In today’s industrial environment, most turbomachinery has permanently installed machinery protection systems that incorporate vibration monitoring instrumentation. These systems typically utilize proximity probes to monitor both radial and thrust events (i.e., relative vibration measurements), case mounted seismic vibration transducers (i.e., absolute vibration measurements) and a shaft speed/phase reference measurement. By incorporating the preexisting machinery protection systems’ available measurement types into a routine vibration analysis program, technicians can determine specific fault types and machine condition based on signal amplitudes, frequency content and phase relationships between machine components. Additionally, these measurements can be acquired for machine commissioning purposes after mechanical repairs/inspections and utilized for machinery diagnostics with the use of multi-channel transient vibration analysis techniques.
The highly structured RCM process is a proven approach for determining what must be done to any physical asset to ensure it continues to do what you want it to do in the present operating context. The first step of the task selection process starts by assessing the effects of the failure mode and classifying them into one of four broad categories of consequences. The next step identifies a proactive task that reduces the consequences of failure to the extent that it is technically feasible. The criteria used to judge whether an on-condition maintenance task is technically feasible are fairly consistent across the various compliant RCM processes. Specifically, RCM2™ uses the following yardsticks:
This is the last installment of a two-part article that forms the basis of PhD research into the factors that prevent successful execution of asset management strategic initiatives.
Uptime Magazine caught up with Susan Lubell and Ricky Smith, authors of the recently published book, “Root Cause Analysis Made Simple.” They shared some of the most frequently asked questions regarding root cause analysis (RCA) that are asked by not only maintenance practitioners, but also their production operations teams and management, who they need to support them in their work.
A weekly collection of recommended articles and videos to boost your reliability journey. Right in your inbox
Uptime Magazine congratulates the following outstanding programs for their commitment to and execution of high quality Predictive Maintenance and Condition Monitoring Programs.
To read more about each company, download the Uptime Award Winners’ stories at: uptimeawards.com.
The development of high performance perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricants dates back a few decades. These developments were both necessitated and accelerated by aerospace and aviation markets where lubrication at the extremes of low and high temperatures was far more important than it would be in the average industrial environment. Even beyond aviation and aerospace, PFPEs have served admirably whenever the higher initial cost was easily overcome by the far more important need to consistently meet and even exceed performance expectations.
As a maintenance reliability professional, you have technical training of some kind, basic knowledge of asset management principles, technical knowledge of the equipment you manage and practical experience from years working in the field. These are the hard skills needed to perform your job. However, technical education, training and knowledge will not give you the skills you need to effectively manage a team of maintenance professionals. Along with hard skills, you need a very particular set of soft skills to excel in your role. These skills will lead to greater productivity and efficiency across the maintenance team. More importantly, they will lead to less stress, greater job satisfaction and ongoing career achievement for you. These soft skills are:
The current low oil market environment has forced many producers to look into efficient and cost-effective ways to do business. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of every engineer involved in the oil and gas sector, or any industry for that matter, to come up with innovative ways to analyze, understand and resolve problems plaguing their respective disciplines without incurring excessive costs.
Many of you are probably familiar with spot temperature guns, those infrared (IR) test tools where you point a laser beam at an object (e.g., motor, pump, fluorescent light ballast, air conditioning or heating duct, or your barbecued steak). Point, shoot and voila! You have a temperature on the LCD display.
Most people are aware that the State of Arizona has grown considerably over the past few decades. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the state’s population grew 40 percent from 1990 to 2000, second only to Nevada. Phoenix, the state’s largest city, stands today as the nation’s sixth largest city and is poised to be fifth soon. Interestingly, the five cities besting Phoenix in population all reside on great bodies of water along the East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast and Great Lakes, each with a river, port and shipping fleet. Contrast that to the metropolitan area of Phoenix with 4.4 million people living in a desert community with an annual average rainfall of less than eight inches. Ever wonder how that is even possible?
With the advancement of new technologies, the world is moving toward intelligent devices and assets. Although sensors have been around for a long time, they have always been local to a machine and do a specific job, without much communication to the outside world. But if these sensors can communicate with other sensors, machines and human beings over the Internet, then this setup can form an Internet of intelligent devices.
Part 1, published in Uptime Magazine’s December/January 2016 issue, discussed the initial implementation of Uptime Elements at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS), including an exercise in which our sites prioritized the elements to determine our path going forward as a company. As we wrapped up our exercise, the sites were challenged with taking this framework back to perform similar exercises and integrate the framework into their local strategies. Part 2 demonstrates how the adoption of a common framework translates at the site level and how the unique use of this framework begins to drive the culture at BMS.
ChatGPT with ReliabilityWeb: Find Your Answers Fast