The Big Interview
A FEELING FOR WHAT’S LIKELY TO FAIL.Whilst the adage that ‘prevention is better than cure’ is well known and respected within the industry, particularly where plant equipment is concerned, standing by these words requires walking the fine line between suffering the occasional failure of a machine and overmaintaining equipment.
.jpg)
As assets become smarter and CMMS/EAM packages become more integrated across various asset classes within a manufacturing company, responsibility for facility management (including facility maintenance) has become spread over multiple departments. Historically, facility and plant maintenance were the sole responsibility of the Maintenance Department which ultimately reported to the Plant Manager or Works Manager.
It is common knowledge that a range of Condition Monitoring (CM) techniques are available such as Vibration Analysis, Oil & Wear Debris Analysis, Thermography and Acoustic Emission. Each of these techniques has its own particular areas of strength and in this regard the Acoustic Emission (AE) technique has the noted advantage of giving real time information with early sensitivity to faults and applicability to a wide range of rotational speeds including slowly rotating (source : ISO 22096).
A very important part of a cost-effective preventive maintenance program is what I call the route-based activity. These are activities that are easiest to do, and to administer, if they are presented in a list. This list can be presented in electronic format or in a paper format and includes such activities as lubrication and inspections by maintenance craftspeople and equipment operators. There are two major things that surprise me regarding these basic preventive maintenance activities:
