Predictive Maintenance Technology Conference
September 15-18, 2008
Qwest Center
Omaha, Nebraska

• PdM Managers’ Workshop - by Jack Nicholas Jr., CMRP

• Bearing fault detection: Three keys to great results by Jason Tranter

• Save Energy - A 3 Part Workshop on becoming a Greener, Leaner Company by Howard Penrose PhD, Paul Klimuc and John Snell

• How to Develop Proactive Key Performance Indicators by Ricky Smith,

• Leveraging the “Visibility of your PdM Program” at the Corporate Level by Carl Schultz

• Basic Failure Analysis Techniques by Neville Sachs

• OMA 101 - Oil Monitoring Analysis Seminar by Jack Poley and Michel Murphy

To register for or learn more about PdM-2008 please call one of our friendly conference specialists toll free at (888) 575 1245 or…

Register for PdM-2008 online

Status Boards

When I served in the US Navy on board a ballistic missile submarine, the use of status boards was invaluable. I have adapted that concept and used it to help me and my staff keep track of 78 roof top units, 6 Liebert units, various compressors, boilers and countless other pieces of equipment. Along with a CMMS system, these boards gives us an overview of the equipment status within our 2.8 M sq ft facility.

I have added information, such as when the last state inspections were held, last time a major PM was performed, results of PM per equipment, and even tallied how many work orders have been created on each of our boilers (justification for replacement).

Using audio visual marker, we can use different colors to indicate different meanings. We have a section for notes, so when a call comes in we can quickly take notes, which has aided in troubleshooting.

So however you create your, I recommend adding a something to indicate when the board(s) were last updated, which is helpful to know if you have current data or not.

Reader tip provided by Mike Milenovic
Manager, Facilities Services
Eddie Bauer
Groveport OH

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What if you could get a daily maintenance schedule out in minutes rather than hours? What if you could use one interface to interact with both SAP and your other business applications? What if there was a way to get all of your maintenance information into one interface? What if you regained ownership of your business process?

You are invited to a special recorded presentation

Welcome Stress!

Your heart begins to race; you can feel the rush of adrenaline. As your palms perspire and your mouth goes dry, you feel the butterflies in your stomach. You are keenly aware that this is the moment you have prepared for. You gaze upon the crowd and see that all eyes are watching you with anticipation. After a deep inhale and a slow exhale you begin…

The person who is sharp, mentally focused, and able to deliver a killer presentation and the athlete who performs better in competition than in practice can tell you that stress can be used to one’s advantage. On the field or in the boardroom, stress can become our ally. Moderate levels of stress help us get out of bed in the morning, give us motivation, and supply us with the drive to complete a difficult task. Stress can provide us with inspiration for performing our jobs well. In fact, a lack or inadequate amount of stress can cause a person to feel depressed.

Cavemen depended upon these physical reactions to stress in order to survive. When confronted with anything that posed a threat, the body’s reaction to stress allowed the cavemen to be more alert, focused, and ready to fight or flee. It is this survival response that we still feel today when faced with stressful situations. Stress can be useful in numerous ways.

Engineers test a material’s strength by applying stress. During testing, the engineer is able to find the material’s weak spots. These weak spots can then be reinforced to make the material stronger. Similarly, cardiac stress tests measure the heart’s blood flow during exercise (stress) as opposed to during periods of rest. Doctors are able to detect some types of heart disease—weak spots in the heart muscle—after a patient undergoes stress testing. In nature, continual wind on a tree can cause it to become very strong.

This ever-present stress forces the tree to stay grounded, dig deep, and remain firmly planted in the ground.

Whether it is just enough to keep us motivated, or strong enough to expose our weak spots, stress can give us opportunities to improve ourselves.

Tip excerpted from Welcome The Rain: Choosing to See Beyond Life’s Storms by Michelle Sedas

Get a copy of Welcome The Rain: Choosing to See Beyond Life’s Storms

Using SpectraQuest Machinery Fault Simulators

The objectives of this course are:

• To develop an understanding of how to configure, setup, and design experiments using the SpectraQuest Machinery Fault Simulator (MFS) to support controlled vibration studies; and

• To provide tools and techniques for analyzing and correcting machinery malfunction

Please telephone (804) 261-3300 for details about the October course in Richmond VA

Find out more about SpectraQuest Vibration Analysis Training

Hotspots in electrical cabinets can be quickly pinpointed while circuits are energized and under load, using Mikron’s SpyGlass Lens and economical Viewports.

If you are in North America you can request a basic viewport with a magnetic backing for testing and all normal hardware for mounting at no cost.

Try a Mikron Infrared Viewport at no cost

Why is it Important to Monitor Total Harmonic Distortion?

Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is the ratio of the root mean square of the harmonic content to the root mean square value of the fundamental quantity. It is expressed as a percent of the fundamental. The presence of harmonic distortion in the applied voltage to a motor will increase electrical losses and decrease efficiency. These losses increase motor temperature, which could result in insulation damage and possible failure.

Tip provided by PdMA MCE Division
Tel: 813-621-6463
http://www.pdma.com

Download Advanced Spectral Analysis (PDF) from PdMA

“Kaizen” has been a buzzword in the manufacturing industry for quite a while, and has been proven successful as a process with some of the most productive manufacturers.

Unfortunately, these events have seen limited use when it comes to the maintenance process. This process can be a great benefit to the maintenance world if we make the effort to take advantage of it.

Kaizen’s are used to find quick actions to eliminate waste within a process by forming a team of those involved in the process, and dedicating them for a short period to find the wastes and actions to eliminate these wastes. When used to target the manufacturing process, they can save countless thousands of dollars in wastes.

In the maintenance world, it is often difficult as supervisors to have the same outlook on a problem as a maintenance technician or an operator. Even we grew up through the ranks, things change so quickly that they are often out of touch with the intricacies of the problem and the different processes attached to it.

As maintenance professionals, we often search for a root cause to a problem and implement a solution. However, these solutions can be less than effective if we don’t consider the other wastes within the process. These solutions also often have less than 100% success when the ones implementing the solution are not involved in the solution process.

One of the key elements that makes a Kaizen successful is the “buy-in” from the people who are working on the floor day-to-day. By forming a Kaizen with operations and maintenance personnel to analyze a maintenance process, the benefits can be astounding. Everything from operations/maintenance communication to preventative maintenance procedures can be enhanced by such a Kaizen. Even if your preventative maintenance program is effective in keeping your machinery running, a Kaizen can find actions that can eliminate thousands of dollars in waste associated with the performance of these maintenance actions.

Manufacturing production has seen great results from Kaizens and other quality initiatives, as maintenance professionals we must take the time to implement the same initiatives to increase our own efficiencies.

Reader tip provided by Jack Joyce
Reliability Engineer
Florence AL

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