Resources for preventive maintenance

Minimize Waste with a Smooth Work Flow

2012-08-13T08:55:00-05:00

One of the most common performance metrics is planned vs. unplanned work orders. The benchmark goal has been 90 percent planned (preventive maintenance and other planned activities) and 10 percent unplanned corrective/breakdown maintenance. In reality, with most organizations the ratio is anywhere from 10 to 30 percent planned maintenance to 90 to 70 percent unplanned. This is indicative of operating in a reactive mode, which contributes to waste, reduced equipment life and lost productivity.

A thorough understanding and analysis of a maintenance work process flow makes it easier to identify and eliminate waste. The goal is not only to eliminate waste but to develop an improved work process flow that is more effective and productive. As the flow is thoroughly reviewed and analyzed, the entire process flow becomes visible and wasteful activities such as delays, unnecessary travel and the like are easily identified.

Following are some ways to minimize wasteful activi

Streamline Your Maintenance Operation for Optimum Performance

2012-07-09T08:33:06-05:00

If your backlog is piling up or you feel like you don’t have enough resources in terms of labor and parts, it may be time to work toward lean maintenance.

Lean maintenance is the application of lean philosophies, methods, tools and techniques to maintenance functions. It has the fundamental goals of eliminating waste associated with labor, inventory, procedures and techniques, resulting in improved productivity and reduced costs.

Lean maintenance does not imply a slash and dash approach to cutting costs and jobs. This common method will not reduce waste or lower costs. Instead, lean maintenance philosophy decreases costs by getting rid of waste that can be defined as “anything that doesn’t add value to the maintenance process or service.”

Following are a few areas where wastefulness and sluggishness can crop up in the maintenance department.

Overproduction

Overproduction in the maintenance environment means doing

Prioritizing Maintenance Work Orders

2012-06-22T08:16:03-05:00

One of the challenges that many organizations face is maintaining work order priorities in the wake of the emotional squeaky wheel that yells the loudest. Remember the phrase, “In God we trust. All others bring data”? It applies here as well. Reacting to false priorities exacerbates the reactive spiral that diverts resources from efficient work practices.

At the end of the day, I don’t know of many organizations that are overwhelmed with maintenance resources to do work. Reality is that maintenance activities are all about lessening or mitigating risk or the consequences of failure. The challenge for all involved in determining the potential risk is to estimate the probability of the breakdown occurring within a period of time. To succeed, it is important that maintenance and operations have a proactive partnership where they work together to understand and communicate the risk probability via the work order system.

In order to effectively accomplish th

Expert Tips for Planning a CMMS Project

2012-06-08T08:18:30-05:00

A well-planned and executed computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) project can yield a maximum return on your investment. This return is realized through increased efficiency, productivity and profits. However, a poorly planned and executed CMMS project can result in a loss of revenue. These losses can be measured in terms of the overall investment in the project, as well as from wasted time and lost projected revenue forecast tied to the successful installation and implementation of a CMMS.

Planning

Properly planning the CMMS implementation project is one of the key elements. In the planning phase, you determine the “what,” “why,” “who” and “how.”

Equipment Data

Developing a plan for equipment data is a good first step because it will provide a CMMS with a foundation of hard, verifiable data. Some maintenance departments may already employ an equipment numbering scheme that is effective

Reduce Waste to Improve Reliability

2012-05-29T08:43:57-05:00

It seems as if new weight-loss programs and products come out every week. One of the latest is a plastic wrap you place around your stomach. If you strap it around your stomach, you will sweat and lose weight. Brilliant! Of course, you’ll probably sweat if you wrap anything air-tight around your stomach.

Perhaps the more interesting thought is to wonder why we fall for this stuff over and over when we all know the basic concepts in weight loss, such as:

Less energy intake will reduce fat
More exercise will burn fat
More muscle mass will increase metabolism

If you know and understand these basic principles of weight loss, you can apply them and become very successful in losing weight. You will learn that it takes hard work to improve your metabolism and that it is a long-term lifestyle commitment, not a short-term project. This sounds awfully similar to reliability improvements, doesn’t it? Perhaps that

How to Maintain an Equipment Registry

2012-05-25T09:20:21-05:00

The equipment registry is one of the most important tools in your kit when it comes to maintenance and reliability. It can be the foundation of your planned maintenance, lubrication, training and repair programs, as well as help with regulatory compliance and safety programs.

Your spare parts management program depends upon a complete and accurate registry with the requisite analysis for regular service parts along with the insurance spares identified through failure modes and effects analysis. Don’t forget that your financials are also tied in through depreciation, amortization and cost center assignments.

