Over 60% of Root Cause Analysis program implementations fail to create the benefits that were envisioned at the beginning of the program.

Reliability Magazine is hosting a special two day interactive event designed to identify the areas that are preventing your Root Cause Analysis program from living up to its potential - and to discover solutions you can return to work with for immediate results.

This is not ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS TRAINING - it is a “community of practice” where problems are identified and solutions are proposed in a non-commercial environment.

It is a Root Cause Analysis of your Root Cause Analysis program.

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Reliabilityweb.com (http://www.reliabilityweb.com) announced the addition of the new SAP Plant Maintenance (SAP PM) Learning Zone as part of EAM-2007 - The Enterprise Asset Management Summit to be held April 3-6, 2007 at the Sheraton Waikiki in Honolulu Hawaii.

“Over 20% of our members are SAP Plant Maintenance users so it just made sense to create a specialized learning track for them,” states publisher and conference organizer, Terrence O’Hanlon, CMRP. “As far as we can see - there is no other independent learning platform related to SAP Plant Maintenance. Our members are hungry to share ‘best practices’ with other maintenance and reliability professionals and EAM-2007 is the perfect venue.”

Learn more about EAM-2007 - The Enterprise Asset Management Summit

Now you can receive infrared training wherever and whenever it’s convenient for you.

Infraspection Institutes broad range of Distance Learning Courses includes Certification Prep, Applications, and Industry-Specific courses. All courses are taught by expert Level 3 instructors utilizing dynamic, multi-media resources.

Become an Infraspection Institute Certified Infrared Thermographer. Complete 32 hours of Distance Learning and take your certification exam at one of our convenient locations.

Use this link for more info

ELECTRICAL CONTROL PANELS TIP(S):
(Loose Neutrals and Removing ECP Covers)

A few articles have recently been published about the need to take off the covers in order to effectively shoot control panels for potential hot spots. At Johns Manville, McPherson we took this advice to heart and began implementing ECP’s into our infrared program. It wasn’t long before we got our first payback and avoided some serious downtime.

It started, innocently enough, when we found a hot spot surrounding a GFCI receptacle that was under no load. We replaced the damaged receptacle and expected the hot spot to go away. When we shot the new receptacle we found our hot spot immediately returned. We investigated further and traced our GFCI circuit back to the Electrical Control Panel that fed it.

What we found surprised us!

We removed the Electrical Control Panel cover and shot the contents with our infrared camera. It was then our camera found the source of our GFCI receptacle problem. The main neutral feeder to the ECP was glowing red! We ended up shutting the panel down, locking it out, and replacing the neutral wire (which we found had only 3 tiny copper strands still under the lug). The entire load of the panel was just over 8 amps.

The point of this story is that although we weren’t out there shooting Electrical Control Panels when we stumbled on this, it made us awfully glad that we had started shooting them.

So, the Infrared tip is (actually there are two tips):

(1) Don’t forget the neutrals.
Loose neutrals can be a source for (serious) hot spots.

(2)Take the advice of articles that tell you to shoot ECP’s and remove their covers when doing so.

Most hot spots will escape you if you don’t take the covers off. It doesn’t take many amps to create a serious problem. In our case, it only took 8 amps on the neutral of a 120 volt circuit.

Reader tip provided by Nick Bohonik, Reliability and Thermographer Level 1, Johns Manville, McPherson, Kansas - Winners of the Uptime Magazine PdM Program of the Year Award for Best Infrared Program

Thanks Nick and congratulations again on the PdM Award! Your Maintenance-Tips hat is on the way.

More Infrared Resources and Links

Balancing of overhung-type fan impellers

I have found that it is possible to do single plane balancing of even reasonably broad overhung-type fan impellers (where the width of the impeller approaches 25% of the impeller diameter, which would indicate the need for two plane balancing).

This is very useful for balancing of large fans driven by MV or HV motors which have strict limitations on the number of starts permitted per hour by eliminating a second trial run, as well as having to wait during more long rundown times. However, a couple of rules need to be adhered to to ensure success :

1) Phase analysis must indicate that the impeller can be balanced in one plane - i.e. phase difference between drive end and non-drive end bearings 1xRPM must be <=30º (despite certain training manuals stating that these readings must be done in the axial direction for overhung impellers, I have found that it is best to do these measurements as well as the balancing measurements in the horizontal direction). Also, the 1xRPM levels on both bearings must be less in the axial and/or vertical direction than in the horizontal direction (higher readings in one of the former two planes indicate either excessive impeller runout for high axial measurements or base looseness/weakness for high vertical measurements).

2) All weights (both trial and correction) must be attached on the backing plate of the impeller. Attaching the weights on the intake side of a single intake impeller will create a couple and thus vibration levels will not be reduced as effectively.

Reader tip provided by Brian Plowes, Hillside Aluminium, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Thank you Brian - your Maintenance Tips hat is on the way!

