MRO Decemeber

TWO TROUBLESHOOTERS SHARE TIPS ON CONVEYOR DRIVE ISSUES IS THERE A DOWNSIDE TO CONDITION-BASED MAINTENANCE? PROOF THAT OIL-SHEAR BRAKES ARE THE WAY TO GO Vol. 33, No. 6

December 2017

DEBUNKING 10 MYTHS ABOUT RELIABILITY CENTERED MAINTENANCE WHAT HAPPENS INSIDE A CHEMICAL PLANT’S TURNAROUND

At Your

SERVICE Why every component should be reviewed for optimal maintainability

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Machinery & Equipment MRO

MAINTENANCE, REPAIR AND OPERATIONS

DECEMBER 2017

Volume 33, No. 6 Established 1985 www.mromagazine.com www.twitter.com/mromagazine Rehana Begg, Editor 416-510-6851 rbegg@annexweb.com Contributors John Lambert, L.(Tex) Leugner, Douglas Martin, Carroll McCormick, Peter Phillips, Jeff Smith Jim Petsis, Publisher 416-510-6842 jpetsis@mromagazine.com Jay Armstrong, Sales Manager 416-510-6803 jarmstrong@mromagazine.com Mark Ryan, Art Director Barb Vowles, Account Coordinator 416-510-5103 bvowles@annexbusinessmedia.com Beata Olechnowicz, Circulation Manager 416-442-5600 x3543 bolechnowicz@annexbusinessmedia.com Tim Dimopoulos, Vice-President tdimopoulos@annexbusinessmedia.com Ted Markle, COO tmarkle@annexweb.com Mike Fredericks, President & CEO Machinery & Equipment MRO is published by Annex Business Media, 111 Gordon Baker Road, Suite 400, North York, ON Canada M2H 3R1; Tel. 416-442-5600, Fax 416-510-5140. Toll-free: 1-800268-7742 in Canada, 1-800-387-0273 in the USA. Printed in Canada ISSN 0831-8603 (print); ISSN 1923-3698 (digital) PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT #40065710 CIRCULATION email: blao@annexbizmedia.com Tel: 416.442.5600 ext 3552 Fax: 416.510.5170 Mail: 111 Gordon Baker Road, Suite 400, North York, ON M2H 3R1 Subscription rates.

Canada: 1 year $61.50, 2 years $97.95. United States: 1 year $105.

Elsewhere: 1 year $120 Single copies $10 (Canada), $16.50 (U.S.), $21.50 (other). Add applicable taxes to all rates.

On occasion, our subscription list is made available to organizations whose products or services may be of interest to our readers. If you would prefer not to receive such information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above.

Annex Privacy Officer privacy@annexbizmedia.com, 800-668-2374 No part of the editorial content of this publication may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permission © 2017 Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions.

I know a guy, who knows a guy...

M

aintenance and reliability programs are like any other continuous improvement initiative. Success depends on a structured process that requires ongoing streamlining and improvement.

The idea points to a basic principle found in Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Points: “Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service.” He knew that without structured decision-making tools companies are at a disadvantage and that the best use of a workforce’s resources and time positively affects the payoff.

Consider the story of PT Vale Indonesia, the largest nickel laterite operation in the world. Back in 2004, when James K. Gowans was chief operating officer and senior vice president, the nickel operation had a maintenance system of sorts.

When Gowans took a close look at the mine’s operations, it revealed that supply chain challenges were slowing things down and that employees were “breaking rules” to bring operations back online. The mine was running at around 131-million pounds of production a year – well below the targeted 150-million pounds a year.

Gowans wanted to know why. Why was the mine not reaching its potential?

Why were the systems not managed properly?

To help answer these questions, he enlisted his go-to guy for reliability.

Uptime increased. After several years of missing the mark, the mine went from “131-million pounds to 154.7-million pounds after one year, then 169-million pounds in the second year and 175-million pounds in the third,” recalls Gowans, who is now president and CEO of Arizona Mining Inc., a Vancouver-based mineral exploration and development company.

Success came from running the operations “more smoothly, more effectively,” said Gowans. “Once you realize that this makes a big difference, you really get on the bandwagon to push the concepts and you start looking for more efficiencies.

It becomes a knee-jerk reaction to how you’re operating. After a while it becomes part of you DNA.” As if such out-and-out endorsement of the merits of a reliability program isn’t enough, Gowans says that with every new venture he takes on, he automatically assesses whether it is operating efficiently.