Equipment history gets tied to the registry along with manuals, drawings, procedures, labor costs and reports. That is why it is the foundation upon which so much is built, and that is why it is so vital that you get it right and work to maintain its accuracy.

While it has an initial cost and a maintenance cost, the payback can be significant and cont

Employ Smart Redundancy for Reliability

2012-05-21T08:39:51-05:00

Nuclear submarines are high-reliability designs that have redundancy built into them. Many of these systems are split into two halves (port and starboard), and each system has two pumps (a total of four). Each side could run fully on one pump. Then the two halves are cross-connected, so the entire system could run at partial capacity on a single pump.

All of this redundancy comes at a cost — about $1 billion in this particular case. Naturally, one of the comments I hear when describing these systems is that we could never afford such redundancy in our profit-making companies. I challenge that there is a place for what I call “smart redundancy.”

Smart redundancy has to do with taking a critical look at your systems, looking at risks and searching for opportunities where a little redundancy may pay big dividends. Utility and packaging systems are ripe for this kind of review.

One utility case in point is a fresh-water supply I inherited. After

Saving Time and Money with Condition Monitoring

2012-05-18T09:19:28-05:00

A recent acoustic emission (AE) study identified a potential critical bearing failure that became a planned preventive action for a leading food manufacturer. This also avoided considerable cost and unplanned downtime.

The acoustic emission equipment and the main tool used during the planned inspection routes were manufactured by Holroyd Instruments. This example will show the value of this type of equipment in avoiding a major unplanned event that could have had massive cost consequences for the business. Collateral damage to the associated equipment would have proved very costly, and the lead time to rebuild could have caused extensive downtime that would have meant disgruntled customers not being able to rely on stock availability.

The story began in April 2010 when some initial elevated readings were noted at two node points on a large step-down transfer gearbox that were sampled on a seven-day routine. The distress readings were elevated and triggered the alarm leve

The Value of Autonomous Operator Maintenance

2012-04-25T09:13:58-05:00

What does autonomous operator maintenance mean? The “autonomous” means “me alone performing the maintenance tasks for which I am trained and qualified.” Is it something new? To those of us who knew cars before electronic ignition and computers, owning a car fostered a do-it-myself approach toward keeping it running. I always pumped my own gas, changed my oil and filters, and sometimes changed my belts. I could check the levels of fluids, read gauges and listen to the running engine for anomalies. Technology has given me diagnostic tools to at least identify engine problems. Prior to the industrial age, the operator set up, ran and maintained the equipment. The industrial revolution introduced specialists, and we redesigned the operator out of maintenance and planning.

You say those are not operator duties? Why not? There are too many answers to that, which when really analyzed, cannot be supported. I cannot defend the indefensible. Rather than look at the &l

Best Practices for Maintenance Supervisors

2012-04-09T09:30:17-05:00

I had the privilege of visiting a large pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina several years ago. It was in response to a presentation I had made on just what should supervisors be doing. My organization was undergoing a work sampling on our 2,800 maintenance supervisors to help us get a handle on what they were actually doing.

Most managers felt that we had burdened the supervisor with too much administrative work and, as a result, kept them from being on the floor interfacing with operations, providing assistance to the craftsperson and evaluating reliability performance. I wondered if our supervisors comprehended the need for face time and what that meant. I personally needed to get a handle on what I was to define as “face time.”

We were introduced to the plant’s maintenance management team and the dayshift maintenance coach. He had a team of 18 facilities craft persons who maintained the building and environmental equipment for a million-square-foo

Signs You are in the Real World of Maintenance

2012-04-02T08:59:42-05:00

Anyone who has ever done plant maintenance improvement work is inevitably accused at times of just not knowing what it’s like in the “real world” of maintenance. So, here are some of the things I remember from that “real world” of maintenance.

You can’t ever get on the paging system because it is always tied up with people paging for maintenance help.
Maintenance personnel have to carry more than one beeper because one is always busy.
Maintenance personnel really need to work on their responsiveness because they have trouble responding to more than one page at a time.
Maintenance personnel are constantly driving by in really fast yellow carts with bright flashing lights and sirens. (Some are actually dressed in blue tights with red capes.)
Everyone really supports the planning and scheduling of maintenance work, as long as they can get a one-day turnaround on their work orders.

Use Checklists for a More Efficient Plant

2012-03-26T08:52:15-05:00

Over the years, I have spent much time in discussion over the use of checklists for equipment changeovers and startups in plants. I have explained, reasoned, rationalized, cajoled, appealed, beseeched, entreated, implored, pleaded, urged and even cried real tears in my efforts to get people to use checklists.

