Anticipating Maintenance Intervention

Most all these people in attendance at this conference are either responsible for a factory's 'maintenance' program or represent manufacturers of hardware and software intended for use by maintenance resources.  

Too often, the 'process' of maintenance intervention becomes more important than the 'product' of improved maintenance intervention, or better asset reliability while continuously lowering resource costs.    

The act of gathering the data and performing analysis becomes the all too important activity versus the stated goal of improving reliability (availability) through the process of reducing, even eliminating root causes of failure. 

Determining the source of the problem and taking corrective action to eliminate the problem apparently is not considered to be a natural progression from identifying an issue and 'predicting' a failure. 

‘Real’ news flash. The future of data collection and data analysis lies in the domain of the internet of things and artificial intelligence.  

The basic questions, constantly, are:

• Do you prevent ongoing and future use of maintenance resources with your actions? 
• Is the prevention of ongoing and future use maintenance resources your strategy? 
• Is this goal built into your manufacturing location's operating strategy? 
• Is your strategy to prevent unscheduled maintenance intervention and minimize scheduled maintenance intervention?
• Is providing the capability to anticipate maintenance intervention via condition monitoring, notably vibration monitoring, your only preventive maintenance strategy? 
• Are there other functions or tactics that are part of the overall strategy to PREVENT future maintenance interventions?

An example:

• Do you have a toolroom? 
• Is it staffed? 
• Does the person responsible for distribution of tools, also repair or replace the tools before they are reissued? 
• Do mechanics come to the toolroom window and receive broken, non-working tools? 
• Is that person staffing the toolroom a highly skilled tool repair mechanic? 
• Is future maintenance intervention prevented by reducing the 'overhead' of a toolroom supplied with working, time saving tools in quantities sufficient to continue the work that has been planned for the day?
• Do mechanics come to the toolroom window and ask for tools that have not been made available? 
• Was resource time 'saved' by not providing a tool that might have saved time to perform a job using a different methodology than has been traditional performed, or even more important, was downtime reduced?  

An example of this is the hydraulic assisting tools that are used for removing (loosing) the bolts on the top separator on a digester, or on a turbine casing.  

Some of us remember 'slugging' those bolts loose. That task was not more efficient, nor more effective.

More importantly, is the lack of a toolroom, fully staffed and complete with the special tools required by your business, responsible for future maintenance intervention prevention? 

Likely not.  

Another example of examining the conventional processes to determine if use of maintenance resources can be prevented going forward. 

Do you have a training program for maintenance mechanics? 

Does it:

• provide constant, continuing skills training even after the mechanic has become a 'journeyman'?
• also involve behavioral modification?
• stress the concept of planning work, especially shutdown work?
• stress the need for improving information gathering, archiving and permit dispersing among your knowledge workers?
• stress the concept of 'team' effort with flexibility? 
• stress the concept of taking the time for quality?
• stress the importance of 'troubleshooting' and determining solutions for root causes of failure?

Has the use of maintenance resource intervention been prevented by not offering the skills and behavioral modification training necessary to maintain today's business site so it can be competitive in the global marketplace? How about in the domestic marketplace?

What was saved, then? Expenses?

Paraphrasing an old saying "if you think training is expensive you should try unskilled labor". 

Ask yourself if the intervention of maintenance resources was prevented? 

What about mechanical seals?

Mechanical seals were invented to prevent maintenance, e.g., the avoidance of the time to repack pumps and the cost and effort to replace shafts or shaft sleeves.

Industry has accepted mechanical seals to prevent future maintenance. Yet mechanical seals are only one part of a sealing system.  

What are the other parts? Clean seal water. Controlled seal water.

Here we are spending millions of dollars to prevent future maintenance using very expensive, precision-made seals only to use, by some, the dirtiest water available with which to lubricate them.

And, we use the same supply of water used everywhere else, so that when a large user opens a valve the entire system pressure drops causing all kinds of problems for the seals and their water supply system.   

Ever had to clean out a seal water system after the pressure has dropped below the pressure of the process side of the seal. 

Was future maintenance prevented?  

Ever had a motor bearing fail and wonder what caused the failure? Or, more appropriately, failures? Lack of lubrication? Motor running to hot? Under water? Looseness? Overloaded? Dirty?

Motors are some of the most reliable rotating equipment available to industry. The manufacturers have redesigned and redesigned in order to provide efficient, highly dependable, lighter weight, smaller profile motors for our use. 

We abuse them, we misuse them and we generally tend to ignore them except when they fail (and usually only briefly then). 

Yet they do fail. Why? 

Bearings, overloading, single phasing, distress caused by misalignment, etc. And what is our typical solution? More spares? Faster replacement? 

Do we prevent future downtime? Yes, it is reduced from some previously unacceptable level. Do we prevent future maintenance? 

Have you established a reward system for preventing future maintenance?

For example, are your lubricating specialists some of the most highly skilled and motivated people in the work force?

Do you allow the time to absolutely, positively align your rotating equipment and balance the rotating elements?

