April 13, 2006
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Tip
Grouping Failure Modes is a common mistake that often leads to missed Failure Modes and lost opportunities for improvement. Evidence of Failure Mode grouping is a vibration analysis task that looks to detect the failure mode for “lack of lubrication.”
Reliability Centered Maintenance requires discipline from your facilitators and team members the end result is a maintenance strategy that is designed for what could happen to your equipment. The true value of Reliability Centered Maintenance is only achieved through experience and discipline.
Tip provided by Doug Plucknette
Reliability Solutions
Tel: 585-349-7245
April 13, 2006
Are you prepared for tomorrow’s maintenance world?
Gain a thorough understanding of what it takes to make your plant more reliable – and achieve breakthrough performance. Join the legend, Al Weber, an internationally respected authority on reliability and founding chairman of the SMRP (Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals) for an invaluable educational experience.
Attend Ivara’s 2-day workshops, “Reliability – Preparing for Tomorrow’s Maintenance World” to learn a proven, low risk method of improving asset reliability. Drawing on over 30 years of experience in multiple plants in various industries, Al will provide insight on how you can realistically start improving reliability on one asset when you return to work.
Make a difference in your organization! Next workshops dates: May 9 – 10 in Houston, Texas.
April 13, 2006
Human Error Tip
When writing procedures, using upper and lower case text increases the retention rate. This is because the mind does not read words, it reads patterns that form words. When using all UPPER CASE text, the patterns for each word are rectangular and tend to make all words look the same. This is opposed to upper and lower case text in which each word has a unique shape or pattern. UPPER CASE lettering should be used sparingly to draw the eye to it and indicate highlighted importance or urgency.
Tip provided by the Reliability Center Inc.
Tel: 804-458-0645
Learn More About Human Error Reduction for Supervisors Workshop
April 13, 2006
Motor Testing Tip
Voltage distribution on motor startup
Of electrical failures in motors, the vast majority of problems begin in the winding insulation, not the groundwall insulation. Everyone owns a meg-ohm meter but may not realize its shortcomings. A meg-ohm meter puts an even voltage across motor windings and will basically tell you if the motor is grounded or not. It is extremely limited as a predictive maintenance tool. You can drive a nail through the copper windings and not detect this with a meg-ohm meter unless it interferes with the groundwall insulation. During startup, a motor experiences voltages 3-5 times operating voltage due to contactor bouncing and other reasons for a vfd application. How many times have you witnessed a motor fail on startup? This voltage decays exponentially as it travels through the motor windings, thus causing a voltage difference between copper windings. The highest voltages are near the lead terminal and the ONLY way to duplicate this phenomenon as far as voltage amplitude and rise-time is the surge test. Surge testers output a fraction of the actual current a motor sees during startup. Find arcing problems early on with the surge test weeks or months before it turns into a shorted turn. Once a shorted turn is present, you will have a failed motor before you finish your lunch.
Tip provided by Baker Instrument
Tel: (800) 752-8272
April 06, 2006
The Predictive Maintenance Program of the Year Awards
Are you looking for a way to energize your maintenance team?
Do you want to improve your organizations’ reliability?
Are you interested in a no cost way to get an outside perspective on your Predictive Maintenance programs strengths as well as the opportunities for improvement?
Do you want to generate a Return on Investment (ROI) from your maintenance program?
Enter Uptime Magazine’s PdM Program of the Year Competition to see how your program stacks up to dozens of other winning programs.
Simply applying for the PdM Program of the Year will make you a winner.
April 06, 2006
Maintenance Inventory Tip
The first step to take when re-organizing the maintenance storeroom is to tag and toss.
Go through the storeroom and identify the items that need to be kept, the ones that definitely need to be discarded, and the ones that are questionable. Green, red, and yellow tags respectively can be used to tag the items.
Tip provided by Mike LeCompte
Maintenance Systems Development, LLC
April 06, 2006
CMRP Maintenance and Reliability Professional Exam Goes International
The Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals is pleased to announce the the CMRP Exam will be offered at various international locations such as
* EuroMaintenance in Basel Switzerland on June 22
* WCEAM in Surfer’s Paradise Australia on July 14
Exam dates are also available in Amsterdam, Jakarta, Dubai, Mexico City, Caracas, and Buenos Aires (en Español and English)
Please use the link below to learn more about dates, exam requirements and locations. USA and Canadian exam dates are also listed.
Bonus: International Exam registrants will also get the Exam Study Guide (PDF) at no cost (a US$35 Value) by request.
Learn more about the CMRP Exam
April 06, 2006
Lubrication Tip
It is normal practice to buy lubricating grease in bulk packs to reduce cost. Even for small quantity of grease, these drums have to be opened every time and the risk of contamination is very high.
If grease is bought in small packs apt for single charge will avoid contamination and reduce bearing failures. The price difference between grease in small packs and bulk packing will be paid back by reduction in breakdowns and grease waste.
Remember a minute dust particle in grease can end up in failure of bearings.
Reader tip provided by Terence D’Cruz, Manager - Maintenance, Cochin Spices Private Limited
Thanks Terence - your Maintenance Tips hat is on the way!
April 06, 2006
Motor Testing Tip
Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA) is a powerful tool for viewing the condition both upstream and downstream from the point the test is taken. Voltage Signature Analysis (VSA) provides an FFT and demodulated view upstream, and assists the analyst in identifying the condition of variable frequency drives, control, power supply and other components that impact the motor supply. Current Signature Analysis (CSA) provides an FFT and demodulated view downstream towards the motor and driven equipment, and assists the analyst in identifying the condition of the electrical and mechanical condition of the motor and driven equipment. VSA and CSA test results can be directly compared, in dB, to determine if signatures are being developed by a condition in the motor and driven equipment or conditions within the supply, reducing troubleshooting and evaluation time significantly.
Tip provided by ALL-TEST Pro, LLC
http://www.alltestpro.com
Tel: 860.395.2988
April 06, 2006
Why is my CMMS data so bad?
Are you currently using an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system or Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS)?
Are you having trouble collecting good quality maintenance history on your assets?
If your ability to collect history in your EAM/CMMS is less than adequate please give Practical Reliability Group a call to learn more about improving your maintenance history.
Tel: 540-966-6269