So it was great to see a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found (amazingly) that hospitals using checklists in their operating room procedures suffer a much lower death rate than those that don’t.

I was glad to see the study, but my very first reaction on reading it was outrage, along the lines of “Operating rooms don’t routinely use checklists? What?” Hopefully, the study will ratchet up awareness and perhaps drive some improvement.

But experience has absolutely convinced me that there is something in the human psyche that fights back desperately against using checklists.

“We need

Improve Performance with Automated Welding

2012-03-14T14:35:42-05:00

When you invest in automation, the goal is to gain productivity and quality improvements that set your welding operation apart from the competition and help increase your bottom line. To achieve success with an automated welding system, however, you need to ensure that the parts you are welding are consistent and repeatable, to confirm that your welding operation has good workflow and to have properly trained welding operators to oversee the system. You also need the right equipment for the job.

In addition to working with a reliable robotic integrator to select and implement the robot, you should also take care to select the right robotic MIG gun and consumables — contact tips, nozzles, liners and retaining heads — for the application. The consumables, in particular, are an easily over

3 Ways to Achieve Successful Reliability

2012-03-07T08:10:25-06:00

Reliability is important to every manufacturing operation. Successful reliability requires communication, cooperation and coordination. To learn the importance of these three Cs, let’s examine how your organization is structured and how it operates.

How much does unscheduled downtime cost and where does the responsibility for that unscheduled downtime lie? Is the unscheduled downtime because someone unilaterally decided to run to failure, or is it because the work request was in the “system” but not responded to in a timely fashion to preclude the unscheduled downtime caused by an unscheduled failure?

Does a competent operator know when there is an anomaly with the equipment? Since a good operator is a living, breathing data-acquisition machine, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” In the state of normal operation, good operators are cognizant of anomalies in the equipment they operate approximately one-fourth of the week.

A follow-u

Get More Maintenance Work Done with Proper Planning

2012-01-30T11:43:23-06:00

Famous financier Bernard Baruch was often quoted as saying, “Two and two still and always will equal four.” This, some would say, quaint concept has fallen out of favor more and more in recent years, as clearly the restrictiveness of basic arithmetic is not something that should continue to bind us in today’s brave new world.

It’s much more useful if two and two can equal:

Whatever analysts are expecting it to be (or better).
Whatever your boss wants it to be.
Whatever will make this current project justifiable.

Keeping this in mind, some odd-looking math that actually works in plant maintenance is the rule that:
“10 minus 1 equals 16.5.”

This rule is a huge help with another rule that is always pretty much true:
“In most plants, there are never enough maintenance people.”

If I have 10 maintenance mechanics and

Share the Responsibility for PM Attainment

2012-01-23T08:28:43-06:00

Preventive maintenance (PM) is a cornerstone of reliability-based maintenance. It’s no surprise then that PM attainment has become a key performance indicator (KPI). However, it may surprise you that in many organizations, maintenance is not primarily responsible for this KPI.

Maintenance always has an important role, of course. It must create the PM program. It must generate, schedule and plan PMs. It also must have staff with enough skill to accomplish the PM. If maintenance is missing any of these things, it has a lot of work to do. But if PM attainment is already one of your current KPIs, these steps are probably already being done.

Yet if those planned PMs are not being accomplished, there is another likely reason besides maintenance capability. The most common reason for scheduled PMs not being accomplished is a change in the production schedule removing access to equipment and lines that were scheduled for work.

This doesn’t absolve maintena

How to Achieve Effective Maintenance Planning

2011-12-27T09:21:25-06:00

As Sisyphus well knew, pushing things up mountains is difficult, and the uphill struggle from the reactive to the proactive maintenance world is often a frustrating “three steps forward, two steps back” process. That’s a major reason why so many slide back into the familiar, ugly, day-to-day, survival morass at the bottom.

One of those steps on the way up is where preventive maintenance inspections are getting done, we’re finding things that need to be fixed and we’re fixing them. However, we’re still not getting that much better. We’re constantly fixing the same things over and over.

The famous quote, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” remains as true as always.

Granted, the “find it, fix it and move on” mode is a big step up from the “fix it when it breaks” mode, but it doesn’t look or feel like great improvement, so many get discouraged and tend to look for

How to Keep Maintenance in a Proactive Mode

2011-10-31T08:38:36-05:00

I stumbled across some music trivia lately, that the old rock band Chicago finally had its album “Stone of Sisyphus” released a few years ago. One of the more famous “lost” albums, it was originally recorded in the early 1990s but had languished for years, available only in illegal bootleg copies.

