Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Written by Mike Sondalini as a memo to his younger self, the content has been adapted into an article format. Given the depth of detailed information contained, this article is better considered a technical document. It summarizes Mike’s key learnings from decades of research, consulting, and training in the Plant Wellness Way EAM methodology.
[Read more…]
We love great success stories: The wizard entrepreneur; the person who crusaded for a worthy cause; the champion athlete; the financial guru; the innovative business solution with astounding results; the failing firm that turned their fortunes around; the penniless emigrant whose wits made them wealthy. Those stories are inspirational. They challenge us to be better. They make us want to achieve more in our life roles and with our lives.
[Read more…]
The prime role of Maintenance is to reduce operating risk. Maintenance serves a business well when its use leads to lower production costs than using other choices that could have been taken. Too many managers think that they must maintain plant and equipment. Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. Maintenance is expensive and, as far as it is safe, use less costly answers. But if you do choose to do maintenance, then you ought to pick an operation’s maintenance strategy mix based totally on its effectiveness in delivering the least operating costs for the least maintenance cost.
[Read more…]
Acid Sparge And Acid Sparging. When you want to introduce acid directly into a liquid below its surface a sparge pipe is used. It is necessary to select materials that are compatible with the chemicals and the process. This article explains the issues to address when selecting the sparge pipe materials for injecting acid into a process reactor and what to consider when designing and installing the sparge pipe into such vessels or tanks.
[Read more…]
A lot of people mistakenly think that maintenance scheduling is maintenance planning. They are not the same. There is a big difference between the two functions. The job description might say Maintenance Planner and Scheduler, but in reality they are two roles. Maintenance Planning needs to be done before you can do maintenance scheduling. One person may be tasked with the maintenance planning and scheduling functions, but each has its own duties and responsibilities.
First comes maintenance planning, and then you do maintenance scheduling. A maintenance work pack must be developed and completed in full first, so that comprehensive scheduling can be done using the work pack.
[Read more…]
Making great choices that get world class reliability for your company is what you do with Plant Wellness Way Enterprise Asset Management methodology.
Air Mover And Air Amplifier problems! Touted as great maintenance savers and a very efficient means of moving large volumes of air, they can in fact be extremely energy hungry. Based on using a small amount of compressed air to draw through a large amount of entrained air they can cause huge energy waste if an air compressor is run in order for the air mover to operate. It is wasteful to install an air mover on a plant air system unless the air compressor is always running well under peak demand.
[Read more…]
Budgets represent plans or expectations for the future! They are a means to plan, forecast, coordinate and control the activities needed to achieve the business’ objectives. The budget document contains the amount of money that has been allocated to achieve those goals and the timing of its spending. Budgets cover the planned use of men, materials, external resources and management effort that is expected to be sufficient to hit the targets. Once the budget is finalised it becomes a tool to feedback how the actual progress is going compared to what was expected. [Read more…]
Tracking belts on bucket elevators and short belt conveyors. Flexible, flat belts are used on bucket elevators and belt conveyors to carry loose, bulk product. The belt is stretched tight from head drum to tail drum and the friction generated on the turning head drum is used to drive the belt and carry the product. The belt must run true on the end pulleys (drums) and stay within the sides of the equipment structure. If the belt runs off the drums, buckets will be destroyed and belt edges frayed. In the worst cases the belt runs off the pulleys resulting in a breakdown repair. Proper and long- lived tracking of belts is critical for trouble-free operation. [Read more…]
Bag house dust bag selection. The dust bags within a bag house must handle the process conditions they experience. The choice of bag materials is usually based on the cheapest fabric that will handle the conditions for a minimum of 3 to 5 years’ operation. The selection of the bag materials requires a good understanding of the process temperature, moisture content, chemical reactions with the bag fibre, dust loading effects and behaviour of the dust bags in operation. [Read more…]
One method to clean particles from a liquid or gas is to pass it through a filter. The filter is a screen that traps and holds the contaminants on its surface while allowing the fluid to twist its way past the build-up and screen. The screen can be used until the back- pressure from the collected contaminants choke it so severely that the fluid flow falls drastically. At that point the screen must be cleaned. This article explains how membrane and leaf filtration processes work and the critical factors that produce successful filtration results. [Read more…]
In some process situations, mechanical level sensors are the best choice for the environment or are stipulated by law (as in boilers). To operate these devices requires the physical contact of the process being measured. They provide solid indisputable proof that a process condition has been achieved. Provided the mechanical mechanism is connected and working properly, these devices provide the most believable proof that a level in a vessel, tank or silo is actually what the instrument is saying it is. [Read more…]
A computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) is the maintenance department’s most important tool. It provides insight into the behaviour of the facility’s individual assets, i.e. the plant and equipment. For a CMMS to be of use it must be used as an information ‘bank’ that can be investigated. There are 9 really good reasons to use a CMMS. And each one of them alone makes a CMMS worth having. [Read more…]
When oil in gearboxes become contaminated there is a rapid loss of bearing operating life. It is critical that metal particles, dirt, sand, oxidisation products, etc be removed from the oil before they gouge and tear-up the finely toleranced machine parts. Oil replacement, contamination prevention and oil filtration are common practices religiously adopted by the best in the equipment reliability management business. This article explains the fine requirements for successful contamination control to insure long trouble- free equipment life. [Read more…]