Putting Thought Back into Machinery Inspections

An interesting exercise is to go and review a dozen or so of your completed “operator care” round sheets (Electronic or paper). Assuming you could find them, what (useful) information did they contain?

 Too many times we visit facilities where machinery inspections (look listen feel) are in full swing, but the information they provide is either not used effectively or ignored all together. Great emphasis is placed on the performance of the inspection but almost no emphasis on the information the inspection provides. To be effective the machinery inspection needs to be performed by an inspector who is thinking about machine condition rather than completing a check list. How do we accomplish that? 

Consider this inspection check item, “Record the following:- pump suction pressure; pump discharge pressure; pump flow;”. What is the desired outcome? It is not just to have a record of the pressures and flows, but to assess the performance of the pump. Does this meet the goal?

Now look at another, “Record the following:- pump suction pressure; pump discharge pressure; pump flow; and determine if the pump is operating in the reliable flow zone (say 80-110% of BEP)”

In the latter case the inspector has to think about the performance of the pump to properly complete the inspection and the inspection will produce the desired results.

This is just one example. I am sure there are thousands more in your facilities. 

How do we accomplish this? Well, it starts with ensuring the people inspecting machines understand the operation of the machine and how to recognize the common failure modes. But we must never forget that we need to set the expectation that those skills will be applied. One way of doing that is to ensure that inspectors are required to think while performing rounds. https://kvgo.com/Example/Pump-Curves

Checking Sheave Wear… the Forgotten Part of Belt Maintenance

We now have a wide variety tools to help us perform Precision Maintenance® on belt driven machines. These include laser alignment to optimize the alignment of the pulleys, sonic tension gauges to optimize the static tension of the belts, but what about wear on the pulleys?We often just look at it and make a judgement based on appearance. Here is a more scientific approach to help you get the more life out of your belt drive and bearings. https://kvgo.com/Example/groove_gauge

How Well Do Your Analysts Understand the Analysis Process?

With all the technology available to us today to determine the health of our assets, it is quite easy to lose sight of the fundamental approach of how to truly analyze a problem. Our need for immediate answers has tended to push us towards making snap judgements based on the limited data available. The current trend is to just get more and more data to help us with those judgements. Unfortunately if we do not use all this data properly it leads to more and more incorrect calls, and remember it is the bad calls that everyone remembers not the good ones.

Good analysis is a THINKING process it uses data, logic and reasoning skills to identify the all possible causes, and then eliminate those that cannot be supported by the data. 

Check out this 7 minute video where Ian McKinnon and Tim Dunton discuss the Analysis process.https://kvgo.com/Example/Analysis-Process

Managing our Assets Cradle to Grave

We have all had the situation where, as a maintenance department, we have inherited from a project or new construction, a piece of equipment or asset that is in a less than reliable state. We then spend years and countless dollars and energy trying to manage it. Some believe that if we just do condition monitoring, we will be ok. Others want to blame the construction company, yet others want to blame the project engineers. The one true thing in this situation is that responsibility for the issues cannot be placed on one particular group. To be reliable, a Cradle to Grave approach needs to be taken that looks at the life cycle costs.

Check out the 5 min Video below that outlines all the steps for machine reliability Cradle to Grave

https://kvgo.com/Example/cradle-to-grave

Inspecting Machine Bases

One of the things that we commonly see when we are working on site with customers is that equipment bases seem to get overlooked.  It isn’t that they aren’t important; I tend to think that they get overlooked because they can deteriorate so slowly.  There is a parallel here to road infrastructure in North America.  The roads and bridges deteriorate so slowly, that we stop inspecting or fail to notice the deterioration because we’re not looking for it.  We tend to take them for granted.  Just like bridge repairs, repairing or replacing a machine base is no easy task.  It’s disruptive, capital intensive and time consuming.  So it’s better to find this failure early rather than later.

Many equipment bases are made up of a combination of concrete and steel.  This combination of provides the stiffness and support for rotating equipment above it. Concrete and steel deteriorate quite slowly, we are usually talking years here not days or even months.  As a result, we don’t see rapid deterioration and we tend to take bases bases for granted.  Plus, if you were to look them frequently you wouldn’t see any change, and after a while we tend to stop looking and you would miss the deterioration again.

So, what’s the solution? Ensure that you have an annual machine base inspection route or pm in place so potential problems can be identified before they become big problems.  Repairing or replacing a machine base is a big task and its helpful to have a long lead time to get bases fabricated for what is usually a capital job.  Click on this linkIf you want to see some of the items that we look for when we are inspecting machines bases and check out some beauty’s we’ve found in the past.  https://kvgo.com/Example/Inspect_bases

Which CM tool offers the biggest bang for the buck?

This is a question that we are often asked at the Tribe. While all PdM tools will always provide plenty of ROI if properly implemented over time, there are a couple that will provide significant returns for a very small outlay. One of these is the humble strobe light. For a few hundred dollars and in the hands a trained technician this simple tool can save hundreds of thousands of dollars. Given to an operator (trained in its use), this tool can enhance the quality of the work requests/notifications provided by providing details of the specific problems. Observations like damaged belts or pulleys, torn or worn elastomers in couplings, grease leaking from couplings, dirt build up on motors and fans along with a host of others can be quickly identified and then acted upon. The better the quality of the work request/notification the better the quality of the entire work management system. In the hands of a PM mechanic or technician, traditional time consuming down-day PMs such as coupling/belt inspections can be  performed on the run saving valuable down-day manhours for other improvement activities. We should all consider using a strobe light as part of our reliability toolbox. For more info on how to use a strobe light check out this clip from our app 

https://kvgo.com/Example/using_strobe_light

How Well do you Understand Precision Alignment?

There are many techs today who have “come of age” in the laser era. While nearly all can successfully perform an alignment with the laser, do they truly understand what is going on. We often try to make alignment way more complex than it really is. Offset misalignment is pretty easy to understand…just move the machine up or down by the amount of offset. But what about angular misalignment? In this case we need to add different amounts of shim under the front and rear feet. How can this be determined easily? Check out the short video clip below.

https://kvgo.com/Example/Rise_Run