That reminded me of when I used to use the story of Sisyphus in maintenance training sessions.

I never encountered a great number of serious Greek mythology students in those sessions, but was always amazed how mythology suddenly grasped attendees’ attention when I started telling about Sisyphus showing up in an episode of the TV series “Xena: Warrior Princess.” A statuesque, obviously very strong gal who always wore a brief, Roman-style leather outfit, Xena

How to Set Frequencies for PM Inspections

2011-10-03T09:10:04-05:00

For those of you who want to indulge in the details of setting preventive maintenance (PM) inspections, let’s begin with defining what I mean by inspections. Inspections include all objective inspections (we measure something) using an instrument – for example, a vibration analyzer, an infrared camera, a volt meter, a flow meter or ultrasonic equipment. Inspections also include all subjective inspections (look-listen-feel-smell). In order to set inspection frequencies, we need to understand what a failure-developing period is.

The failure-developing period (FDP), also called the Pf Curve by some, is the time period from when it is possible to detect a failure until we have a breakdown. A failure is when a system or piece of equipment is operating correctly within given parameters, but it shows signs of problems. For example, a centrifugal pump may be cavitating, but it is still providing the required flow for the operation. We have a failure but not a breakdown. The cav

Quick Guide to PM Development and Execution

2011-09-19T09:18:41-05:00

In many organizations, groups are often trying to chase the latest buzzwords of the day and yet have never established the foundation required to support those efforts. PM development and execution are classic examples. For this discussion, when I refer to PMs, I am talking about both preventive maintenance and condition-based maintenance tasks. This is by no means an exhaustive explanation of all of the considerations necessary for a comprehensive PM program. It is intended as a rough guide to foster continued discussion into the topic.

Stop doing non-value added PMs or task steps within the PM. We can never seem to find time to update or correct the PM tasks or frequencies but can always find time to continue doing the wrong work (go figure! ).
Assuming that you already have a PM program in place, start with the equipment where you are bleeding or hemorrhaging the most. This is often not your most critical assets.
Identify the failu

Let Risk and Your Equipment Determine Your Maintenance Strategy

2011-08-11T14:38:02-05:00

When I attend conferences and workshops and read articles on maintenance and reliability, more and more I hear people touting that preventive maintenance is more costly and not the right approach. When we talk about preventive maintenance, we are primarily talking about time-based inspections, but it can include overhauls/rebuilds as well. But before we take statements like these as the gospel and apply them carte blanche to all of our equipment, we need to understand the basis for that reasoning and when to apply it.

From the Reliability-Centered Maintenance side, we know that we can’t apply the single bathtub curve to all equipment failures. We recognize that six separate failure curves exist, and greater than 80 percent of all failures occur outside the infant mortality or end-of-life wear-out zones, meaning the failures are totally random in nature. No doubt that condition-based monitoring using various tools like vibration or temperature monitoring is better and a less c

What Plants Have Failed to Learn in 25 Years

2011-08-04T16:54:44-05:00

Twenty-five years ago, I left the U.S. Navy nuclear submarine program.

As I gained experience in civilian industry, I began to appreciate the Navy’s aplomb for reliable engineering, exceptional training and consistent operations. Their penchant for comprehensive preventive maintenance programs also impressed me.

What I found in industry 25 years ago was quite different.

There was almost no redundancy in design; the failure of a single small pump could shut down an entire plant. Sanitary systems had been modified over time, introducing unsanitary attributes. Many components were chosen solely on initial cost, not reliability or life cycle cost.
Operator training was limited to “hit the green button in the morning, the red button at night, and call mainte

Monitoring the Performance of Your Asset Management System

2011-08-03T15:13:38-05:00

All reliability-centered continuous improvement programs must include both a process that effectively assesses the condition of the plant’s capital assets and a monitoring process. The British Standard Institution’s Publically Available Specification (PAS-55) states, “The organization shall establish, implement and maintain process(es) and/or procedure(s) to monitor and measure the performance of the asset management system and the performance and/or condition of assets and/or asset systems.”

The specification indicates your Asset Management System (AMS) must address both reactive and proactive monitoring.

