Managing Critical Power Supply with a Remote Team

Reliable power has been more crucial for running a business this year than ever.  As COVID-19 continues to surge, organizations have shifted the workspace out of the office and into the home or other remote locations.  With this change, a demand for quality power supply to support our remote employees has emerged. Even as we beat back the COVID pandemic, it has forever shifted how organizations look at remote work. Below are some of the questions you should ask as you plan for how to manage your critical power supply in 2021.

What’s Your Power Plan During COVID-19?

Power is important, no matter the industry but, with the shift to remote work, fewer people are onsite, and it can become more difficult to react to a problem quickly should it occur. If you are unable to gain access to your building while a power outage occurs, your business could be more heavily impacted than if a team were on-site and able to detect the problem right when it happens.

Here are three key components to your critical power supply plan:

Maintenance

Preventive Maintenance is a service where regular maintenance and thorough inspections can help reduce downtime for your business. Critical power backup equipment, like a UPS system and generator, should be properly maintained and checked to ensure reliability. A QPS tip for preventative maintenance: take the time to understand how your downtime cost could affect your business if your staff is not on-site and you experience an outage. Knowing your impact cost of a lost power scenario can help an organization to prioritize the maintenance needed to keep your operations running.  

Monitor

As UPS hardware has advanced, so has the network capability of the equipment. Web-enabled SMNP and other Networks cards can provide remote monitoring on most modern UPS systems.  Systems can easily be integrated into your BMS or accessed through your internal network. You can even connect via cellular devices for remote UPS systems or Generators to provide instant feedback on your critical UPS systems or generators. 

Replacement

A typical UPS system has a lifespan of 15 years.  Planning for its replacement should be a priority.  “2021 makes an interesting year for replacements,” according to John Connor, Technical Sales Engineer at Quality Power Solutions. “With the shift of employees working remote, power needs have changed which can lead to over/undersized capacity. As demand for reliability and the office workforce has changed, now is a great time to re-evaluate your current power needs.”

With a more distributed workforce, looking at your power reliability includes much more than just a central office and network. It is also important to look at your remote offices, or even employee homes, to understand their risks and ability to connect during a power event.

How Can QPS Help Your Business? 

After 12 months in a global pandemic, Quality Power Solutions understands that keeping your power on is more important now than ever before. At QPS, we can do that for your operation. 

• We build custom preventative maintenance programs for UPS systems and generators to ensure your business is prepared. Without maintenance of your critical power backup equipment, you risk high cost and downtime for your business. It is not a matter of “if” but “when” a power outage will occur. 
• We are a full-service vendor, providing battery, emergency, maintenance, preventative maintenance, and other services to your business. And no matter the brand, we service it all! 
• We’ll work directly with your staff to understand your business and power needs. This enables us to offer educated UPS and Generator replacement options for those units that are at or near End of Service Life thus ensuring that your business has reliable power.

A Case for Knowing the Technology Needed for Your Critical Power Supply

Recently, a QPS client bought a new UPS system and, before they could get it installed, an outage occurred with their existing UPS system due to it not functioning properly. In need of a quick fix, the QPS team crafted a plan to install a temporary UPS system until the new one could be properly installed.

After working with the customer further, we were able to develop a personalized solution that allowed us to install the new UPS within 2-3 days with minimal electrical work required on their end, and more importantly, no downtime for their business.

We engineered a unique process where our client did not have to plan for any downtime. Knowing the business and knowing the technology within this field is a true benefit of working with Quality Power Solutions. We were able to provide a personal solution to our client and eliminate the need for an outage, keeping their operations online at all times.

—  John Connor

QPS’ Remote Service Plan During the Pandemic

As we uncover this new normal, we, at QPS, want to do more for our customers. We promote being proactive with your critical backup power equipment, so we want to be proactive within our business as well. 

While much is still unknown, we want you to feel secure in knowing that we continue to maintain support and emergency services to our clients and partners, while keeping the safety and health of all employees our top priority. 

In need of UPS services?

Contact QPS today! We’re here to help.