Articles

Does Your EAM System Ensure Work Safety?

Most enterprise asset management (EAM) systems just touch upon the safety aspect by registering hazards involved or precautions to be taken while working in a risky environment. But, how do they enforce work safety? There are still so many accidents and incidents in the industry and all investigation findings point to missing safety measures, ignorance, or bypassing safety rules or procedures. What can be done to ensure a safe work environment for everyone? How can a company enforce control of work? One single accident is enough to do away with all financial benefits received through optimized asset management or predictive maintenance to increase asset availability. Asset availability is important, but not at the cost of safety!

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

A Strong Approach to Reliability in the Refinery & Petrochemical Industry

PKN ORLEN operates six refineries (daily crude oil processing 728,000 barrels) and the region’s largest network of service stations located in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany and Lithuania. Crude oil is processed into gasolines, diesel oil, fuel oil and aviation fuel. PKN ORLEN is also a leading producer of petrochemicals, with its products used as basic feedstocks by a large number of chemical companies.

Asset Condition Management

Varnish Mitigation: Effective Fluid Analysis and Varnish Removal Options

One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with lubrication systems is that you can’t see what is happening inside of them. Taking an oil sample allows you to gather information about the trace amounts of wear metals, oxidation deposits, additive chemicals and other contaminants that tell you about the system. Just like blood tests don’t always tell a doctor the whole story, traditional oil analysis testing doesn’t give the entire story when it comes to varnish.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

How to Optimize Big Data in Factory Maintenance

If you work in any aspect of manufacturing today, there is no doubt you are aware of a significant revolution underway. It is a new era for the industry, dramatically evident when you take a look around any reasonably maintained and updated manufacturing facility. It no longer reflects the “gritty side” of the industry: dark, dirty and dangerous oversized rust belt garages that are dreary to visit, let alone work in. Instead, most forward-thinking facilities today are clean, bright and efficient workplaces that use, or are starting to use, some of the most cutting-edge technological advances available today in order to get ahead of the competition.

Asset Condition Management

7 Ways to Ensure Better Maintenance of Electric Motors

Electric motors may look like any other electrical component, but they have a massive impact on the company’s profitability and productivity. As such, it is critical to perform regular preventive maintenance checks on electric motors¹ to ensure they always perform at their peak.

For starters, prepare a checklist that focuses on examining and monitoring the motor and electrical wiring. This allows you to detect and identify potential problems that the motor may face and lets you address these problems ahead of time. This will drastically bring down unexpected repair expenses.

Leadership for Reliability

The 5 Habits of Great Reliability Engineers

Editor’s Note:

The author’s fascination with technology dates back to his youth. His father was a blacksmith, an engineer of metal work, and was instrumental in helping the author discover his love of creation through construction. He also passed on his passion for airplanes, which led the author to a career in aeronautical engineering, where he first encountered aspects of reliability. A subsequent career in reliability guided him along a path of confusion, frustration, curiosity, learning and change. Although still going through those stages constantly, they taught the author the five habits presented in this article. Now, those five habits make achieving meaningful change that much easier. They have been so effective, in fact, that it prompted the author to pass them on to Uptime readers.

Asset Management

Q&A with Industry Leader Dr. Carla Boehl

Dr. Boehl, Portuguese Australian, is a Chartered Engineer Fellow of Engineers Australia and asset management professional with over 20 years’ experience within rail, utilities and mining industries. Dr. Boehl recently shared her thoughts and experience on strategic asset management, machine learning and automation with Uptime magazine.

Asset Condition Management

Will IIoT Technologies Replace Factory Maintenance Workers?

The idea that smart factory technology will displace humans has generated considerable discussion. In a July 2016 report, McKinsey & Company estimates that “59 percent of all manufacturing activities could be automated.”¹ In an article that can be applied to the field of industrial analytics, the MIT Technology Review² suggests that unlike past experience, technologies are providing solutions that are more humanlike and could, therefore, eliminate jobs that so far have withstood automation.

Leadership for Reliability

Common Sense: Is It Common?

The phrase, “It’s just common sense,” is used quite often to describe conclusions or circumstances that are obvious to most people, at least those within earshot. However, W. Edwards Deming, a well-respected management guru and quality expert, famously said, “There’s no such thing as common sense. If there were, it would be common.” So, at least from Deming’s perspective, you have the answer to this article’s question. Moreover, you’ve probably seen any number of instances where common sense just doesn’t seem to have been applied, each instance lending credibility to Deming’s opinion. That said, let’s explore this further and perhaps try to begin to understand why he said this and why so often there are instances where common sense is not applied. Maybe it’s just not as common as it should be.

Leadership for Reliability

The Human Factor in Asset Management

Many companies have started, are in the middle of, or have already finished an operational excellence exercise. Although these companies are in different industries, the strategy for optimizing their technical departments (e.g., maintenance, engineering, utilities, facilities) is about 90 percent the same. So, the approach does not change much in the different industries or in the different departments.

Work Execution Management

No Part Left Behind: 4 Simple Rules for Efficient Inventory Management

Managing your inventory levels correctly can mean the difference between machinery that has broken down and is slowing down the assembly line or a smoothly running machine that is boosting productivity.

In today’s competitive industry, no company can afford downtimes and delays in production due to missing parts. With increased competition, companies depend on their supply chain to be leaner, healthier and faster than the competition.