Ever walk into a room, look around and conclude that all is well. But then, someone picks up papers, a briefcase, or some other object from the floor, right where you were about to walk. You hadn’t seen it. Your vision is fine, so how could you have missed it? It makes you wonder how many other little things you missed in other places, too.

The next step that we talked about was, “How did the component fail…the grid coupling?” This is something that a lot of times, once we start doing this, for a grid coupling, if we set up a PM for this you can probably step straight to what kind of inspections would you do and you guys could tell me in three minutes and they’re probably pretty much right on. But I’m using something simple because I didn’t know who’s going to be in the class and what kind of technical skills you guys have. But using something simple and showing you the steps of how we break this down.  I think if we say how would you inspect a coupling that’s going on the run or doing what kind inspections do we need to do and shut down. I think you guys can tell me that. I’ll show you steps anyways so you can see the thinking process using something fairly simple.

In the June/July 2016 Uptime article, “Condition Monitoring and MEMS Accelerometers: What You Need to Know,” several attributes of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) accelerometers were presented that make the technology compelling for condition monitoring applications. This article reviews data demonstrating the state of MEMS technology development and performance levels by comparing it to a commercially available piezoelectric (PZT) condition monitoring accelerometer.

Vibration analysis, properly done, allows the user to evaluate the condition of equipment and avoid failures. Maintenance personnel can minimize unplanned downtime by scheduling needed repairs during normal maintenance shutdowns. How can you interpret — at a glance — the comprehensive spectrum information available? In layman’s terms, here is how to interpret the vibration signature of rotating equipment. You can learn to recognize misalignment, a defective bearing, bent or loose parts — and tell them apart.

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.

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.