Getting the Best From Your Hose

Although it’s a fact that is often overlooked – like the hoses themselves – hoses are assets like any other. And like any other, they repay proper asset management in a number of ways. The key is not to treat them as an afterthought, but to ensure they have specialist care from experts. Like the kind of care and maintenance provided by ERIKS Fluid Power, Transfer and Control Hose Integrity Management service.

Across the whole range of hose applications – chemicals, air, food and beverages, and hydraulic oils – the ERIKS Hose Integrity Management Service helps you to maintain your existing hoses, identify reasons for failure, repair, replace, test and validate your hoses, and otherwise manage your hose assets in every way, for optimum return on investment.

Know your hose

It’s impossible to manage your hoses if you don’t know what and where those assets are. 

That’s why the first stage of engagement for ERIKS’ hose maintenance services is an identification of all hose assets on your site. This will be used to create a hose registry containing full details of all industrial and hydraulic hoses, including their location and type. With all hoses on site barcoded, QR coded or RFID tagged, once the registry has been completed it can be used as the basis for a comprehensive cloud-based digital database. 

This makes it easier for all those involved at a local level – from Maintenance Engineers to Plant Directors and even Procurement – to access the complete hose inventory via any smart device, identify any hose on your site, and see its full specification. 

With all your hose assets identified, the next step is to establish their current condition. This inspection takes different forms for industrial and hydraulic hoses.

Industrial hose inspection and testing

Ensuring your industrial hoses are fit for purpose and compliant with all relevant legislative requirements demands thorough, comprehensive, periodic hose inspections. ERIKS Hose Integrity Management Service provides for on-site inspection at least annually, depending on the hose criticality and your KPIs. 

The inspection comprises of a:

• Condition assessment
• Pressure test
• Static electricity conductivity test
• Internal visual inspection using an endoscopic camera, to check for failing internal walls and popcorning in steam hoses

Following the inspection, our engineers will advise of hose condition, and offer a replacement hose for those which have an issue. All inspection and test results will be recorded on the hose asset registry for future reference. 

Hydraulic hose inspection and on-site testing 

A thorough external inspection of your hydraulic hose assemblies, with the hoses assessed against set criteria, will identify any problems or potential problems. Hoses which require replacement will be identified with a red tag, while hoses which are considered in good enough condition to operate safely until the next annual inspection will be tagged with a green tag.

The visual inspection will take into account:

• Safety implications of hose failure
• Ease of accessibility for replacement
• Implications of loss of production through unplanned hose failures
• Expected life span of the hose assembly within the current operating environment

You will then be quoted a price for replacement of red-tagged hoses, which can be installed immediately from stock held on the engineer’s vehicle. Complete assemblies can also be manufactured on site if required. 

A safety review will also be carried out at the same time, assessing your hydraulic hose assemblies in line with current British Fluid Power Association best practice for hose routing etc.  

By carrying out regular scheduled expert inspections of your industrial and hydraulic hose assets – and replacing hoses when issues are identified – the ERIKS Hose Integrity Management Service will ensure that your hoses are always compliant with all relevant legislation. Our engineers will also advise on whether any hose assets not originally supplied by ERIKS meet COMAH regulations for safe operating on site and meet the required EN or ISO specifications. If not, we will recommend replacement as soon as possible.

Why wait for failure?

Failure of any hose will have some impact on productivity. Failure of a hydraulic hose in particular could have critical safety implications if, for example, oil under pressure is released: risking operator injury or product contamination. 

ERIKS can help you to predict and prevent failure, by identifying failure modes and looking for repeat patterns. The engineers can then make recommendations to avoid further failures: whether that’s an alternative hose or hose assembly, or employee education and training to reduce hose wear and tear from mishandling.  

The result will be less hose-related downtime, longer hose life, and a lower total cost of ownership of all your hose assets. The sooner you take advantage of ERIKS Hose Integrity Management Service, the sooner you can expect to see all those benefits coming down the pipeline.