Reactive Monitoring

A reactive monitoring process identifies past or existing nonconformities in the asset management system as well as any asset-related deterioration, failures or incidents. This sounds straightforward, but how do you cost effectively monitor or measure nonconformities in either t

An Effective PM Program Requires a Solid Foundation

2011-08-01T14:43:58-05:00

From previous surveys and depending on the audience responding, either everyone (upward of 90 percent) or a minority (less than 40 percent) has an effective preventive maintenance (PM) program. With the range so broad, let’s dig a little deeper to determine what it takes to have an effective PM program. For the purposes of this article, I also am including condition-based monitoring activities such as inspection.

What is the strategic and business case for your PM activities? Why are you doing the PM activities, and how did you come to choose those activities? Did you just pull them from the equipment manual? What value is the program providing you? No, I’m not talking about the “perceived” value. What is the measured value that you can prove to your partners? If they stop operating the equipment to give you a window to do PM activities (condition-based inspections and so forth, not necessarily component replacement activities), what do they get in return?

ALS Tribology opens new facility

2011-04-07T14:35:07-05:00

Mobile lubrication system now available

2011-04-07T08:35:03-05:00

Universal Lubricants set to recycle used oil for Colorado company

2011-04-06T16:59:01-05:00

Is there life after the death of predictive maintenance?

2011-03-04T11:15:25-06:00

It is sad how quickly a good predictive maintenance program dies, even though the program has gotten a manager promoted, convinced you and others that there is a lot of value in doing PdM to improve maintenance practices, saved money and gained credibility.

The demise of a good program is usually due to the loss of the program champion. He was promoted because he saved tons of money and improved his maintenance practices – just overall improved the company’s bottom line. With a new department manager, the program fundamentally has started from the beginning. The new leader may not have any experience in the PdM world and cannot identify the need for continuing the process; he just sees costs for new equipment, training, equipment calibration, equipment upgrades, etc. In today’s world, with such a severe downturn, this is even more prevalent. Cutting costs for everything is the rule – it’s a shortsighted rule, but it’s one that we live by today an

Notes on non-invasive inspections and properly written work orders

2011-03-04T10:56:10-06:00

There are standard operating procedures (SOP), preventive maintenance (PM) procedures, and predictive maintenance (PdM) procedures in which both maintenance and operations engage. The most basic is condition monitoring, or operator care, and involves both groups. The equipment owners/ maintainers (both maintenance and operations) clean to inspect, inspect to detect issues, and on detection, correct those issues. Consider that condition monitoring/operator care should be a daily procedure (SOP) from the standpoint of listening, feeling and smelling the equipment operating.

The primary distinction for PM procedures over SOPs is that they are time-based and occur on a given frequency. Some PMs are invasive, but we want to use other PMs as non-invasive inspection tools along with operator care to feed our computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) with work orders that allow us to properly plan, schedule and execute corrective invasive actions when the right parts/materials ar

Equipment ownership for maintenance technicians

2011-01-17T16:10:05-06:00

As a maintenance technician, do you believe having responsibility for specific equipment is the best way to perform your job? By responsibility, you are the only one that conducts preventive maintenance tasks and major repair work on that specific equipment. Do you believe it’s the right answer for the organization? As a maintenance manager, is this approach to equipment ownership the right answer for you or your stakeholder partners like operations? This facet of maintenance is traditionally a struggle for many organizations.

When troubleshooting equipment, first impressions are important

2010-12-16T09:17:27-06:00

When troubleshooting a machinery problem, whether for an unusual vibration problem or a component failure such as a bearing or seal, first impressions from the initial machinery inspection are very important. Any troubleshooting exercise should begin with a thorough investigation of machine history - process, design, operation, maintenance, and all available machine details. These first impressions are necessary to make sure the troubleshooting team is fully armed with important data and minimize the chances of a misdiagnosis.

Strategies to optimize shutdowns, turnarounds and outages

2010-12-06T10:21:00-06:00

Poorly executed STOs can cost an organization millions of dollars in lost revenue, drive up operating costs and cause permanent damage to the careers of those involved. This has long been true but is now amplified in the current operational environment, in which most organizations are operating with reduced workforces and resources. Simply put: In today’s business environment, STOs represent not only an increasingly significant challenge, but also an increasingly significant opportunity. Read this article and learn how to maximize your next STO.

Overview of a condition-based monitoring system

2010-10-26T08:23:42-05:00

This video provides an overview of the Infor Hansen CBM (condition-based monitoring) solution.

In today's global recession, you have to do more with less than ever before. Every dollar counts, every minute matters. Infor Hansen CBM connects your operational technology (automation devices and alarms) with information technology (Infor Hansen Asset Management System).

