Audio - 2 Minute Audio Tip - Mean Time to Restore

Availability is the probability that a system or component is performing its required function at a given point in time, or over a stated period of time when operated and maintained in a prescribed manner. In other words, the proportion of total time that an item of equipment is capable of performing its specified functions. The general observation of availability is:

Availability = Scheduled Uptime
********* Scheduled Uptime+Non-scheduled Downtime

By taking different measures for uptime and downtime, different availability measures are obtained.

Tip provided by SKF

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Take a hard look at your organization’s processes and procedures. Do you have any? Are they routinely utilized? Are they even followed? These could be critical in the event of an emergency. These could be critical for the day to day survival of your facilities maintenance or operations personnel and the equipment they maintain or operate.

Look at the recent aircraft landing in the Hudson River, 150 passengers and crew. No fatalities, when the crew was interviewed they all stated they followed established processes and procedures and had been thoroughly trained. Can you say the same for the personnel in your facility?

Detailed processes and procedures become ingrained in one’s day to day behavior when they have been trained and are held accountable to follow these processes and procedures. Imagine the impact on your organization if you armed your staff with proven processes and procedures on accomplishing maintenance and operating the equipment. Beats landing in the Hudson River without a plan, and hey…your feet won’t get wet.

Tip Provided by Dave Bertolini
People and Processes, Inc.
People and Processes, it’s more than a name; it’s all about the People and giving them sound Processes to follow.

Find out more about positioning your organization for success with Processes and Procedures

The current economic climate dictates that cost management is a critical activity for many companies and their managers. Maintenance is very often seen as an area where cost cutting targets can be easily and quickly achieved. Many maintenance managers take the view that this type of philosophy always ends up with increased costs in the future. This is not true in many cases.

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Lines of Resolution

Lines of resolution (LOR) describes the number of lines of information that appear in the spectrum (FFT) acquired by the vibration data collector. LOR can be calculated by dividing the overall frequency range collected (Fmax) by the number of lines selected

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LOR represent the amount of detail in the collected data. Without sufficient detail in the collected data, multiple peaks may merge together. This may prevent the correct identification of machinery faults and lead to false conclusions. It is very important that the correct LOR and sensors (accelerometers) be selected for the specific equipment being monitored

Tip provided by LUDECA, INC.
ALIGNMENT * VIBRATION * BALANCING

Find out more about LUDECA Vibration Analyzers with up to 102,400 Lines of Resolution

MARCON-2009
May 4-7, 2009
Knoxville, Tennessee

Now in the 13th year of presenting an annual conference in the vital area of maintenance and reliability, the University of Tennessee Maintenance and Reliability Center, together with Reliabilityweb.com, is again providing an opportunity to interact with attendees from both industry and academia; from both the private and the public sectors; from organizations just starting in maintenance and reliability to those well along in their journey.

This conference will allow the attendees to immerse themselves in ideas—some new, some reinforcing already known truths—to help them better prepare for meeting and beating the competition. In addition to the excellent papers, panel discussions and other formal exchanges, there will be plenty of time for networking and sharing with both old and new acquaintances. MARCON 2009 also includes an outstanding Exhibit Area of leading solution providers to give attendees a fully integrated view of what’s happening today in reliability and maintenance.

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Operating statistics are critical indicators to know when an item is failing; on critical systems, the measure cannot simply be calendar-based. The measurement is more accurate when it’s based on some operational statistics, whether hours, cycles, or trips. Doing a PM on a truck every three months is not beneficial unless all trucks run the same number of routes. Implementing hourly, mileage, or ton based inspections can identify areas of concern to help improve preventive maintenance schedules.  It can also help to identify problem areas in the operation if trucks running certain routes require more maintenance.

Reader Tip provided by Fred Hiers
Dimension Technology Solutions, Inc.

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The Most Common Mistake Made in RCM

In 1978 F. Stanley Nowlan and Howard F. Heap released a United Airline study that contained a new methodology called Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). This methodology quickly became the gold standard for risk assessment and risk management. As the years progressed, two major improvements happened:

1) Improvements in the use of advanced statistics to analyze machinery failure patterns shed new light on the nature of how machinery fails, and

2) Advancements in computer technology produced extremely powerful inspection methods that changed the face of assessing a component’s condition.

Very few practitioners of RCM kept up with either of these changes, and as such, the development of a comprehensive and efficient equipment maintenance plan (EMP) became a resource-consuming process.

This maintenance tip provides a brief in-site to a common problem when using a traditional RCM Analysis to develop a complete Equipment Maintenance Plan.  This tip mainly focuses on the problem experienced through the application of RCM without in depth knowledge of Predictive Technologies.

The core of RCM Analysis lies in the answer to seven questions.

1. What are the functions and associated desired standards of performance of the asset in its present operating context (functions)?

2. In what ways can it fail to fulfill its functions (functional failures)?

3. What causes each functional failure (failure modes)?

4. What happens when each failure occurs (failure effects)?

5. In what way does each failure matter (failure consequences)?

6. What should be done to predict or prevent each failure (proactive tasks and task intervals)?

7. What should be done if a suitable proactive task cannot be found (default actions)?”

Note question number six - inspection techniques that adequately identify defects during normal operation are preferred over those that require downtime. Less invasive is preferred to more invasive. This is one of the fundamental concepts of any well-defined maintenance strategy. It is a bit ironic that RCM prefers inspections during operations (the use of Condition Monitoring techniques) and it is this category that most faithful RCM facilitators have traditionally overlooked or misunderstood.

Example:  It is not uncommon for an RCM facilitation to result in Vibration Analysis or Ultrasonic Analysis as the primary strategy for determining an inadequate lubrication fault on a rolling element bearing. Some of these same RCM analyses have resulted in all lubrication tasks being replaced by “on-condition lubrication”.  This is incorrect.  While it is true that either of these two technologies can easily detect high frequency noise coming from an inadequately lubricated rolling element bearing, using either of these technologies to alert you to when a bearing needs lubricating is damaging to the bearing, and therefore, an incorrect strategy. The high frequency noise comes from metal to metal contact as a result of an insufficient lube film, therefore when you hear the noise, metal to metal contact is already happening and irreparable damage has already occurred.  The point of a lubrication strategy is to prevent this metal-to-metal contact from ever occurring. The correct strategy is to lube the bearings on a time-based interval with a properly designed and formatted procedure by a trained and qualified lubrication technician.

By Andy Page, CMRP
GP Allied

Find out more about the new GPAllied

Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools, offers an easy-to-read and comprehensive review of the most important current industrial improvement tools that every manufacturing or industrial executive, maintenance and operational manager or reliability engineer needs to know, including which tool to use for a particular type of manufacturing situation.

This book goes beyond a simple comparison of improvement tools to show how these tools can be implemented and supported. Instead, it offers a broader strategic explanation of how they relate to one another, and their relative strengths and weaknesses in the larger context of the entire enterprise. It demonstrates how to use these tools in an integrated way such that they are not just be viewed as another “program of the month” or management fad.

Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools guides the use of these individual management tools within the need for aligning the organization, developing leadership, and managing change, all for creating an environment where these tools will be more successfully applied.

Also see Ron Moore’s book Making Common Sense Common Practice