Do you have a procedure, a process...that routinely examines and responds to failures that have caused or could have caused production loses? With regular follow-up on assigned actions? 

Is cleaning considered to be one of the most critical prevention tasks to be performed?

Do those people that suggest ideas for preventing maintenance receive the same 'pat on the back' as those that do a 'good, quick job'?

The point is simply this...preventing maintenance has to become a mindset, a culture, a value system...a totally encompassing, methodology for operating, not JUST maintaining, if a manufacturing facility is to remain competitive in a 'global' market because the prevention of future maintenance is already practiced by best-in-class operations elsewhere.

Unfortunately, that prevention is not some magical 'event' that occurs without a lot of effort. 

Think about the term...preventive maintenance, the prevention of future maintenance. Not some term to be used only by maintenance groups, but a term to be thought of and understood by everyone involved in producing a product.

Remembering my past in the mills, telling people that, yes, we practice preventive maintenance, yet, in honesty, for every question above, the answer was, NO, not really.

Predicting maintenance is a vital element of preventing unnecessary future maintenance. 

One of the tactics used in achieving the goal, of preventing maintenance, is being able to 'control' your maintenance needs rather than responding or reacting to failures. 

Predictive maintenance is the data gathering element of preventing future maintenance, the data analysis function that allows you some time to take 'scheduled, controlled', permanent, corrective maintenance action. 

Predicting maintenance can be as sophisticated as state-of-the-art condition monitoring, on-line, real time or as simple as opening a coupling during a shutdown to determine wear, or distress, if any. 

That 'permanent' action taken, hopefully results in the prevention of reoccurrence, e.g., further maintenance.

Is that preventing maintenance? Of course.

Predicting maintenance, then, is a road sign to indicate impending failures, a 'process' to provide a product, namely, a solution to prevent failures and future maintenance. 

Additional action is required beyond prediction in order to prevent further maintenance. 

The next step in improvement is recognition that a future failure can be prevented if proper responsive action is taken from the analysis of the data supplied. 

The final step, in the scheme of preventing maintenance, is taking that proper responsive action.

Here is an example, your Predictive Maintenance Technician has taken data about a dryer roll bearing indicating an impending failure.  

You shut down and replace the bearing. Unscheduled outage time and the associated repair costs are avoided. However, your lube tech has discovered, through his own inspection, of his domain, that the circulating oil is full of metal filings as evidenced by the build-up of debris on the oil filters.

On the next scheduled shut down the mechanics open the inspection ports on the dryer gear frames and find that the idler gears are bottoming out against the drive gears causing rubbing (distress) between gears.  

The procedure to prevent further maintenance is followed.

A prescribed solution and an action plan are established.  

Someone is assigned the responsibility for follow-up. 

What is the preventive maintenance solution?  

In this case, it was a complete realignment of the machine, which over the course of twenty-five years had 'settled', 'shifted', moved. 

Can this happen to you? The specific example is irrelevant.  

The vital question is does the process or procedure exist for you to arrive at a preventive solution and action plan. 

Is well thought out planning and design a vital element of preventing maintenance?  

Some say that the prevention of maintenance begins with the scoping of a project. 

The Scandinavians are known to be very good at reducing future maintenance needs because they practice what is termed 'life cycle costing' on the front end of every capital project. 

That process absolutely requires the input of someone familiar with future maintenance needs for equipment. 

Some of us 'practice' a token maintenance needs analysis on projects.  

Usually, in practice, however, that input has never been given by someone who has the time to study the proposed equipment and its future needs. Most often, for most capital equipment installations that input is given by a project team member 'representing' maintenance, not necessarily guaranteeing the best input possible.

Can the design for the prevention of maintenance (reliability) be a profit generator? 

Do you buy an automobile, with nice looks, because you know it will fail in several months? Is the future cost of unreliability considered?  

Do you buy a paper machine, or a bleach washer line, or a recovery boiler, which costs less? Is the future cost of unreliability factored in the life cycle costs?

Do you purchase a motor, or a pump or a valve or an agitator or a flowmeter, based on acquisition price knowing it will fail in a few months or a few years? In fact, how about for the 'property book' life of the project equipment? 

Some say that is too costly. Maybe the long-term costs of failure and continuing maintenance, including labor and repair parts, should be considered during the procurement effort. 

What are the tasks of preventing future maintenance? Following are considerations. No claims that these are all the tasks.

PROPER SELECTION AND DESIGN

ROUTINE CLEANING

ROUTINE ADJUSTMENT OR CALIBRATION

 ROUTINE TIGHTENING

  PROPER LUBRICATION

  PROPER ALIGNMENT

           PROPER BALANCING

           PROTECTION FROM ABUSE

           PROTECTION FROM CORROSION 

How much future maintenance would be required if these issues were properly addressed?

How reliably would your assets perform if these issues were consistently followed? 

How much more effective and efficient would your resources be if these issues were important?

Author’s note: This was written, from personal musings, in the early 1990’s following attendance and participation at a industry conference and exhibit. While some words could be ‘modernized’ to reflect today’s more acceptable terminology the gist of the thoughts remains relevant to the issues then and now.