Infor Hansen CBM includes a "Virtual Employee" with every copy. His responsibility is to monitor your organization's equipment 24/7/365 and listen for any anomalies or early warning of problems, capture run-time hours and cycle counts, manage preventive maintenance intervals and predict equipment failures before they happen.

Prolonged bearing life through effective grease lubrication

2010-10-21T16:55:55-05:00

Grease lubrication knowledge is vital for a bearing company. SKF is putting its knowledge of this area into creating new products and services that contribute to sustainability, energy efficiency and extended bearing life.

Prolonged bearing life through effective grease lubrication

2010-10-21T14:03:22-05:00

You know you are in reactive maintenance if ...

2010-10-07T09:11:27-05:00

Have you ever wondered if your company is in reactive maintenance? Ricky Smith gives you some clues to determine whether you are there or not.

PM and oil analysis uncover gearbox issue on wind turbine

2010-09-24T06:52:16-05:00

A preventive maintenance check and subsequent oil analysis uncovered a gearbox issue on a wind turbine. The oil sample discovered metal contaminant.

Mobile assets create a special management challenge

2010-09-20T14:10:45-05:00

Asset management has taken on a new luster at many organizations today — and for good reason. As the economic outlook continues to be unclear, it's more important than ever for assets to deliver optimum business value — across the complete infrastructure and at every stage in their life cycles.

Preventive maintenance on a bulldozer

2010-09-10T06:59:01-05:00

This video from the Utah Department of Transportation details the preventive maintenance process for bulldozers. This video begins with a detailed daily operator's check of the bulldozer, showing oil checks, lubrication and adjustment of the track tension. Startup and shutdown procedures are also demonstrated.

Why are PM inspections not always effective?

2010-09-07T16:06:12-05:00

Preventive maintenance is not a maintenance-only effort. Preventive maintenance is not an operations-only effort. There is a tremendous amount of communication, cooperation and coordination required by both parties to ensure PMs are effective.

Shell mechanical team supervisor comments on compressor reliability at his facility

2010-09-07T13:11:07-05:00

Doug Husen, mechanical team supervisor at Shell, talks with SkillTV's Joel Leonard about compressor reliability at his facility. The interview took place at Noria Corporation's RELIABLE PLANT 2010 conference in Nashville, Tenn.

Learn machinery lubrication best practices at RELIABLE PLANT 2010

2010-08-17T08:07:43-05:00

Take home best practices from these lubrication case studies, which will be featured at Noria Corporation's RELIABLE PLANT 2010 conference and exhibition. The event will be held August 31-September 2 in Nashville, Tenn.

That's amore! Italian power plant loves new filter strategy

2010-08-16T20:08:06-05:00

Remote monitoring solution enables Centro Energia Teverola S.p.a. facility to improve its machinery efficiency, plant efficiency and predictive maintenance.

CRC offers guide to prepare your plant for hurricane season

2010-08-11T11:23:04-05:00

It’s hurricane season again. Time for devastating rains and flooding, causing billions of dollars of property damage every year. CRC would like to help you put a fast and inexpensive plan in place to recover your water damaged electrical and electronic equipment. This procedure, also available on the company’s Web site www.crcindustries.com/ei, can be used any time equipment is water damaged (floods, broken pipes and fire-related water damage).

How to prevent costly downtime from power outages at petrochemical plants

2010-08-09T15:39:31-05:00

Unplanned downtime at petrochemical plants due to electric power failure is more common and costly than the total of fires, floods, earthquakes, network outages, service failures and hardware problems combined. Recent economic studies estimate the cost of downtime to the U.S. economy due to power outages exceeds $150 billion annually.

Print out your pass for the RELIABLE PLANT 2010 conference

2010-08-06T08:42:07-05:00

Here's your printable pass for the Reliable Plant 2010 Conferences and Exhibition, in Nashville, Tenn., August 31 to September 2.

Get your Noria training coupon with RELIABLE PLANT conference registration!

2010-07-21T10:51:14-05:00

What do your PM tasks really do for your asset care strategy?

2010-07-01T11:22:32-05:00

Most preventive maintenance tasks lack the detail that will provide quantitative data for equipment history, and they are written without considering failure modes. The solution is to practice Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO), using all aspects to write preventive maintenance procedure that are value added, comprehensive, repeatable, organized, and specify a correct duration and interval of execution.

Increase uptime with proper belt maintenance

2010-06-18T11:37:13-05:00

An effective preventive maintenance program keeps your facility running safely and at optimum capacity. Properly maintained belt drives can be your most cost-effective and reliable power transmission solution.

