Industrial Maintenance Solutions

By  Bryan Christiansen,  Limble CMMS. Source : maintworld.com Effective maintenance of equipment is a critical factor in delivering quality operations that provide timely resources at a minimal cost. However, those in the maintenance field understand that equipment reliability does not come easy.  Organizations need to set quality benchmarks to measure the current effectiveness and predict future performance and use the data obtained to understand where to make improvements.   One way to do this is by using different maintenance metrics to understand the equipment performance. These metrics are very important as they can mean the difference between achieving the overall business goals and explaining how unexpected breakdowns caused yet another production delay.   Maintenance Metrics You Should Be Measuring What are the maintenance metrics? There are two categories of maintenance key performance indicators which include the leading and lagging indicators....

Formulating a digital strategy is not easy, but these guidelines can help you get off the sidelines and into the game. By Eitan Vesely and Deddy Lavid (Ben lulu), Presenso It is not uncommon for organizations to struggle with many issues related to digitalization. With the hype around digitalization at fever pitch, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the multitude of options available in the marketplace. But the strongest contributing factor to implementation challenges is a failure to devise a strategy for an extensive period of uncertainty. Formulating a Maintenance 4.0 strategy is not easy. An aggressive strategy based on overinvesting in unproven technologies or a conservative strategy of merely waiting on the sidelines are unrealistic options. Guiding principles The seven guiding principles for a Maintenance 4.0 strategic plan are: 1. Invest based on the business case The primary obligation to shareholders does not change just because of the changes occurring within t...

WRITEN BY: Erik Hupje, Roadtoreliability.com Whether you are developing a new maintenance program. Or improving the maintenance program for an existing plant. All reliable maintenance programs should be based on the following Principles of Modern Maintenance: Principle #1: Accept Failures Principle #2: Most Failures Are Not Age-Related Principle #3: Some Failures Matter More Than Others Principle #4: Parts Might Wear Out, But Your Equipment Breaks Down Principle #5: Hidden Failures Must Be Found Principle #6: Identical Equipment Does Not Mean Identical Maintenance Principle #7: “You Can’t Maintain Your Way To Reliability” Principle #8: Good Maintenance Programs Don’t Waste Your Resources Principle #9: Good Maintenance Programs Become Better Maintenance Programs As a Maintenance & Reliability professional, you must understand these principles. You must practice them. Principle #1: Accept failures Not all failures can be prevented by maintenance. Some fail...

  BY LUIS INFANTE & RODOLFO ALVARADO. A high energy pump at a water injection station in El Furrial, Venezuela exhibited extremely high vibration levels prior to an overhaul. It then suffered a catastrophic failure during startup following overhaul. The hydrodynamic bundle, rotor, and drive end (DE) bearing suffered damage.   High energy pump for boiler feed water. Courtesy of Flowserve. This centrifugal pump is a 3,000 HP, double-case volute, boiler feed water pump type. It has nine stages, outputs 750 gpm of water with suction pressure 1800 psi and discharge pressure 5250 psi. Rated speed was increased from 6000 to 6600 RPM to enhance the hydraulic performance. However, the pump’s actual discharge pressure was about 4,500 psi, well below the target value of 5,000 psi. The coupling was reportedly poorly fitted. The increased RPM created rotordynamic concerns of getting closer to a critical speed, thus the operator wanted to know about the synchronous regime. The...

BY AMIN ALMASI. Surge can be a major challenge for turbo compressors. Operation in the surge area will result in instability, exposing the machine to destructive stresses and forces, high vibration, and even serious damage. Surge during shutdown (trip) has been reported for many turbo-compressors. This is particularly possible if the machine operates at high head and low flow, immediately before the trip, when the operating point can move toward the surge line and even pass it during coast-down (when the turbo-compressor reduces flowrate). When a turbo-compressor experiences a serious alarm, an emergency shutdown is usually initiated. But an immediate shutdown could result in a surge. In this case, the surge happens shortly after the shutdown (trip) and at a high energy level. This could be a surge at a high head (operating point could pass the surge line at high head). In many cases, there are advantages to not removing the driving power from the turbocompressor (tripping) immediately...