Industrial Maintenance Solutions

Knowledge of effective troubleshooting practices can go a long way toward getting equipment back on line quickly. Unfortunately, due to many reasons troubleshooting occupies too much of a technician's time. You might consider these six key elements to improve your troubleshooting skills: Understand the system Understand the problem and history Eliminate the obvious Develop possible causes and theories Eliminate causes, start with what is easy, or likely Validate and document the solution Firstly, if you do not understand the system and how it functions, you will be thrashing around in the dark. I found the best time to understand was while the equipment was running and producing product. Time spent studying the process while the equipment was running paid huge benefits when issues arose. It was always beneficial to listen closely to what the operator saw, heard, noticed, and did, just before the problem occurred. I learned quickly that a good operator was a great asset. ...

An effective maintenance system includes the following elements: Maintenance Policy Control of materials Preventive Maintenance Condition Monitoring Work Order Job planning Priority and backlog control Data recording system Performance measurement measures or indices Maintenance performance for a plant or an organization can be assessed through analysis of Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) plant data. Relevant parameters, measures or indices for specific plants can be identified. The performance over a period of time will show if it is improving, going down or being sustained. This will also help in knowing how well the objectives are being met. In addition, it will guide the areas which are strong and which need to be strengthened. Use of computers and dedicated software will certainly help in implementing this and the maintenance management system in general.

Following are the major functions of a maintenance department • Maintenance of installed equipment and facilities • Installations of new equipment and facilities • PM tasks – Inspection and lubrication of existing equipment • CM tasks – monitoring of faults and failures using appropriate techniques • Modifications of already installed equipment and facilities • Management of inventory • Supervision of manpower • Keeping records

A maintenance strategy or option means a scheme for maintenance, i.e. an elaborate and systematic plan of maintenance action. Following are the maintenance strategies that are commonly applied in the plants. • Breakdown Maintenance or Operate to Failure or Unplanned Maintenance • Preventive or Scheduled Maintenance • Predictive or Condition Based Maintenance • Opportunity Maintenance • Design out Maintenance