Gowans’ point person for reliability is none other than contributor James Reyes-Picknell. In this issue, we asked Reyes-Picknell to draw from field experience to dispel a few myths and misconceptions about reliability centered maintenance (“10 Myths About RCM,” page 24). In drawing attention to best practices, maintenance practitioners are able to consider where their facilities’ shortcomings are and fill in the gaps.

Word to the wise – the tactics for improving equipment availability are deceptively easy to follow, as Gowans acknowledges: “To be honest, it’s brutally simple… Simple to say, hard to do.”

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Machinery & Equipment MRO

December 2017

in this issue

Check, Replace, Renew / 36 What happens inside a turnaround.

Departments Editor’s Notebook / 3 Industry Newswatch / 6 Business Briefs / 9

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COVER STORY – At Your Service In order to have truly maintainable assets, every component and system should be reviewed for optimal maintainability.

MRO Quiz - Lubrication / 22 Maintenance 101 / 32 What’s Up Doug? / 34 Spare Parts / 42 Mr. O, The Practical Problem Solver / 42

Product News Conveyor Drive Through / 12

Life Expectancy / 16

Two conveyor aficionados share their expertise on conveyor drive issues.

The upside and downside of condition-based maintenance.

What’s New in HVACR / 39

What’s New in PPE / 40

What’s New in Ultrasound / 40

Make It or Brake It / 20

10 Myths About RCM / 24

A concrete block builder explores brake options and chooses oil shear technology.

Unlearn misconceptions around reliability centered maintenance.

Cover

Getty Images: anandaBGD

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2017 Komatsu makes A-list for climate and water

Komatsu Ltd., a manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, utilities, forest machines and industrial machinery, has been awarded a position on this year’s A List for climate and water by CDP, the non-profit global environmental disclosure platform.

The A-List is awarded to companies that are recognized as international leaders of managing climate change and water.

Based on the requests of 803 institutional investors with assets of over US$100 trillion, CDP has published A-D scores across climate, water and forests for over 3,000 major companies.

The 2017 A List is comprised of 160 global companies, of which 27 companies have been recognized for environmental leadership on climate and water.

Komatsu has conventionally positioned environmental activities as one of top management priorities. In the mid-range management plan, which began in April 2016, Komatsu has also defined ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) as one of focused efforts and implemented aggressive activities. Komatsu has been making efforts to achieve high-level energy savings of production sites through IoT-based “connectivity.”

For more information, visit https://home.komatsu.

THE ROLE OF PNEUMATICS IN IIOT Aventics, a leading manufacturer of pneumatic components, joined Lemgo, Germany-based research and development centre Centrum Industrial IT (CIIT) as a strategic partner over a year ago.

Since then, Aventics has already finished two projects at the CIIT. Together with the local Fraunhofer Institute, Aventics conducted a study as to how the company can optimally implement the Industrial Internet of Things.

“Fraunhofer has changed our view of the market with pneumatics components to include economic aspects, moving more towards energy-efficiency, preventive maintenance, and increased production availability,” says Gerecke.

In a second project, Aventics collaborated with Boge Kompressoren, introduced by CIIT. “The best result comes from consumers and producers commu-

nicating directly, as is already common practice in the energy industry with intelligent grids.”

Similarly, Boge hoped to develop an intelligent compressed air network with its compressors, and Aventics had the perfect pneumatics. “The idea came about in November 2016, and the companies were already able to present a joint demonstration at the Boge booth at the 2017 Hannover Messe. “The CIIT specialists provided great support in integration.”

“The Industrial Internet of Things focuses on connecting all components and systems in the industrial environment.

This is a challenge that can’t be tackled by a single person or company, but instead requires a co-operative effort,” says Wolf Gerecke, Director Strategic Product Management, Aventics. “Ultimately, all components should be able to commu-

OBIT: BILL ROEBUCK, FORMER EDITOR OF MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT MRO William Thomas “Bill” Roebuck, former editor of Machinery and Equipment MRO, passed away on Sunday, November 12, 2017. He was 70.

Bill joined Machinery and Equipment MRO in 1985 as its founding editor and associate publisher. For three decades, Bill provided content for the magazine, raising the platform as a go-to publication for improving the practical knowledge, effectiveness and productivity of maintenance professionals in Canada’s manufacturing, utilities and resource industries. Bill also sourced and provided all news and feature content for the MRO’s website, www.mromagazine.com.

