Traditional Predictive Maintenance strategy results in out of control production from random planned equipment outages. A Plant Wellness strategy reduces the need for condition monitoring because you get ahead of failure and eliminate all root causes so there cannot be failure.
[Read more…]Extreme Wear on the Back Plate of Centrifugal Pumps
Why is extreme wear occurring on the backing plate behind the impellers of these centrifugal pumps used for irrigation pumping service?
Engineering investigations into the causes of wear, erosion and metal loss on the back-plates behind the impellers of two year old centrifugal pumps pumping water about an irrigation system
[Read more…]The Role and Responsibilities of the Engineering Manager
Advice on the Key Duties and Responsibilities of the Modern Engineering Manager Role
The duties of the engineering manager role usually include capital project management and maintenance management, two vital aspects that must be done exceedingly well in an industrial operation.
Business Process Redesign the Plant Wellness Way
A presentation slide set titled “Simpler Industrial and Business Process Redesign”. Presented by Mike Sondalini to The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia, Electrical Engineering Technical Division.
The presentation opens with examining three universal business problems:
- Wasted effort and resources
- Wrong business process for the purpose
- Wide and out-of-control process variation
He also explores the implication of the quality loss function and then incorporates the concept of maintenance work quality. Then Mike explore specific steps you can implement to improve the fundamental processes within your organization.
[Read more…]The Instantaneous Cost of Failure from Breakdowns
The Instantaneous Cost and Failure from Breakdowns is Huge. When a failure incident occurs, there is a consequential loss of profits and amassing of costs. The cost of failure includes lost profit, the cost of repair, fixed and variable operating costs wasted during the downtime, and a myriad of consequential costs that surge through the business. They are all paid for by the organisation and seen as poor financial performance. The costs of failure cannot be escaped and are counted in fortunes of lost profit per year. Total defect and failure true costs are not normally recognised by managers, yet they can send businesses bankrupt. In the instance of a failure, all its costs and losses are automatically incurred on the business. These costs can only be prevented by not having the failure in the first place. This article explains the ‘Instantaneous Cost of Failure’ (ICOF) and introduces a proactive technique, ‘Defect and Failure True Costing’, that helps companies recognise and prevent this tremendous waste of money.
[Read more…]How to Write the Contents of the Lead Quality Manual Document
Read about the Requirements for the Content of the ISO 9001 Quality Manual Lead Document from which the rest of an ISO 9001 Quality System Cascades
An ISO 9001 Quality Management System requires a ISO 9001 Quality Manual that contains all the details of how your business is run to produce your products or services to a quality standard.
[Read more…]Screw Conveyor Auger Shaft Drive End Break
How operational loads break the drive shaft of a horizontal screw conveyor auger
Questions and queries asked following a screw feeder shaft breakage on a 15m long fertiliser dust transfer feed conveyor
If you have rotating shafts breaking at the drive-end of the auger shaft you may have a combination of bending and torsional fatigue. You are welcome to read the series of emails and responses below to a screw conveyor auger drive end failure.
15 Ways to Remove Operational Risk
To increase reliability, you need to decrease the chances of failure occurring. Each chance of failure creates risk. Operating risk can be mitigated and managed by meeting all 15 Precision Maintenance excellence targets.
This list of precision maintenance excellence targets is how to ensure component parts, and the equipment they are in, always operate with optimal reliability. Each requirement must be met to the highest standard. By doing this your equipment and machinery are operating with the least microstructure stress possible and getting utmost reliability.
[Read more…]The Company That Made Its Machines Breakdown
Abstract: Many companies struggle with constant plant and equipment problems despite doing the very best they know how to keep their plant and machinery reliable. Their real problem, which they cannot see for themselves, is that what is done in the company is completely wrong for creating highly reliable production equipment. If you cannot “see” how reliability is destroyed in your business, then you are doomed to suffer poor reliability and low uptime forevermore.
[Read more…]Example ACE 3T Maintenance Procedure with Inspection & Test Plan (ITP)
Here is a great example from an industrial operation of a maintenance procedure using an Accuracy Controlled Enterprise (ACE) 3T standard operating procedure (SOP) format. To make it better would need photos and/or videos included for critical tasks. 3T stands for Target-Tolerance-Test, which are the minimum criteria needed to specify maintenance task quality and prove compliance. The 3T’s are a simple maintenance work quality assurance technique we invented to maximise the chance of doing outstandingly high-quality maintenance work that brings you outstanding plant and equipment reliability.
[Read more…]Screw Conveyor Auger Shaft Mid-Point Breaks
Are your screw feeder and trough screw conveyor auger shafts snapping in half?
Analysis of a broken screw feeder shaft on a granular Copper Sulphate Bagging Hopper Feed Screw explains how stress cause shaft failure
If you have rotating shafts breaking at the centre of the span then you quite likely have a metal fatigue problem. Take a read of the report below.
The 316L stainless steel screw feeder shaft on a 3200mm long, 260mm diameter, 1:1 pitch flight screw broke in the middle. The shaft was 50mm Schedule 40 316L stainless steel pipe. The screw flight was 6mm thick 316L plate stitch welded to the shaft. The screw had been replaced new only 4 weeks prior. The screw was removed from the trough in two pieces and the break was at the middle of the screw. The break was generally square to the shaft.
[Read more…]The Connection Between Equipment Risk and Equipment Reliability
A slide deck of a presentation made by Mike at the SIRFRt WA Maintenance Roundtable November 2011.
Mike goes into depth with risk quantification, plotting techniques, along with connecting maintenance related risk to business risk levels. The presentation also explores using reliability as an element in the risk equation and discusses a few different ways to minimize risks.
[Read more…]So, What’s Still Wrong with Maintenance
Enterprise Asset Management and Maintenance will Always be Spectacularly Unsuccessful at Delivering Failure-Free Equipment, Until you Change to an Equipment Wellness Paradigm
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The role of Maintenance is to eliminate operating equipment risks. Yet, organizations using Preventive and Predictive Maintenance strategies still have equipment breakdowns. They still have forced outages and stoppages. They consistently get emergency repairs. So, what makes today’s Maintenance paradigm so unsuccessful at equipment risk elimination? Because it is the wrong paradigm to use. The right mindset to have is an equipment wellness paradigm!
[Read more…]Maintenance Planning and Scheduling for World Class Reliability and Maintenance Performance
3-Day Training Course
Day 3 Maintenance Planning and Maintenance Scheduling Slides with Complete Explanations
Welcome to the final day of the Maintenance Planning and Scheduling for World Class Reliability and Maintenance Performance 3-Day Training Course. I hope that you enjoyed Days 1 and 2 and found the maintenance, reliability, work quality control and work planning concepts they contained useful.
[Read more…]The Galvanic Corrosion Piping Trap!
The wrong combination of metals in electrical contact create a Galvanic Corrosion Trap that will cause many failures and costs in the future
Abstract:
The Galvanic Corrosion Trap. The wrong combination of metals can produce a corrosion cell of unequal voltage where one metal gives up its electrons and corrodes away. If the corrosion is not detected it will result in eventual failure of the equipment. Galvanic corrosion prevention is a design selection issue that one must always be aware of, as it can arise with the simplest of decisions. This article highlights a galvanic corrosion problem often seen in industry and sometimes missed by the person selecting equipment.
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