Tips

SAP - The Full Functional Location Set-Up

Often, when moving to SAP, many organizations do not take advantages of the full Functional Location set-up. Remember, SAP is a powerful tool and we need to take advantage on the front end to

...Level 2: Three (3) Character field for Plant on the site. A Business Unit can have multiple Plants in one Plant Site. Example: BU 1 has Plant A, Plant B, and Plant C. Example, for multiple plants on a site use 001, 002, 003. For our plant we will use 001Level 3: Two (2) Character field for Unit. Many plants can have multiple units. Use this field to identify the specific unit. For our purpose we will use monomer as our unit (MO)Level 4: Two (2) Character field for Process Step or Department. Our example is distillation (DS)Level 5: Twelve (12) Character field for Position, Instrument indicator or other miscellaneous data. Use of all twelve characters is not mandatory. Any additional information involved should be defined through the use of additional characters "-" within the defined field. For our purposes we will use pump P2334 (P2334).

Asset Condition Management

Eliminating Pipe Stress - “TOOL BOX TRAINING”

Maintenance Supervisors should use this tool to train their maintenance techs, welders and contractors - 10-20 minutes - Post them in the Maintenance Shop after use:

Pipe stress is caused by misalignment of the mating surfaces of two pipe flanges creating abnormal internal stress of pump bearings, seals, motor bearings, couplings, and can possibly change the displacement of a pump.

General Rules which: (if you want to stop self induced failures)1. Pipe Flanges attached to pumps must be aligned where the gap does not exceed the thickness of two gaskets or tolerance established by your company's engineering standards.2. Pipe flange bolts must drop in without assistance.3. Cable pullers, come-a-longs, or long bars should not be used when aligning a flange which is connected to a pump.4. Validate the elimination of pipe stress by following the procedure below.- caused by seals leaking- caused by static vibration- caused by overloading while static- caused by inadequate lubrication caused by abnormal loading (seal leaking)- caused by misalignment and excessive loading Ensure your contractors follow the same process to eliminate pipe stress. Pipe stress elimination should be validated during commissioning of new pump.1. Align the two shafts between your pump and driver (typically an electric motor) to tolerance recommended by the equipment vendor or your company's engineering standards.2. Validate misalignment to insure motor and pumps shafts are aligned to specification.3. Disconnect the outlet flange on the pump.4. Revalidate laser alignment of shafts.5. If alignment has moved then you have pipe stress. Do the same for the inlet flange.6. Make corrections as stated in the following procedures to eliminate pipe stress.- The Ricky Smith Method as learned from Dan Turner (my maintenance and engineering manager at Exxon during the 1970s)

1. Bolt flanges to pump and insert blind flange gasket along with two regular flanges between pump and mating flanges. (cover the hole between welding area and inside the pump)
2. Attached welding ground to flange. (do not attach ground lead to pump; welding group must always be attached to flange) Warning: failure to accomplish this one task properly will cause bearing failure by "electric arcing" which is a failure mode of bearings.
3. Tack weld flange into place reverse welding each tack.
4. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
5. Reverse stitch weld on opposite sides on the flange similarly used for cast iron welding.
6. After initial reverse stitch weld then weld normally using electrode recommended by the American Welding Society (typically E-6010 5P or GTAW.
7. After root pass; weld in any direction you wish.
8. Allow to cool and then disconnect flange, replace gaskets and;
- Validate bolts will drop into holes without pry bar
- Validate gap between flanges is no more than two gaskets thick.

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Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

Root Cause Analysis Principles

1) If you do not find and correct the root cause of a failure it will hit you (likely in a vulnerable spot) again!

2) If the same undesired event happens more than once, you have a programmatic deficiency.

3) The root cause is defined by the culture or philosophy of the organization seeking the root cause.

4) Root cause analysis starts out as a reactive process and after it is fully understood, it becomes a proactive process.

5) If an organization seeks answers honestly and with integrity, the root cause can always be found.

6) Dereliction of duty, or lack of attention, are the only personnel performance problems which are not programmatic in nature.

7) The use of disciplinary action as a learning experience does not instill a sense of ownership or quality.

8) Use experts to solve technical problems; use peer-to-peer interviews and peer review committees to solve personnel performance issues.

9) In simply satisfying the need to be needed, you will prevent more personnel problems than any other act.

Tip provided by: Jack Nicholas Jr., Author of Root Cause Analysis

Tips

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SAP - The Full Functional Location Set-Up

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Eliminating Pipe Stress - “TOOL BOX TRAINING”

Undetected Failure

Root Cause Analysis Principles

Don’t forget to label your infrared Inspection Window…