As an award-winning editor and writer, Bill also edited and wrote in the fields of industrial maintenance, electrical engineering, foodservice and hospitality, personal computing and technology, finance and automotive.

A Celebration of Bill’s Life was held at Smith’s Funeral Home, Burlington, Ont., on November 25, 2017. nicate with each other. This means we need environments where companies can work together to test and research – and CIIT is perfect for this.”

Follow-up projects with CIIT are already in the pipeline: anomaly detection at the component level and concepts for integrating components of different makes into networked systems. The CIIT and the adjacent SmartFactoryOWL offer the ideal developing and testing environment for the upcoming projects.

For more information, visit www.aventics.com.

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DANFOSS NAMES NEW HEAD OF SALES FOR ITS U.S. AND CANADA HEATING BUSINESS Danfoss, a leading manufacturer of high-efficiency electronic and mechanical components and controls for air-conditioning, heating, refrigeration, industri- Richard al, and water systems, has Hatcher, appointed Richard Hatcher Danfoss as its new head of sales for head its heating business. Hatch- of sales er’s responsibilities will ex- - heating business tend throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Mexico and Latin America.

Hatcher, who previously was vice president of sales for Danfoss’ HVAC drives business, will now be responsible for advancing the company’s activities and portfolio for the heating market – including energy-saving hydronic controls and electric heating solutions.

Prior to joining Danfoss in 2008, Richard spent nine years with General Electric where he held various leadership positions in HVAC and drives sales. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Kentucky.

For more information, visit www.danfoss.com.

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SIEMENS ANNOUNCES STRUCTURAL CHANGES Siemens is responding to the rapidly accelerating structural changes in the fossil power generation market and the commodity sector. A consolidation plan for the Power and Gas Division (PG), the Power Generation Services Division (PS) and the Process Industries and Drives Division (PD) aims to increase capacity utilization at production facilities, drive efficiency and enhance expertise by bundling resources.

According to the plans presented to the employee representatives, a total of around 6,900 jobs worldwide are to

Janina Kugel, Chief Human Resources Officer and member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG.

be cut in the affected divisions over a period of several years. Roughly half of these jobs are in Germany.

Outside Germany, the restructuring measures will eliminate a total of just over 1,100 jobs in European countries. In countries outside Europe, another 2,500 jobs will be affected, including 1,800 jobs in the consolidation of production facilities and administrative functions in the U.S. “The cuts are necessary to ensure that our expertise in power-plant technology, generators and large electrical motors stays competitive over the long term.

That’s the goal behind the measures we’re taking. However, we can reach this goal only if we find answers to the worldwide overcapacities and the resulting price pressure,” said Janina Kugel, Chief Human Resources Officer and member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG. For more information, visit www.siemens.com.

GEO-MAPPING TOOL FOR ONTARIO’S MANUFACTURING SECTOR The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for FedDev Ontario, announced an investment up to $100,000 in the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing to expand its Geo-Mapping Program (GMP).

FedDev Ontario’s non-repayable contribution is being made through the Investing in Regional Diversification Initiative.

Manufacturing firms, universities, colleges and research institutions will be able to identify manufacturing companies seeking to partner on research projects, to arrange co-op placements for existing students and to improve employment opportunities for graduating students. The tool has the potential to link academic groups with businesses that would benefit from research and development capabilities, gives domestic and international investors access to firms’ information, and allows businesses looking to locate or expand to find potential manufacturing real estate and opportunities in Ontario.

The Government of Canada reports that this project reflects its commitment to attracting investment, helping the manufacturing sector increase research and development in order to become more competitive, and supporting skills training and opportunities for the manufacturers of tomorrow.

For more information, visit www.FedDevOntario.gc.ca.

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Business Briefs News and views about companies, people, product lines and more.

• Chicago – The winners of the 2018 AHR Expo Innovation Awards, the annual competition recognizing some of the most inventive HVACR products, systems and technologies will be featured at the 2018 AHR Expo, which takes place Jan. 22-24, in Chicago.