Ludeca debuts blog on predictive, preventive maintenance technologies

2010-05-06T10:32:55-05:00

Ludeca Inc., a leading provider of laser alignment and condition monitoring solutions, has launched a blog for maintenance and reliability professionals dedicated to helping companies learn and understand predictive and preventive maintenance technologies such as laser alignment, vibration analysis and balancing. The main purpose of the blog (www.ludeca.com/blog) will be to guide companies on how to effectively integrate predictive maintenance into their maintenance and asset management strategies.

10 steps to prepare your company for the return of business

2010-04-13T10:36:10-05:00

The 10 steps outlined in this article offer a cohesive approach to cost-effectively prepare your company’s physical assets and mitigate the risk associated with higher levels of demand for the return of business.

Get your hands on these books from the Noria Bookstore

2010-03-23T11:52:40-05:00

Bearing repair, PdM program address downtime at Gallatin Steel

2010-03-03T13:31:23-06:00

When your rolling mill equipment has an emergency, calling a vendor is like calling the paramedics. Timken recently helped bring Gallatin Steel's plant in Ghent, Ky., back to life after a period of downtime. The Gallatin site avoided further costly downtime in its rolling mill operations as the result of an emergency bearing repair and the installation of a predictive maintenance program.

Five steps to setting up an effective preventive maintenance program

2010-03-01T14:44:45-06:00

Whether you want to start a new one or upgrade an existing preventative maintenance program, these five steps will help maximize machine profits and make machine maintenance more cost effective. Proper maintenance is a must if you want to get the most out of your equipment and avoid unnecessary downtime.

PdMA, Snell offer motor circuit analysis certification course

2010-03-01T10:16:10-06:00

PdMA is proud to join with The Snell Group in presenting the motor circuit analysis certification training course. The Snell Group is the world leader in MCA training, consulting and inspection services.

What's the role of the reliability engineer?

2010-02-26T13:54:28-06:00

The primary role of the reliability engineer is to identify and manage asset reliability risks that could adversely affect plant or business operations. This broad primary role can be divided into three smaller, more manageable roles: loss elimination, risk management and life cycle asset management.

A checklist for alignment and soft foot

2010-02-24T11:53:18-06:00

Several points should be checked prior to laser alignment in order to avoid problems later and to achieve good results.

Preventive maintenance vs. predictive maintenance

2010-02-20T11:27:24-06:00

For some time, a considerable amount of confusion has existed over the appropriate way to inspect for the presence of a given failure mode. Should I perform some type of sensory inspection? Should I perform some type of quantitative inspection? Should I apply one or more condition-monitoring technologies? Should I apply some combination of these techniques to maximize the conditional probability of finding the defect? Essentially, how do I identify the presence of a defect in such a way as to maximize the amount of time my planning department has to effectively and efficiently develop the job procedures, order the parts, and schedule and complete the work before the conditional probability of failure becomes too high? An explanation of the types of inspections and how they complement one another goes a long way toward clarifying which ones are most appropriate.

Sensory inspections have long been considered the backbone of any good inspection program. It was believed that sending so

BP links with universities to research engineering materials and corrosion

2010-02-18T09:12:12-06:00

BP has selected the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Manchester as its academic research partners to further investigate materials and corrosion science and technology. This long-term research relationship aims to enhance BP’s operational integrity and reliability in its exploration and production business.

Tips to predict bearing failures, measure lube film thickness

2010-01-27T14:00:29-06:00

Monitoring electric motor bearing condition is paramount to insure reliability. Electric motors are an asset that must be managed, and prolonging their life will insure more contribution to the bottom-line profit. Preventing collateral damage caused by electric motor bearing failure is true cost avoidance.

How does a PM program help eliminate component failures?

2009-07-07T00:00:00-05:00

In answering the question posed in the headline, we must first define what PM stands for. According to Life Cycle Engineering’s Rx Definitions, this could have one of many meanings. It could refer to periodic maintenance, planned maintenance, predictive maintenance (although normally abbreviated as PdM) and preventive maintenance. Despite the definition of each and how they differ, they all relate to asset care. A properly cared-for asset will net much higher utilization at a much lower total cost of ownership. This is accomplished by establishing a program that mitigates or eliminates failure.

