How dust harms manufacturing and productivity

Airborne particles in the workplaces are hazardous to human health and dusty environments are fundamentally unsafe. However, even beyond the potential for personal injury, dust can be a costly production issue if unaddressed. In this article you will learn more about how dust harms manufacturing and productivity.

Dust can be a costly production issue

By definition, dust particles are small, and they can find their way into the smallest of spaces. And if significant amounts of dust settle on internal components, the performance of any machinery will suffer. In dusty environments, there’s potential for clogged vent-holes and cooling systems. And this will lead to overheating and downtime. Furthermore dust can also contaminate lubricants and increase friction, causing parts to wear out more quickly.

Dust can cause inaccuracies of your product

If your work involves high-precision operations, like laser-cutting or micro-machining, then dust can be especially troublesome. By affecting alignment, calibration and fine measurement, dust can cause inaccuracies that can undermine your product. Any manufacturing operation that deals with tight tolerances needs to have a firm grip on the amount of dust on the shop floor.

Dust can also have a more direct impact on your final product, by finding its way into the goods you manufacture. Contamination of this sort can result in defective products, customer returns, and even regulatory or compliance problems – potentially serious blows to both your finances and your reputation.

Risk of explosions

The final and most dramatic way that dust can impact on production is via an explosion. Any combustible material will burn quicker when divided into fine particles, and when suspended in the air the explosive potential is often greater. Factories now take better precautionary measures, so the frequency of dust explosions has slowed down over time. However, even in the last decade, dusts of various types have been identified as likely causes of fatal explosions in the USA, China, the UK  and Singapore. It goes without saying that dust explosions can be catastrophic, and it underlines the absolute necessity of controlling airborne particles in manufacturing environments.