Functional failures in plant equipment are unavoidable. However, the way a company handles its asset failures can have an impact on the bottom line of the annual maintenance budget. For instance, this can mean that the maintenance department reacts to fix an issue after it occurs, or has Proactive Maintenance technology and processes (PMs) in place to reduce the number of surprise failures. There are higher costs associated with both, but the difference lies in how long we hold these higher costs. Let’s take a look. REACTIVE CULTURE Reactive maintenance, as the name suggests, means fixing something when it breaks. When a company remains in a reactive maintenance state, they can quickly get into a downward spiral of bad situations. Maintenance costs can pile up on top of one another.…
MYTH: “You should always do your shimming first and then make your horizontal moves.” TRUTH: This is generally true for the final alignment after soft foot has been corrected, but is not universally true for all alignments. In fact, for the initial rough alignment, you should correct the plane with the largest misalignment first, even if this means making a horizontal move first. Reason: If you have gross misalignment, you could be binding the coupling, deflecting the shafts, and imposing undue load on the bearings. By relieving strain from excess misalignment, a truer picture of the alignment condition emerges, and you eliminate an important outside force that creates machine frame distortion (soft foot). Therefore, the correct sequence of events in any alignment job is: Safety: Lockout & tag out plus clean upRough…
Wireless vibration sensors have their place in a good reliability program and can benefit the maintenance team’s ability to monitor machine health reliably. When choosing a wireless vibration sensor, the battery life is a key parameter in its selection. Designers and manufacturers should perform battery capacity models to be confident in the performance and battery life alongside actual current consumption measurements. When creating a battery capacity model to determine battery life within a wireless sensor, there are several main considerations: Battery chemistry: The type of battery chemistry used in the device can greatly impact the battery life. For example, lithium-ion batteries have a higher energy density than nickel-cadmium batteries and therefore can last longer. However, Lithium Thionyl Chloride (LTC) has a stable voltage over time and high current pulse capability for…