More balancing resources and links

LORD Corporation – a leader in the management of motion, vibration and noise – has announced the availability of a customized 3D demonstration of its proven active balancing systems. Designed to showcase and visually depict LORD Corporation’s proprietary technology, the demonstration provides an overview of the active balancing process. The animation runs through a typical balance cycle and demonstrates how the LORD active balancing system will reduce unbalance by moving internal balance weights to the desired location to minimize the vibration. To find out more about how LORD Balancing Systems can help reduce your unscheduled downtime, visit http://www.lord.com or call 1-800-929-3218. For a copy of the demo cd, email

Request your Free 3D Balancing Demo

Never Say “Thank You” (8 of 12)

People like to be recognized for their efforts, so you should avoid recognition at all costs, starving our personnel of the basic human need to be appreciated for something. Completely ignoring people when they are doing good work is a wonderful way to undermine them, and create an environment for failures to thrive. Even a pay raise is not as powerful as being thanked for a job well done. If you have ever been to a facility where no one is ever thanked for anything, you could make someone cry if you thanked him or her. People are nasty little crybabies.

One variation on this tip is to find a way to twist a situation so that you can actually reprimand someone for doing a good job. For example, let’s say a maintenance planner does a fine job of planning a major project, and the work is executed perfectly. Jump on the opportunity to speak to the planner in front of others, and say, “Well, Clem, you seem to have pulled off a miracle. I heard that you planned a job well. Maybe you can do that again some time, but I doubt it”. Mission accomplished.

Tune in next week as we continue to expose the secret lives of seriously disturbed maintenance “professionals” with The Dirty Dozen Tip #9: Avoid Measurement at All Costs.

“Tip” provided by NoBreakDowns.com
Tel: (218) 327-3114
Web: http://www.NoBreakDowns.com

Receive a complimentary Dirty Dozen: 12 Ways to Wreck Your Maintenance Program electronic poster

BREAKDOWN DOCUMENTATION

How many of us have traced air or electrical circuits only to find the drawing was not updated with modifications or the drawing was not proven from installation?

How many of us left breakdowns feeling frustrated by the time that was wasted with lack of or incorrect documentation?

We are all familiar with Reactive (Fix it when it breaks) and Predictive Maintenance, with this concept in mind let us explore the two types of documentation and hopefully give our maintenance TEAM the remedy to solve this sometimes frustrating situation.

REACTIVE DOCUMENTATION
A reactive approach to documentation implies that we tend to compile and gain access to documentation only when the need arises.

An instance of this would be attending a breakdown finding there is no air circuit and then searching folder after folder only to realize that it appears not to be updated anyway. The circuit is then traced out by hand and this leads to the identifying the problem of a faulty non-return valve.

In this instance the tradesperson fills out the job sheet, closes it and moves onto the next urgent job. This is reactive documentation. It takes time to gather the information we require and leads to a less than acceptable breakdown time.

When certain industries have only been associated with plant incorporating basic control circuits, documentation had been of less importance and trades people had sufficient base skills to work around lack of documentation and still achieve an acceptable breakdown time. As plant has become more complex this lack of documentation will not lead to acceptable breakdown time.

PREDICTIVE DOCUMENTATION
As a maintenance TEAM we must stop the cycle of reactive documentation and move to a more predictive documentation.

So what is predictive documentation?

1. Documentation that is predicted will be required after analyzing previous breakdown/repair conditions. When plant is requested for maintenance, study your CMMS system of previous breakdowns and ask the question, would there be sufficient information available to rectify these breakdowns quickly.

2. Documentation that will always include circuits for all types of control systems. (Air, electrical etc). These documents should be kept in close proximity to the plant as they form the basis of any fault finding with breakdowns.

3. Information/Document sharing. If you have found Information/Documents that you have used to solve breakdowns share this information by documenting it. This may be as little as, a mark next to the indicator LEDS on a piece of control equipment which indicates the device is alright or more as, a timing diagram indicating the sequence of normal solenoid operation.

Sharing Information/Documents can be rewarding when other team members comment how this Information/Document helped to quickly solve a breakdown.

DOCUMENTATION
HOW MUCH, WHERE TO FIND IT, KEEPING IT IMPORTANT The amount of documentation will vary for a host of reasons. As a Maintenance Team you will need to formulate with discussion guidelines on documentation.
The following points may aid your discussion
1. How critical the plant is.
2. How hazardous the plant is.
3. How complex the plant is.
4. If the plant has unique equipment that trades people may not
normally be exposed to.
5. If the plant has been purchased with company standard equipment
staff will be familiar with its operation and therefore less documentation will be required.
6. Safety circuit documentation. It is important that sufficient
information about safety systems is placed in documentation
7. Where the Documentation is kept - for quick access.
8. Updating Documentation, how many copies.
9. Documentation is not just on paper
10. Are systems in place to check all relevant documentation is updated?
11. Is Management driving the need for predictive documentation?