• Frankenthal – Dr. Stephan Timmermann will become Chairman of the Board of

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Management of KSB Aktiengesellschaft as of November 13, 2017. This decision was taken today by the Supervisory Board of the pump and valve manufacturer. His last position was for ten years as a member of the Board of Management of MAN Diesel & Turbo SE. • Plymouth, MI – C&U Americas, LLC, the North American subsidiary of the C&U Group, one of the world’s Top 10 bearing manufacturers and China’s largest bearing producer, has named

Jason Stocker as its new president.

• Chigago – The Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA) welcomed six new member companies: Bob Dean Supply Inc., Fort Myers, Fla.; Industrial Belting & Transmission, Inc., Louisville, Ky.; Pro Source Industrial, LLC, Chattanooga, Tenn.; Dow Corning, Midland, Mich.; SGI Power Transmission LLC, Boca Raton, Fla.; and Tooling U-SME, Cleveland, Ohio).

• Fairlawn, OH – Speaking to a group of industry executives at the 2017 Annual Hose Conference, Continental’s executive vice president of Industrial Fluid Solutions, Andreas Gerstenberger, said there are megatrends developing in the automotive and industrial hose businesses and those developments are not threats but opportunities. Gerstenberger said, “There is a definitive path to a successful fu-

ture, and that path includes a solution-based focus on services, systems and products.

We at Continental believe that the business model that has focused on value creation with mechanical solutions will become less important in the next decade. In its place we believe that the new business model focuses on mobility services and smart mobility technologies, adding further value with sensor technology, electronics, software and digitalization.”

• Parsippany, NJ – The Hydraulic Institute has added two new staff members: Edgar Suarez, joined as manager, Technical Programs to oversee the HI Pump Test Approval Program, The HI Energy Rating Label and Pump System Assessment Professional (PSAP) certification program.

Pamela Roccabruna, joined as director, Marketing, Communications and Events. MRO

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At Your

Service Extracting value from maintainability.

BY JEFF SMITH

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s a tradesman, “maintainability” wasn’t a word I thought about when something was inaccessible or removals required a contortionist with a handful of various extensions. I used different words. They were eloquent strings of disjointed words that clearly demonstrated the versatility of the English language. Regardless of the sentence structure, it always ended in “engineer!”

How is it that so many items are manufactured with no thought to maintainability? MTTR (Mean Time to Repair) is a key factor in keeping assets delivering on their value proposition. Things like removing a transmission in a loader: step one – remove cab… #$@$Engineer!

(Oops, inner voice) When developing assets, there are often constraints the end user may not be aware of, such as financial decisions driving capital availability. I experienced an example of this at a pulp mill. The chipping line had thawing ponds and a chain ladder to a chain conveyor run, which fed logs through the debarking ring and chipper. The mill was about 15 years old when the chipper motor failed.

It was about 600 hp, so it was quite big and we didn’t think to have a spare. Walking to the motor on an elevated platform in the middle of the wood room with the lockout completed, the situation hit us.

There is no way to lift the motor as small

cranes could not get close enough inside the mill with the spider’s web of piping and equipment.

I looked over the situation and asked, “Why wouldn’t there be an overhead crane over the whole chipping line?” The original plan was to have one. The building I-beams were positioned correctly and strong enough to support one. The answer was simple: It would have been an extra $200,000 and the capital group decided to save money. The job could have been completed in about eight hours if there had been an overhead crane, so it would have resulted in about $333,000 of production loss. So let’s say the total costs had they installed the crane would have been around $50,000.

But with no crane, we needed a contingency plan. We called for a mobile crane (a very large track crane). It was not that the motor was that heavy, but the lift required it to be conducted from the log yard, hence reaching over the building.

We removed the roof panels, reached over the building and removed the motor. We then replaced the motor and the mill was up and running. So let’s take a look at the costs associated with intervention with no overhead crane.

Production loss: Seven days at $1million per day plus $100,000 for the crane to be assembled on site. The cost of the non-maintainable motor was $7,100,000 in lieu of a $200,000 trolley crane.

Being quite naïve at the time, and after everything was done, I asked the manager if we were going to create a budget in order to put in a trolley crane. To which the manager replied, “Of course we are not getting one, cranes are $200,000!”

So how does one derive value from evaluating maintainability? When the system fails to provide its function and we have to intervene, it is basically as maintainable as its initial design allowed it to be. At that point, we are at the mercy of the designer.

