January 19, 2005
Vibration Tip
Sometimes when analyzing a spectrum, it is difficult to differentiate between unbalance, looseness and misalignment. Their signatures all have a 1 times RPM peak and multiples of running speed peaks, excluding pure unbalance. One way to quickly decipher what is causing excessive vibration is to look at the time waveform. For instance, unbalance will display a sinusoidal pattern, whereas looseness will show random impacting.
Tip provided by LUDECA, INC.
Distributor of the new VIBXPERT data collector/vibration analyzer http://www.ludeca.com/vibxpert.htm
Tel: 305-591-8935
iPresentation Invitation: The process of spectrum acquisition (7 minutes)
January 19, 2005
Airborne Ultrasonic Tip
Compressed Air Leaks – Start your leak inspection program by finding the big leaks first. While performing an ultrasonic leak survey in a complex system of piping smaller leaks can be masked by larger ones. Find, tag, and fix the gross leaks first. Once the gross leaks are fixed the system pressure will rise, especially in the area where the leaks were. Now return to that zone and re-scan. First confirm that the tagged leaks were indeed repaired properly. Satisfied by that, remove any leak tags from previous surveys and continue to scan the area for more leaks. Because system pressure has increased, the smaller, more difficult to find leaks will produce more ultrasonic turbulence making them easier to find. With the competing ultrasound from the repaired gross leaks are gone, a final inspection is now possible.
Tip provided by SDT North America
Toll free: 1-800-667-5325
Tel: 905-349-2020
January 12, 2005
Lubrication Tip
Prefill piston pumps and motors to prevent “infant mortality”.
When installing a piston pump or motor, always fill the case of the unit with clean hydraulic fluid prior to start-up. Failure to do so almost guarantees dry-start failure. If the unit is mounted in a vertical position and the case drain line is flexible, use this technique to fill the case:
1) Position the pump or motor horizontally (case drain port up) within reach of the case drain line.
2) Fill the unit with clean hydraulic fluid through the case drain port.
3) Connect the case drain line.
4) Mount the unit in position.
Tip provided by Brendan Casey
January 12, 2005
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Tip
RCA RESULTS ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS THE SUPPORT THE EFFORT RECEIVES: No matter the “brand” of RCA that you use, it is doomed without proper management support. Sure a pocket of excellence here and there may exist, but from the learning perspective for the organization, the RCA effort will not expand and strive. Most management’s feel that there commitment to RCA is done when they provide a few dollars for RCA training or software. From this point they feel that when the student leaves the training, they will be instant RCA experts who can now analyze “world hunger” type problems with absolute accuracy and in an hour. For those of us who have attended various RCA training’s, we know better. Managements must realize that in order for an RCA effort to succeed, they must:
A. Write the “fat” check to demonstrate support
B. Educate themselves in what their people are learning and approve the concepts they will implement
C. Designate a “Champion” of the effort
D. Outline their expectations with milestones stated
E. Institutionalize RCA by issuing an RCA policy and/or procedure (this will survive when the fast-track manager leaves and ensures the effort does not die with his absence)
These are a few of the “core” management responsibilities required to ensure that RCA is not only successful in the short-term, but is embedded in the culture in the long-term.
Tip provided by Robert Latino
The Reliability Center
http://www.reliability.com
Tel: (804) 458-0645
January 12, 2005
Reliability & Cost Analysis Seminar
The Reliability & Cost Analysis Seminar in Houston March 14-18 will feature three courses: Weibull Analysis, led by Wes Fulton and Dr. Robert Abernethy, Analysis of Accelerated Test Data, led by Dr. Wayne Nelson, and Life-Cycle Costing, led by Paul Barringer.
Please call Clarion at (713) 521-5929 or…
January 12, 2005
CMMS Tip
In managing your workflow use your CMMS’ Work Request function as a review step prior to turning the request into a Work Order. This keeps duplicates and preplanned (as in, it will be taken care of in the upcoming shutdown) corrective maintenance from becoming part of the system. As these Work Requests are reviewed and approved they become Work Orders and move into the unscheduled planning phase until becoming part of the planned and scheduled backlog. Unapproved Work Requests should remain in the system for no longer than 2 weeks with a comment explaining why they were not approved. Then when the requestor inquires as to the status of their request and provide the Work Request number the information is readily available.
An excellent way to keep track of the Work Requests, the status of Work Orders and manage workflow is to use the scheduling function of your CMMS.
Reader Tip provided by Mike LeCompte
Maintenance Systems Development, LLC
Tel: 843-576-1433
http://www.maintsysdev.com
January 12, 2005
Maintenance Tip
To save the threads of a stud when you need to grab hold of it. Since double nutting tends to damage the threads and doesn’t always provide enough hold, and you may not have room to double nut in some cases. What I have done in the past is take a nut of the same thread size and weld it to the Jaw of vice grips, then cut the nut in half using hack saw. The gap created by cutting the nut provides plenty of holding power and will save the threads from damage.
Reader Tip provided by Christopher Dibble
Manufacturing Mechanic
Thanks Christopher - your Maintenance-Tips hat is one the way.
Get your own hat and send a Maintenance-Tip today
January 12, 2005
New Web Based Resource Library from GenesisSolutions
GenesisSolutions, a professional services company specializing in industrial asset optimization, has opened an online resource library including recent articles, maintenance white papers, recommended maintenance book list and useful web links.
You are invited to bookmark this site as a “favorite” and return often as new resources are added throughout the year.
Look for the Resource Library link from the homepage.
January 12, 2005
Reliability Tip
Report the good news – and the bad.
There is nothing wrong with pride in a job well done. Don’t be afraid to tell everyone in the plant just how effective your Reliability program is and how you prevented a catastrophic event using Reliability technologies. Use charts on the bulletin boards and a column in your company newsletter to show your pride. However, be certain to publish your failures as well. If you missed a gearbox failure or the loss of a bearing forced an unscheduled outage, be prepared to tell the story. Perform an assessment and publish why it was missed or why the failure occurred. Maybe your equipment does not have the dynamic range to get to that part of the data, maybe the motor was not monitored because of budget and time constraints. Maybe you could have caught it using vibration analysis, but were just doing ultrasonic readings. Whatever the cause, admit the painful truth and show what is being done – proactively- to make certain that this does not occur again, even if it is upgrading equipment or just providing additional training. It will give you far greater credibility in the long run.
Tip provided by National Reliability Systems
Jack Dischner
January 12, 2005
Alignment Tip
When aligning machines, it is usually impossible to achieve absolute perfection; therefore, some misalignment must be accepted, provided this remaining misalignment is small enough that it causes no harm; by definition, this window of permissible misalignment is your alignment tolerance.
When leaving misalignment on a machine, ideally you would like to leave the correction at the front feet equal to or less than the correction required at the back feet, with the corrections having the same sign (+ or). Such a result always means the alignment is getting better as you approach the coupling; you always want the centerline of rotation pointing towards the point of power transmission.
Tip provided by LUDECA, INC.
Distributor of the new Rotalign ULTRA Laser Shaft Alignment System
http://www.ludeca.com/ultra.htm
Tel: 305-591-8935
Test your AIQ (Alignment IQ) with a 10 question autograding quiz