MODIFICATION TO PLANT
During the life cycle of plant is it inevitable that modifications will occur. Sometimes these modifications are so minor we are tempted to ignore updating the documentation, as it may take twice as long to do this as the actual modification itself, DON’T BE FOOLED any modification to some extent increases the probability of further work to be performed as a result of the initial modification.

So when you change a parameter in a PLC or Drive DON’T BE FOOLED one day it may lose its program and that minor parameter change will not be included in the documentation, others will then spend tenfold the time compared to the what you would have spent initially documenting the modification.

This reader tip was a Maintenance Tips Challenge winner provided by Trevor Burgemeister, Electrical Technician, Yalumba Wines, Angaston, South Australia

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Understanding the fundamentals of Life Cycle Costing by Tom Coolican, Senior Reliability Engineer, Woodside Energy Limited, 2006

The function of LCC in projects is significant, as a maintenance and reliability practitioner in an oil and gas company I am regularly tasked with the development and refinement of life cycle cost models.

Through the phases of projects LCC is used to validate the asset integrity and assure management that the project delivery will meet the basis of design. LCC in projects primarily happens between Financial Investment Decision and Project Handover at the beginning of production.

The LCC model grows and develops at each phase throughout the asset life.
• Detailed design
• Delivery
• Execute
• Operation

Detailed design is the first phase of our projects that requires a high level LCC report Project execution phase requires a detailed LCC model.
The delivery phase refines the LCC model and integrates into the “whole of asset” LCC model.
As detail becomes clearer and decisions more final, the LCC model is again refined and prepared for input into the facility LCC model.
During the operation phase the LCC model may be used to validate budget forecasting and to conduct sensitivity analysis for future business changes.

The LCC models must cover two investment decisions.

CPAEX Capital Investment LCC model covers the plant, equipment, installation and commissioning. The use of depreciation and annual cost equivalent are common in CAPEX decisions.

OPEX Operational Investment is the ongoing annual budget to extract maximum value from the CAPEX investment. Manpower costs, operations and maintenance, whole of life spares and logistics, regulatory body prescribed function tests and performance degradation over time are all calculated here.

Why estimate costs?
“Operations will continue, maintenance will be performed.”

The answer is business forecasting, these forecasts allow the planning groups to pre-sell product to buyers while guaranteeing supply at calculated prices.

The forecasting groups provide many of the predicted values to be entered into the LCC estimate. Strong links with business management and financial accounting allow market predictions to some level of accuracy. The planners should be able to predict average interest rate movements, corporate direction, and the market price for the product. This feeds back into the LCC model increasing accuracy and continuously refining the model.

The LCC golden rules:

• Define the DELIVERABLES
LCC models quickly run out of control unless firm and agreed ground rules are in place.

• Get the FACTS
The facts come from the design team; best facts are after the purchase order.

• Establish the PROBABLE
The business forecasting groups are able to provide the economic probabilities; this creates alignment between forecasting, sales and maintenance.

• Stick to the METHOD
The prescribed method for our organization is based on sound theory and lessons learned from previous projects.

• Analyze the RESULTS
The analysis is done in multi disciplinary workshops after the maintenance engineer’s report.

Management and Operations usually want to start sensitivity analysis straight away. LCC is seen as an important tool within the development and delivery of projects and this tool empowers engineers who generally have little to do with budget delivery.

Most management groups get excited at the prospect of delivering additional value to a project and sensitivity analysis of the LCC model is an easy target.

As LCC is progressed through the life cycle of a facility it should evolve and grow, not be put on the shelf as a static document handed over at project completion. This financial function of maintenance management can return actual value to an organization.

References: Capital Investment Analysis for Engineering and Management by Canada, Sullival, White and Kulonda from Academic Internet Publishers, Inc.

Buy a copy of Capital Investment Analysis for Engineering and Management

In my working experience with a Certralised Lubrication systems, I have repeatedly encountered Maintenance personnel inserting pennies and/or dimes into the rupture disc port (safety disc) when system pressure blows the 1500/2500 psi disc.

When questioned, I always meet with the same reply-"it won’t damage the equipment, so why not.”

I actual fact, it does not damage the system, since the lube lines are either copper, steel or a mixture of both.

Beside being a method to alert the maintenance practitioner of high pressure in the lines (fault condition), by inserting the penny, the grease during normal system cycle cannot go into the lube lines (due to high fault pressure) and therefore creates a back pressure on the grease within the pump. This situation leads to base oil separating from the thickening agent, and clogging the pump over time.

So that even if the lube line is open to atmosphere, the problem is now turned from a clogged line, to a clogged pump. For the most part a new pump is replaced, but the line is still clogged when reattached, and the cycle continues.

Best practice - Use the correct rated rupture disc, and locate the root cause of the problem, and make it the order of the day.

Reader tip provided by Kurt Ferreira, Manager, Maintenance In Action, Toronto ON Canada.

Thanks Kurt - your Maintenance Tips Hat is on the way!

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