Whether an outage is caused by a natural or manmade disaster or a simple lack of regular maintenance and testing, an electrical outage means loss of production. A lack of production results in the loss of money and costly delays for customers. NPE specializes in being your go-to partner for expediting your equipment after an outage. NPE specializes in providing fast, cost-effective solutions no matter what the problem is. We deliver the right part, at the right price, right away.

Effects of Power Outages on Businesses

Electricity drives productivity in the modern world, and often production is run on switchgear and circuit breakers that have been off the market for years, if not decades. If you contact the original manufacturer and they tell you they no longer support your product line, your only option will be to replace your equipment with a newer model on the market. This will often entail reconfiguring your distribution system, paying upgrade costs, and waiting months for “the latest and greatest” product line – only to find out that it’s less reliable than what you previously had. 

In manufacturing, even seemingly small power flickers can cause significant impacts. Manufacturers are especially vulnerable to equipment damage during outages; electrical surges may occur when power is restored, resulting in costly damage to critical equipment that is difficult to repair.

For high-volume manufacturers, a power outage can mean disruption that ripples through the entire supply chain. Shipping and receiving can come to a standstill, causing truck drivers and other means of transportation to be delayed or rescheduled.
 
So, when disaster strikes and you’re faced with these obstacles, what do you do? Who do you call to restore production in the fastest and most economical way? That’s where National Power Equipment comes in to help. As a stocking distributor of used, remanufactured circuit breakers and switchgear parts and our ever-growing list of aftermarket parts, NPE can supply you with the right equipment, at the right price when you need it. 

How to Prevent Power Outages?

While you can’t always predict when a power outage is going to strike, you can work quickly to connect with our professional team to ensure your operation is up and running quickly. Our warehouses are stocked with low voltage (600 VAC or less) through medium voltage (15,000 volts or less) air and vacuum circuit breakers, switchgear, medium voltage motor starters, load break switches, and all the parts needed to go with it. Our inventory is stocked with equipment that dates from World War II to the present. Our services go beyond part replacement, our staff has the experience, knowledge, and expertise to get your operation back up and running in a fraction of the time compared to a full system replacement. Think of us as your “ELECTRICAL 911”. When disaster strikes, large or small, we can assess the problem, offer a variety of solutions, and start implementing them right away.

Case Study: Navigating the Aftermath of a Flood

Consider the case of a once-in-a-lifetime flood that incapacitated a technical center for a major automotive company. While the water was still receding, NPE was on-site – consulting with the contractor, assessing the damage, and formulating plans. We helped to ensure replacement parts and equipment began arriving the next day. NPE supplied medium voltage fuses and switch parts, low and medium voltage circuit breakers, relays, and a variety of additional parts. Our team worked tirelessly to help get over twenty load centers back online quickly. The first of the substations came on in a week, and within eight weeks 99% of production was restored.  Overall, NPE made seventy-nine separate shipments including one of sixty-seven circuit breakers that were reconditioned and ready to go.

What to Do When Your Business Loses Power

Unexpected outages, large or small, require two things to overcome them – experience and options. If you’re in the market for a knowledgeable, trusted partner in the switchgear and circuit breaker market, we can help. Contact us today or head to https://npeinc.com to find out how we can utilize our 40+ years of industry expertise to find the right solution for you. 

As a stocking distributor of used/remanufactured switchgear, circuit breakers, and related products for the last forty-plus years – we’ve seen a lot of changes come and go. Back in the day, our business mostly dealt with industrial service shops that specialized in this equipment and servicing it in the field. Technicians would request equipment, and dealers would help flesh out the details to make sure the equipment delivered was the right fit and function for the job. As we often say, we “supply round pegs for round holes.” While that’s an understatement of facts, there are many factors that must be considered, and the only way to navigate through them is to have experience and product knowledge. Knowledge that is only gained through years of experience at the school of hard knocks. 

How Modern Digital Trends Impact the Switchgear and Circuit Breaker Markets

Today, the internet has had major inroads into our industry. With it comes some advantages and some pitfalls. The major advantage is that customers now have access to a wide array of suppliers and information. While for some this is a welcome trend, for others it can be overwhelming. 

Another advantage is that the transfer/sharing of equipment specifications is faster and easier than it ever was before and is aided to a great degree by the ability to quickly share photos of equipment online. We estimate that more than half of the requests that come with nameplate information alone end up requiring a photo to find other specifications that would cause problems in the field. For instance, ITE manufactured the K 1600 from the 1960’s through current production. There was one product update that affected product interchangeability – resulting in complications. It is one of those things that you have to see to understand, and you have to understand to make sure you specify the right equipment. Issues like this arise in various forms across all product lines and all manufacturers. The pitfall is when someone inexperienced in specifying this equipment reaches out to a dealer that is either not knowledgeable or not reputable or often both. Time and money are wasted, and it gives our industry a bad name.

Looking for a Trusted Switchgear or Circuit Breaker Supplier?

If you are one of these customers, we can only suggest that as you communicate with your suppliers, be patient as they ask you a bunch of questions that at first may seem annoying. Answers to these questions will ensure your product will work for your application and should assure you that you will get the right equipment.
 
If you are in the market for a knowledgeable, trusted partner in the switchgear and circuit breaker market, we can help. Contact us today or head to https://npeinc.com to find out how we can utilize our 40+ years of industry expertise to find the right solution for you.