June 14, 2007
GE’s Plant Optimization and Control Users’ Conference
With over 25,000 Bently Nevada condition monitoring systems and 3000 System 1 condition-monitoring software platform installations worldwide—GE Energy is sponsoring a series of forums where operating users and reliability professionals can share experiences and benefit from direct access to GE reliability experts.
Learn how reliability improvement services help customers spend up to 60% less on maintenance while improving uptime, wrench time, environmental compliance and more.
Hosting the user conferences in four worldwide locations, agendas include user presentations, technology trends, workshops, and user group networking sessions.
June 14, 2007
Reliability Tip
Production costs must be driven down to finance “big innovation,”, or step changes in technology or processes. The most effective approach for financing this is through “little innovation” at the plant and shop floor level, improving the processes so that the cost are not incurred, and eliminating the defects that cause the failures in the equipment and processes. Innovation here is about everyone constantly seeking to do the work a little bit better each day.
Put the right processes in place, get your people engaged with a sense of ownership, create an environment for pride, enjoyment and trust, and cost will decline as a consequence.
Tip excerpted from “Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools: What Tool? When?” by Ron Moore, published by Butterworth -Heinemann
Get Your Copy of “Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools: What Tool? When?"
June 14, 2007
Lubrication Tip
Here is something to consider as food for thought in maintaining lubricant stores. The large brands have accommodations in their bulk handling guidelines for local vendors to package lubricants into one and two plastic jugs. If you can arrange with your supplier to package to these size containers, and then stock these containers at the respective in-plant lube storage area, you can save yourself a tremendous amount of time and energy working to keep the lubricants and lubricant handling practice clean and orderly.
Keep in mind that the local vendor needs to be licensed to package into these containers, and needs to have very specific cleanliness targets, before they can begin the process. The cleanliness targets should be set by you, the user. The targets should be based on the widely recognized ISO cleanliness codes for the types of applications that the lubricant will protect. Once these details are in hand, the vendor can use the ISO cleanliness requirement to purchase the right quality filters. The vendor will probably have to purchase additional filtration equipment as well.
You will need to periodically analysis the oil to verify that you are getting what you think you are getting. And, you obviously must be willing to pay them for the extra effort in packaging and delivery. The cost will likely be a few pennies per gallon, but their cost to perform this function will probably be less than what yours would have been. And, you will be contributing to your vendor’s long term capabilities and well being by pushing them into this type of support function.
Tip provided by Mike Johnson
Benchmark Your Lubricant Delivery, Storage and In-Plant Handling
June 07, 2007
Predictive Maintenance Tip
Hump Effects of a New PdM Program
The impact of application of new PdM Technologies can create some misleading initial results.
Problems that have been “lived with” many now be subject to recommendations from PdM specialists in early phases of technology introduction on an asset.
A “hump” in work requests causes a “hump” in maintenance cost due to purchase of replacement parts, consumables and perhaps some outside services.
Make sure PdM program sponsors and managers understand that cost may go up before they come down.
Tip excerpted from “Predictive Maintenance Management” Course workbook by Jack Nicholas Jr. available at
http://www.masteringmaintenance.com
Register for Jack Nicholas’s PdM Managers Web Workshop June 29 - 11 am
June 07, 2007
Vibration Analysis Tip
Frequency Analysis Tip
Gear analysis requires knowledge of the gear tooth counts to access the vibration signals originating in the mesh from other signals picked up by the transducer. The tooth counts ensure that the gear mesh frequency can be determined, and will allow the analyst to pick out problematic gears by inspection of the modulation in the signal(s). These modulations will produce sideband peaks around the meshing frequency and their harmonics. Another less emphasized analysis parameter is the direction in which the gearbox data is collected. It’s always a good idea to collect data in multiple directions, however knowledge of the gear design (spiral, bevel, herringbone, spur, etc.,) can be helpful as far as indicating the dominant direction of the gear mesh reaction forces. Sometimes a measurement in the axial plane may be the best trending location.
