Old Machinery Maintenance Costs
The cluster discusses the high costs of maintaining aging industrial, scientific, and heavy machinery, including debates on whether to keep running old equipment, replace it, or scrap it despite functionality.
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The equipment is aging and expensive to maintain.
Probably a case of "don't fix it if it ain't broke" keeping old machines in service too long, so now they broke.
It still cost money to operate the machines..
Somebody has to build and maintain the machines.
Given the resources needed to construct, maintain and operate such machines, i wouldn't be so sure
It's sad (but unsurprising) that the machines are being removed for reasons other than safety or effectiveness.
There's a significant amount of heavy machinery made in the late 19th/early 20th century still in use in the US too, although I suspect they're more like the Ship of Theseus now. The cost of replacement (especially for highly specialised machines), and the cost of downtime (lost production), strongly biases the decision towards maintenance rather than replacement.
Pro people keep expensive machines running for a long time before they buy a new one. If one part goes bad, they'll buy a replacement part before they buy a new machine. So the machine has to be easy to service.
Those machines still cost money to make, and run...
You said "for a while"; are they not using these machines anymore?