Periodic maintenance is the cyclical maintenance actions or component replacements carried out at known regular intervals. Usually intrusive, they are often based on repair history and regulated by current inspection results. Periodic maintenance includes inspecting, testing, partial dismantling, replacing consuma

Making preventive maintenance really work for you

2008-09-08T00:00:00-05:00

Is an inspector actually doing the inspection on the task list? That’s one of the toughest maintenance problems to solve. Horror stories about maintenance catastrophes often feature task lists that were signed but not performed.
Step one is to pick the right people. “A successful preventive maintenance (PM) program is staffed with sufficient numbers of people whose analytical abilities far exceed those of the typical maintenance mechanic,” writes August Kallmeyer in the book “Maintenance Management”.

Why pick high-level people? Because they can detect potentially damaging conditions before those conditions arise. Your best tear-down mechanic is not necessarily your best PM inspector.

A great PM inspector can work alone without close supervision, is interested and trained in new advanced predictive maintenance technology, knows how to review a unit history and its class history, is proactive – acts on predictions rather than reacts to situations – detects deficiencies early,

Who should decide the right frequency for preventive maintenance tasks?

2008-07-07T16:00:38-05:00

Routine, time-based preventive maintenance is a fact of life for production-critical equipment. But, who should decide how often these tasks are performed? Should it be the maintenance team (led by the maintenance manager) or the production manager and the operations group? While the question may seem odd (maintenance people should decide when its work gets done, right?), many plants allow production to define maintenance scheduling by default.

Let me explain. In many plants, production occurs 24/7, 52 weeks a year, perhaps with the exception of a one- or two-week maintenance shutdown. Under these circumstances, careful planning needs to occur so the backlog of maintenance tasks that can't be done with machines running can be completed in the allocated outage period. But when it comes to lubrication, many tasks simply can't wait a year (or longer) between intervals. Take, for example, regreasing bearings. With the exception of small and/or low-speed element bearings, logic

Infrared part of effective PM strategy at Weyerhaeuser

2007-10-24T00:00:00-05:00

If you can use a digital camera, you can learn to operate the Fluke Ti30 thermal imager. While the images from the Ti30 may not make it into the family photo album, they could very well save your business thousands of dollars when integrated into your overall preventive maintenance strategy. Just ask Dave Feniak at the Drayton Valley, Alberta, location of Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the world’s largest integrated forest products companies.

Feniak, the sawmill’s electrical maintenance supervisor, purchased the imager and, after some basic training on its use, went into the plant and found a problem – a big problem.

“We have been doing IR (infrared) scans routinely on a six- to nine-month basis since 1992 or so, and we usually find very few problems. I was looking at bearings in the planer mill and noticed a very hot spot in the far distance,” Feniak said.

The Ti30 has a built-in laser pointer, and once Feniak turned it on he found that heat was being generated about 15

Don't overlook subjective inspections

2006-11-03T00:00:00-05:00

This article series explores sample business processes that need to be implemented in order to improve overall plant reliability. In parts one and two, equipment life-extending activities were detailed. This article will touch on elements of condition monitoring.

Condition monitoring (CM) is not a life-extending activity. Life-extending activities are things such as lubrication, alignment, balancing and operating procedures. It's very important to keep this very basic fact clear in all communications within your plant; otherwise, too little importance may be placed on the planning and scheduling of corrective work orders originated in CM.

CM only provides information on failures before there is a breakdown. You can do it with inspection tools - vibration monitors, infrared temperature guns, pressure gauges, volt meters and others. You can also execute CM subjectively by looking, listening, feeling and smelling (let's avoid tasting, shall we?).

This article is dedicated

Energizer goes with the flow

2006-07-13T00:00:00-05:00

Global lean enterprise director
Steve Hockridge (left) and lean coordinator
Dana Billings have seen the benefits of
bringing together lean and reliability.

There are three types of manufacturing companies that implement lean:

Those that do it in name only to satisfy or attract investors. Lean is confined to buzzword status in annual reports and ads.
Those that do it on the surface. They construct a few U-shaped cells, paint the walls and throw out some clutter, then exclaim, “That’s it; we’re lean.” Lean is a “home improvement” project for the plant.
Those that do it right.

Just the Facts

Constructing an Effective Maintenance Plan

2005-10-26T00:00:00-05:00

Learn what makes the difference between an ordinary maintenance plan and a good, effective maintenance program.

What constitutes world-class maintenance and reliability?

2005-09-02T00:00:00-05:00

I have received many calls asking, "How can you tell if you are a world-class maintenance and reliability organization, or not?"

How well the systems and practices discussed in this column are being used indicate to me how far a plant has to go to become world class in the areas of maintenance and reliability. I would suggest reading this column with a group of operations and maintenance employees that includes both management and craftspeople.

On a scale of zero to 10, rate your plant's use of the following systems and practic