So let’s first explore how maintainability could be established by the design team. When an asset is designed, regardless if it’s a plant or a haul truck, the structure is developed. The big blocks are drawn in place and then the supporting systems are installed. We (the purchaser) always want space, cost, durability and functionality provided. We want all the bells and whistles at the minimal cost. The manufacturer has a competing agenda; he wants to make money off his product. The actual people who manufacture assets do so in stages: structures, piping, hydraulics, pneumatics, electrical and monitoring systems are layered on.

When supporting systems are designed, there seems to be a disconnect between designers and whomever’s system is last crammed into the remaining area. Only recently has RAM (Reliability, Availability and Maintainability) modelling become a normal part of asset design.

To truly have maintainable assets every component and system should be reviewed for optimal maintainability. If it’s designed to maintain, the end users will like it. In the design phase, get a trades perspective on placement and fastening; and have product reviews that get all sub-system designers to work together.

To help this concept make sense, consider building a house. If the plumber has no regard for the electrical and the HVAC people don’t care where the plumbing goes, you will get three trades in conflict over routing. All must work together.

If you are a tradesperson in the asset construction world, constantly review what’s being constructed and speak up!

Just because the drawing has stairs covering the asset doesn’t make it right.

Maintainability design points: • Consider access to all fasteners

and connections.

• Review component lifting requirements over the assets lifecycle.

• Consider human ergonomics in machine placement and spacing.

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•C onsider work zones and design plat-

forms to minimize scaffolding requirements.

• Review interrelationships of all supporting systems (piping, cable trays, process flows, lighting, guarding, ingress/egress).

•R emember: It can look great on paper, but review constantly in the construction phase.

•C onsider lifting requirements, pre-en-

gineer lifting points.

• Consider covers to avoid process spillage (extended cleanup times) • Evaluate potential asset relocation upon failure • Review tasks to see if there are maintainability improvements.

•R eview lube routes considering greasing access or piping requirements • Review Vibrations data collection for bearing access • Consider infrared windows

With running facilities, you no longer have the luxury of designing it correctly, but you do have options. When your asset fails and you need to execute the work, you will have to resort to whatever maintainability you have. But let us consider something – work can be post planned! If a job is hard to do and you are not working to a detailed job scope, it should be conveyed to planning that this job would be easier if, for example, a custom lifting device was manufactured, stairs were relocated, access panels cut, or guard fasteners reworked. The majority of tasks you do in an industrial facility will be repeated over years or decades. If a one-hour modification saves days of MTTR than it should be follow-up work.

The best product For proactive companies Martin Engineering puts in maintainability should never the field is our people. be a surprise. Proactive planners have the job planned long Safety, productivity and innovation before it is actually required. doesn’t happen without them.

When I develop structured work Experience, knowledge and programs, I list all secondary acproblem solving can’t be fabricated tions and initiate planning. The and aren’t achieved overnight. term secondary action describes It takes years of dedication, what would be required if I dedrive and determination. tected an impending failure. For example, if I know I need to conIt’s these characteristics duct vibration analysis on a mothat define our people. tor, I have already made a deterMartin is proud to offer you the mination that it will fail at some best people in the industry. Speak point. Therefore, I need a work with us today to discuss how we package developed to cover all can help you achieve your best. aspects of the replacement.

Review all routine tasks from a maintainability perspective. Maintainability is one of the easiest areas to reduce downtime, so find that one asset that every tradesperson hates working on and make it more maintainable. Also, do not get caught up in job magnitude; improvements in maintainability on smaller frequent tasks create value fast! MRO Jeff Smith is a reliability subject matter expert and the owner of 4TG Industrial. Reach him at smith@4tg-ind.ca or visit www.4tg-industrial.com.

Maintainability Improvement Points: • Survey your assets to identify

potential maintainability improvement projects.

•L ocations of stairs or hard-toaccess equipment •D esign of guards and covers for removability • S tudy pathways for access of large components

call 800.544.2947 email info@martin-eng.com visit martin-eng.com ® Registered trademark of Martin Engineering Company in the US and other select locations. © 2017 Martin Engineering Company. Additional information can be obtained at www.martineng.com/trademarks and www.martin-eng.com/patents.

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D R I V E S December 2017

CONVEYOR DRIVE THOUGH Words of wisdom on conveyor drive components.

BY CARROLL MCCORMICK

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imon Rouleau is the president and owner of Quebec-based Simar-Dacon, Inc. He designs, and his shop builds, conveyors of all shapes and sizes for different industries. Douglas Froom is the president of Nova Scotia-based BF Consulting. He is a conveyor integrator, advising on what to buy, and obtaining and installing conveyor systems for his clients. He is also a troubleshooter. They shared their expertise with MRO on some conveyor drive issues.

