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Reliability is a ‘green initiative’
Demand for products has declined in many parts of the world, and with more manufacturing being shipped overseas, reliability of our existing processes is even more important than before. Many of my friends in different industries have told me about all of the initiatives being done to green up their
Why PM attainment needs to be a shared metric at your plant
Preventive maintenance (PM) is a cornerstone of reliability-based maintenance. It’s no surprise then that PM attainment has become a key performance indicator (KPI). But it may surprise you that in many organizations, maintenance is NOT primarily responsible for this KPI! Maintenance always has
Maintenance is not a cost: How to justify an investment in M&R
As many of us strive to improve the reliability of our plants, several comments bemoan how challenging that is to do in an era of continuous deep cost cutting. They say that in their operation, maintenance is seen as a cost, and is one of the first things to arbitrarily cut. Some think their operations
Guidance and game plans for your maintenance shop’s special tools
We all accumulate special fixtures, lifting frames, carts, transport pallets and piping inserts that are infrequently used but save time and enhance safety when their time comes. What you do with these special tools in between determines whether you get that savings and safety boost again or if you have
P-FIRST: Success in plant reliability is in the hands of the people
Thermal scanning, automatic balancers and levelers, predictive equipment, fluid scans, ultrasonic testing, PM programs, reports and logs, more reports and logs, and yet even more reports and logs. These are all great ways to track, detect or predict possible real, and future failures. I know many companies
What our plants have failed to learn in 25 years
Twenty-five years ago, I left the U.S. Navy nuclear submarine program. As I gained experience in civilian industry, I began to appreciate the Navy’s aplomb for reliable engineering, exceptional training and consistent operations. Their penchant for comprehensive preventive maintenance programs
Plant maintenance: Is it just like the tale of Sisyphus?
I stumbled across some music trivia lately, that the old rock band Chicago finally had its album “Stone of Sisyphus” released last year. One of the more famous “lost” albums, it was originally recorded in the early 1990s but had languished for years, available only in illegal
Let risk and your equipment determine your maintenance strategy
When I attend conferences and workshops and read articles on maintenance and reliability, more and more I hear people touting that preventive maintenance is more costly and not the right approach. When we talk about preventive maintenance, we are primarily talking about time-based inspections, but it
Keep maintenance simple: Use senses and sensibility
What good is it to have advanced maintenance techniques if they have no real benefit over simple basic maintenance? Now I am not saying go and throw away all of your fancy toys. What I am saying is that you don’t have to have advanced tools for every maintenance task. I have seen many maintenance
How do you justify the investment made in PdM?
“How do I quantify my PdM finds? Where do I go to establish my credibility?” Grow a thick skin, fast. You have to develop some way of bringing some sense to the finds you have made in your predictive maintenance program. Now that trust has been established and your routes are being executed,
