
These are the most typical problems that people tend to see across industrial door manufacturers and installers.
Misaligned or damaged tracks, which are often the result of accidents and impacts, as well as buildups of dust and debris. They can be spotted by their squeakiness, jerkiness and sticking during movement.
Sensor and photo-eye malfunctions often come from dust, grease and moisture buildups, as well as safety edge damage. This issue can be spotted by doors refusing to open or close, as well as reversing seemingly for no reason.
Torsion spring and cable wear is likely to come up over thousands of cycles. Struggling or straining motors that make lots of noise are signs of this wear and tear, and should inspire a professional industrial door service, as damaged doors are extremely dangerous.
Power and motor failures come from overheating, blown fuses and simple manual-override switches. Wall controllers and remote fobs refusing to respond are the easiest signs of these issues.
Understanding these issues and how to spot them is so important when it comes to bringing in maintenance or servicing. Keeping your doors clean, wiping out tracks, ensuring doors aren’t too overworked and generally keeping unnecessary impacts at bay.
As alluded to, all of these issues can result in issues like temperature loss, pest ingress, security gaps and general supply bottlenecks. Make sure you keep your eye out for them to keep these problems at bay.
Essential diagnostics
Industrial door maintenance and repairs can come with expensive callout fees, which is why it’s important to keep some diagnostics in mind before you contact your technical team.
- Check the isolation switch to ensure that the door is actually turned on. Check that the emergency stop button hasn’t been pressed as well.
- Inspect the safety sensors, enuring they’re clean and free of dirt, cobwebs or packaging wrap. Also check sensors are properly aligned.
- Make sure that the manual override or chain isn’t engaged. Motors don’t run when the bypass is active, so keep that in mind.
- Look in the tracks for physical track obstructions, such as stones, pieces of wood or working debris.
These are the kinds of things that you can check for yourself, without requiring a professional to come in and fix things for you. However, it’s also worth remembering that issues like spring or cable wear should not be closely inspected by non-professionals, as a snap can have potentially lethal consequences.
Don’t wait for the snap with industrial doors
If you’re feeling unsure about the state of the industrial doors in your warehouse, then you shouldn’t waste any time before getting the problems solved.
Yes, there are some basic diagnostics that you can apply to the doors and many of the issues might not be too significant, but if you don’t feel safe or you can’t make sense of what’s going on, call someone in.
It’s never worth waiting for a proper failure with your loading bay doors or other industrial door systems, as this could result in much more severe problems than just a bit of supply chain delay.