To grease, or not to grease: The chains in sprocket and chain conveyors need grease to extend their working life. But trigger-happy mechanics can damage bearings with their grease guns. For bearings that need greasing – and not all do – mechanics must trust that their grease guns will deliver a shot of grease with just one squeeze. “Consistently, you see squeeze squeeze until you see grease coming out. You’ve just blown the seals

out of the bearing. When you put the grease gun on, do one squeeze,” Froom says.

“After you snap the grease gun on the nipple and squeeze, if grease is not coming out around it, then it’s going into the bearing. All the manuals I see – one squeeze is what they recommend. The best I can say is read the owners manual,” Froom advises.

Some bearings are sealed and do not require greasing. Yet, says Rouleau, mechanics come at them with their grease guns and do their worst. “You can put too much pressure on the bearing [when you grease it] and pop out the seal. What I saw at [one plant], the guys put in so much grease, they popped out seals.

They didn’t know when to stop. Some guys think they have to grease everything.”

Mechanics should investigate what bearing manufacturers recommend, so they will not damage bearings.

Sometimes bearings do need greas-

Pillow blocks allow bearing repairs.

ing, but, Froom advises, “Clean environment means less grease. Dirty environment means more grease.” And by rights, old grease should be removed before packing bearings with new grease.

All images by Carroll McCormick

This self-cleaning pulley is better than a drum pulley for dirty applications.

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To that advice Rouleau adds, “What I’ve also heard is that some people don’t put in the right grease. You contaminate the first grease that was in there.”

Some maintenance departments install automatic greasers – not a bad idea at all, as far as it goes – but, Rouleau reminds us, “There is a risk of forgetting them.”

Chains & sprockets, or synchronous sprockets? Chain and sprocket drive components are inexpensive, and have their place. Take, for example, a long conveyor with boxes moving along it – especially a belt conveyor. “In an application like that, where a chain is running constantly, chains and sprockets are the cheapest way to go. It can transfer a lot of power simply. Everyone in the plant knows how they work. The other thing with a chain drive is versatility. If, in the future you want to make a modification and change the speed, all you do is change the ratio of the sprockets. If you have a shaft-mounted motor, you have to change the gearbox,” Froom says.

But, Froom notes, “Is it going to be start stop, start stop? If so, avoid chain drives. Go to shaft mounted. If [the chain drive] wears a bit, it will tear itself to pieces in no time.” He notes that chains and sprockets represent 50 per cent of BF Consulting’s repair call-outs.

Chain and sprocket tension needs to be maintained to reduce premature wear. What does this wear look like? “I can start to see in the sprocket a bit of flattening in the rounded grooves on the sprockets. When the chain wears (becomes a little longer) the links are too long and are rubbing on the backs of the sprocket grooves. Eventually you will see an opening up of the groove between the teeth, and the tips of the teeth will become sharp instead of being flat.

Then, overnight, the tips will grind off and the sprocket will become a wheel.

The telltale sign is grey powder down under the belt,” Froom says.

Froom prefers synchronous sprockets, which don’t wear as quickly. Their toothed belts are also better than v-belts, he says. “Some of the really old conveyors use v-belts. In higher-torque applications the belts slip. With the toothed belt this does not happen. The belt is a lot quieter and does not stretch like a chain.” And for belt conveyors, with start-stop action, shaft-mounted motors are even better.

Direct drives: While direct drive con-

One squeeze only will help avoid blowing bearing seals.

veyors are superior set-ups, clients must know the conveyor speed they need for the required throughput. This is critical information for the conveyor designer.

“If there is one problem with a direct drive, you can’t increase the speed. When you choose your reducer, and you are absolutely sure of the speed you need, you are good to go. You need to design the conveyor for the maximum feed amount, not the mean, or average.”

One of Rouleau’s clients gave him an average feed speed, and later said that he wished the speed was higher. “I wish they had told me that before,” Rouleau says.