Tip by Dan Ambre, P.E.
Full Spectrum Diagnostics, PLLC
Phone: 763-577-9959
Email:
June 07, 2007
IRTalk.com by Snell Infrared
IRTalk.com is an online community of infrared professionals that welcomes everyone regardless of their equipment preference, training, experience, or applications. Whether you are a maintenance technician, reliability engineer, electrical contractor, building inspector, weatherization professional, infrared service provider, or just want to know more about infrared, IRTalk.com is the place to learn from those who are active in the industry.
June 07, 2007
CMMS/EAM Tip
Setting up CMMS Should I use Failure Codes or Failure Modes?
Many CMMS have set up squawk codes with hundreds of items to pick from. Often the cause most called for is “other”. This is frustrating and time consuming for Reliability Engineers trying to analyse failure characteristics of equipment.
So a change in mindset is required.
Don’t try and capture causes- capture the failure mode specific to the equipment.
A specific time to failure data set can be analysed in modern Weibull packages in seconds.
This allows the engineer to spend a greater proportion of his time on interpretation and decision making.
Tip provided by ARMS Reliability Engineers
Find Out More About Weibull analysis and other maintenance optimisation
June 07, 2007
Infrared Tip
Thermographers, Tag Your Hot Spots
It’s such a simple thing to do, but how many of us don’t tag the hot spots we find? Some of the reasons for tagging are:
Tagging is:
• An Identifier. It identifies to others that a problem exists.
• A Reminder. It is a very visual reminder to take care of this problem.
• A Warning. It warns others there may be added danger at this location and to exercise additional caution before opening the enclosure.
You can buy the tags or make your own like we did at Johns Manville, McPherson Kansas. Making your own has some advantages over generic tags such as you can customize and change the information you put on the tags. Information you would want to include on your tag might be such things as the:
• Equipment Name
• Current Load
• Severity
• Date
• Delta T
• Brief Description of Problem
• Thermographers Name(s)
No matter where you are in your program development, just starting or not. Maybe you are having contract Thermographers shoot your equipment.
Whatever is the case, by all means always TAG your hot spots…
Reader tip provided by Nick Bohonik
Johns Manville
Reliability - Thermography Group
Coffeeville Kansas
(Winners of the 2006 Uptime Best Infrared Program Award)
Thanks Nick - your stainless steel Maintenance-Tips coffee mug is on the on the way.
June 07, 2007
Increase awareness with online surveillance!
Vibration analysis, the industry-preferred technology, allows accurate machinery health monitoring and assessment.
One way to implement a vibration analysis program utilizes continuous online surveillance especially in unsafe and hard to reach areas to minimize production loss and drive down the overall cost of maintenance.
In order to provide the clearest possible picture of your machine operating condition, the vbOnline measures and records many different process parameters. This gives you the ability to trend and trigger alarms to assess not only vibration related faults, but also how your machines perform on a continuous basis.
Commtest – Join the Revolution
For more information please call 865-588-2946 or…
June 07, 2007
Motor Testing Tip
On-line testing and temperature
When doing on-line testing, the parameters that the tester reads change when the machine is cold (recent start-up after long stop period)or when the machine has been running for a period of time. The larger the machine under test, the larger the time for the components (iron, copper and insulation) to reach a stable, operating temperature. Thus, it is important to let the system stabilize for a conservative period of time before running any tests on it.
Among the components of a rotating machine that change due to heat is the Line-to-Line resistance in the copper. This factor alone will introduce an error of about 1% to 2%. On a 5HP motor operating an axial FAN, about 20 minutes are needed before capturing any data.
On the other end, if a machine is submitted to frequent starts and stops the heat build-up will be higher than normal operating temperature. This is due to the stator difficulty on dissipating heat. This would skewed results too. Be mindful of motor (and system) temperatures when testing on-line.
Tip provided by Baker Instrument Company
(970) 282-1200
(800) 752-8272
http://www.bakerinst.com
