Why it pays to be proactive
4 August 2025 
You wouldn’t run your car without regular servicing, so why would you take a similar risk with critical assets such as drives, motors and generators? Rebecca Brannelly, ABB’s OneCare service agreements manager for the UK, explains the importance of having more permanent maintenance arrangements in place.
When drives, motors and generators are operated in optimal conditions, they can often provide years of incident-free operation. For the first few years of their life, they typically need little in the way of service beyond checking connections, keeping the area free of dust and debris, and ensuring that the surrounding environment is suitable for effective operation.
SLAs (service-level agreements ) are a way of making sure that your drive remains fighting fit throughout its lifecycle. Where SLAs differ from warranties is that they are tailored specifically to the operation, condition, age and criticality of the asset(s).
An SLA can include preventive maintenance checks throughout the asset’s lifetime, at appropriate intervals based on how and where the drive is being used. This will allow the vast majority of potential faults to be identified and mitigated, to prevent them from turning into failures, helping you to protect your investment, extend the life of your asset, and reduce downtime.
In the event of a sudden and unexpected failure, an SLA can also include provision for emergency response from the manufacturer or through service partners. Think of this like roadside repair for a car. Hopefully, you’ll never need it, but when the day comes that you do, you’ll be glad it’s there. Moreover, having this covered within an SLA will invariably be less stressful and more cost-effective than having to arrange repairs or replacements at short notice.
Investing in resilience and reliability is never money wasted. Downtime can cost thousands of pounds per hour, and so any proactive action you can take to avoid it, is ultimately money saved. In ABB’s case, its OneCare SLA provides a range of conventional and data-driven services, including technical support, on-site and off-site maintenance, lifecycle assessments, and digital monitoring services, among others, to keep your drive in optimal condition throughout its operational life.
Each agreement is bespoke to the customer, so you only pay for what you need, and spread the cost of maintenance over a longer and more predictable timeframe.
