on Maintenance Reliability

This article reviews the requirements for building and maintaining vertical, bulk liquid storage tanks. Issues, which affect the care of large storage tanks as well as common problems, are reviewed.

What is a Bulk Liquid Storage Tank?

Bulk liquid tanks can be round, horizontal cylinders, vertical, cylindrical tanks and occasionally spherical vessels. We are concerned here with vertical tanks and vessels whose internal volumes are measured in tens of cubic meters through to hundreds of cubic meters. Examples are oil refinery storage tanks and process chemical storage tanks.

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You’re Not Doing RCM If…

It used to happen once every few years and now it seems to happen twice a year or more. The customer who would like you to come in and perform an RCM analysis on a piece of equipment they are struggling with and when you begin to discuss the upfront work required to do a thorough RCM analysis they attempt to change the rules. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Life Cycle Costs

How Building Reliability Into The Equipment Design Will Dramatically Improve Your Profitability.

Feel free to use this image, just link to www.SeniorLiving.Org This microstock required lots of post processing to get the blue tint. I also needed a bounce card to get more detail in the glasses. — Feel free to use this image, just link to www.SeniorLiving.Org

Does your team procure, setup and put into operation equipment with a single focus on reducing the initial capital expenditure?

Do you work with your equipment suppliers to fully specify the equipment’s functions, performance, and reliability? Maybe not the reliability? [Read more…]

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Proximity Switches

A proximity switch is the common name for a range of detectors that generate an electrical signal when a physical mass cuts through their sensor field. Upon detection of an object, the electrical signal is sent to a controlling device and is used to monitor and control the operation of the equipment.

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I’m Not an Engineer!

I’m not an Engineer

Engineers want order. Everything should happen in a programmed sequence making an expected result predictable. It’s one of the traits that gives Engineers a reputation for being boring. When things happen out of order or sequence the engineers of this world become quiet while their brains churn out what they know the expected order should be and what might have occurred to upset the process. [Read more…]

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Where Does Maintenance Fit Into Reliability?

Maintenance Provides the Key Function of Preserving

With the design FMEA complete, the equipment should have high inherent reliability. The equipment can then be installed in the plant, and provide a high level of performance to the business, at least initially. This is where Maintenance comes in. Maintenance can enable a low Life Cycle Cost, by preserving the reliability of the equipment. [Read more…]

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Predictive Maintenance — What is it?

The practice of maintenance has been developing for the past 300 years. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution machinery and their control systems have played a critical part in our ability to produce consumer and industrial goods. Over that time different maintenance philosophies have developed in response to changing technology and increasing costs.

The progression in philosophies started with breakdown maintenance (BM), then to time-based maintenance such as preventative maintenance (PM) and shutdown maintenance. More recently condition-based maintenance (CM) has become significant. The next step is predictive maintenance. [Read more…]

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Wait… I thought this was a team meeting?

The face you make when you know it’s supposed to be a team meeting yet the word you keep hearing most is “I”! Unless your working with a group of Optometrists it’s usually not a good sign!

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Using a Design FMEA

How Building Reliability Into The Equipment Design Will Dramatically Improve Your Profitability

Products and equipment start with a design. The functions and performance occur or do not occur according to the capabilities designed into the system.

I learned early in my career, as a manufacturing engineer, that some products were much easier to manufacture (less yield loss) ten others, and it was often the design of the product that made the difference.

I also learned that once we purchased and installed factory equipment it was very difficult to improve the reliability performance. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 1 Comment

Vee-Belt Drives Basics and Considerations

This article discusses the use of vee-belt drives. It covers some basic theory of friction drives and lists 11 factors to be considered when using vee-belt drives. [Read more…]

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The Importance of Laughter in the Workplace!

I’m laughing at work! At the same time, I’m shaking my head and smiling because I’m sitting alone at my computer working on developing some maintenance plans for one of our customers. Strange as it might seem the laughter was brought on by a social media notification that today is the birthday of an old friend. Someone I used to work with, and thinking about this person I remembered all the laughs our group shared at work. [Read more…]

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Incorporating Reliability into Your Future

How Building Reliability Into The Equipment Design Will Dramatically Improve Your Profitability

Often time’s equipment is procured, setup and put into operation with a single focus on reducing the initial capital expenditure. This can be a fatal mistake as the reliability of the equipment is built into the design of the equipment. This called the inherent reliability. Once the equipment is designed and installed, there is little the maintenance department can do to improve the inherent reliability. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 2 Comments

Metal Corrosion Basics and Controls

This article explains the metal corrosion process including the basic chemistry of how metal loss occurs. Methods to control corrosion are also listed and explained. [Read more…]

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Top Down or Bottom Up – The Dilemma of Continuous Improvement

I’m sure you have all heard the phrase I wish I had a nickel for every time someone asked me this question. If you follow LinkedIn at all someone poses this question to anyone willing to answer at least once a day and as a result they get opinions that list the benefits of a Top Down or Bottom Up continuous improvement process. [Read more…]

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Driving Performance Outcomes Through Effective Meetings

Understand How Effective Meetings Can Enable Improved Plant Performance

400StockMarketCharts Nothing is worse than being in a meeting that completely wastes your time. Hopefully those meetings have been eliminated as part of the steps to making you, the maintenance professional, more effective. For the meetings that you could not eliminate, the meetings need to be effective, reducing wasted time and delivering benefits to the business.

To make meetings effective, the meetings should follow the 3 phases of effective meetings. The 3 phases ensure that meetings are effective, efficient and everyone knows what they are there to do. Lastly, it ensures that the any actions coming out of the meeting are addressed. [Read more…]