Asset Management / Life Cycle Cost

Preventive Maintenance

Hydraulic Systems Hack! Preventative Maintenance Checklist

Plain and simple: there’s a lot that goes into a preventative maintenance program for hydraulic systems. While it’s a discipline that’s very basic and uncomplicated when you boil it down, there are many tests that need to be performed and plenty of steps where something can be done incorrectly, so it’s critical to the health of your machine that all are done regularly and properly. In order to do this, it’s important that both the system and hydraulic fluid are taken care of, as your fluid and systems are completely interdependent.

See More
Root Cause

RCPE: What vs. Who

So, the root cause problem elimination. It’s really just a structured approach to eliminate problems…that’s all it is. It’s what usually happens when people say they do root cause, in my experience, this is the morning meeting and someone says motor tripped-out costing production loss. So, what happens in the morning meeting, now I haven’t been to yours, but somewhere, the first thing people say is this a maintenance problem or is this an operations problem.

See More
Asset Management

Asset and Maintenance Managers: Key Decision Makers

Asset and maintenance managers are key decision makers in companies, yet the previously used tools for deciding on the right asset and maintenance strategy are inadequate. Rather than changing the way decisions are made, it is advisable to upgrade the tools that are used to make those decisions. Developments in asset management and maintenance show that the data necessary for such prognoses already exists in most companies.

See More
Engineering

Internal Clearance & Its Effect on Bearing Fatigue Life

Internal clearance is critical to bearing performance for multiple reasons. The amount of clearance influences the load distribution in a bearing, which ultimately affects bearing life. It also influences bearing running noise and vibration. In addition, it can influence whether the rolling elements move in a rolling or sliding motion.

See More
Maintenance Management

10 Steps to Achieve World-Class Manufacturing Maintenance Practices

Manufacturers worldwide know that Lean maintenance practices cut costs and improve production by minimizing downtime. But the reality is that for many U.S. manufacturers, up to 90% of the maintenance they perform is conducted on a reactive rather than proactive basis. Some blame the age of their equipment, the absence of spare parts and the rapid pace of manufacturing.

See More
Preventive Maintenance

Preventive Maintenance – Visible Change

Something that worked well for us is if you make a visual change in the project one thing is we talk about planning and scheduling in a reliability of projects. We talk about preventive maintenance and reliability projects. What could easily happen is that you start documenting inspection routes and somebody sits in a corner documenting inspection routes right? We tried to work on our planning and scheduling…it may not be very visual on the floor. So, sometimes it could be a good idea just to make sure it’s okay…let’s pick our top five or top 10 piece of equipment and let’s fix them up.

See More
Maintenance Management

10 Ways to Reduce Reactive Maintenance

Organizations that are predominantly reactive typically do not believe it is possible to perform work any other way. Overall, they are frustrated, which in turn impacts morale. Maybe it is a training issue or maybe it is a leadership issue. Either way, it is affecting worker productivity due to the majority of work being unplanned. Unscheduled work also affects job safety. When workers feel rushed, bad things happen. Lastly, those organizations with poor reliability typically waste 10 percent of their revenue.

See More
Asset Management

Systematizing Your Asset Management Operation

When it comes to asset management, most companies focus on maintenance, repair and operations (MRO). In theory, this makes sense. You would think that focusing on MRO would be the most effective way to improve equipment performance and reduce downtime. But in fact, it can compromise the effort. Too much focus on MRO prevents people from taking a step back and seeing the big picture.

See More
Maintenance Management

Reliability, Resilience and Damage

Current reliability calculations are predisposed to a single failure mode or mechanism and assume a constant failure rate, while research being carried out by the Center for Risk and Reliability at the University of Maryland implies that reliability is a function of the level of damage a system can sustain, with the operational environment, operating conditions and operational envelope determining the rate of damage growth.

See More

Join the discussion

Click here to join the Maintenance and Reliability Information Exchange, where readers and authors share articles, opinions, and more.

Get Weekly Maintenance Tips

delivered straight to your inbox