Too-small drive components? Are drive components sometimes too small for the job? “Usually conveyor builders won’t make this kind of mistake unless the client gives us the wrong information; for example, asks for 300-tonne, then puts 500 tonnes on it, and starts screaming,” Rouleau notes Bearing tidbits: Froom: “Generally, for bearings, they either work or they’re toast. If I see a belt off to one side, jammed, it is usually the bearing. As it wears, the belt will move back, and then start to move to one side. In conjunction, you will see a groove worn in the shaft where the bearing sat. Now you have to replace the shaft.”

Rouleau: “Roller bearings or spherical bearings will last longer than ball bearings. They are used for bigger shafts.”

Froom: “Motor bearings can be dam-

aged if a sprocket is overhung. This is when the sprocket is installed on the motor shaft with the shoulder facing the motor. Try and put the sprocket so it is close to the gearbox,” he says.

To toss or repair bearings: Small bearings are probably cheaper to discard than repair, but for heavy applications, Rouleau chooses split bearings in a pillow block, which allows repairs. “Say, for a big mining conveyor, we will choose a big split bearing. You can open it and change it. It gives more maintenance possibilities. It is cheaper to repair than to replace.”

Line shaft versus DC motors: Froom describes a line shaft conveyor as having long shafts, with spools and belts running from them to sections of conveyors.

When product accumulates at the end of a conveyor, and it is stopped, there is a brake on the rollers, but the shaft is still spinning, Froom says. “I liken it to coming up to a stop sign and putting a foot on the gas and brake at the same time.”

One alternative to line shafts are DC motors. Froom paints this little portrait: “Each of the control boards on the 24-volt DC motors can be configured to do what you want. Speed it up, slow it down. Because the controls are usually on board a DC motor, you can eliminate PLCs. You can make the argument that you should spend the 20 per cent more for this kind of conveyor, instead of the line shaft conveyor.”

Tensioners: Belt tension is important, and things can quickly go sideways, figu-

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tensioning. They are only appropriate for conveyors over about 250 feet long, Rouleau says, but when they can be used, they are better. “For me, it is easier to install, cheaper, because there are fewer pulleys, bearings and shafts. With the gravity system, you can’t increase the tension unless you increase the weight on the belt, or add weight to the counterweight. There are also guards, it is up in the air, and not easy access.”

Remove spillage to avoid roller and belt damage.

ratively and literally, if there is slippage.

For example, in the rain you can get a feedback loop where there is slippage, more material piles up, causing more slippage. “The solution in this case was

increasing the tension,” Rouleau notes.

A couple of years ago, Simar-Dacon built some very long conveyors with hydraulic tensioners that pull on the tail pulley. Rouleau prefers them to gravity

Cleanliness: Conveyors do not appreciate wallowing in the stuff they convey.

Regularly clearing away spilled material will eliminate tracking problems caused by, say, dirt accumulating on drum pulleys. One simple solution is permanently-installed scrapers that that keep drums clean.

I showed him a photo of a conveyor in a recycling plant, with junk piled up under the rollers. Rouleau’s analysis: “What will happen in the case of this is that the life of your belt will be reduced a lot.

Eventually the roller will get stuck in the material and not roll. I’ve seen where a belt will wear a flat spot on your roller. It becomes a knife edge, and becomes very dangerous. It cuts the belt.” MRO

ONE SOURCE FOR

P L A N T S H U T D OW N © 2017

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www.krylonindustrial.com www.sprayon.com

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Life Expectancy What should the maintenance organization focus on?

BY JOHN LAMBERT

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ecently I have been seeing the P-F interval curve popping up a lot on my LinkedIn feed. It is a concept that I was first introduced to when I was implementing reliability centered maintenance into the Engineering and Maintenance depart-

ment at the fiberglass insulation plant I worked at. The P-F curve was a great idea that, if done correctly, is a maintenance benefit – in cost savings and cost avoidance. Let me explain.

The P-F curve was used as a learning tool for condition-based maintenance.

Fig 1. The P-F Interval Curve is a tool for learning condition-based maintenance.

The curve is the life expectancy of a machine, an asset. The P is the point when a change in the condition of the machine is detected. The F is when it reaches functional failure. This means that it is not doing the job it was designed to do. For example, if it were a seal that is designed to keep fluids in and contamination out and is now leaking, the curve now denotes a state of functional failure. Will this put the machine down?

Probably not, but it depends on the importance of the seal and the application.

This is an important point because the P (potential failure) is a fixed point when you detect the change in condition, but the F (failure) is a moving point. Not all warnings of failure put the machine down. Very often we have options and time.

Consider this: If I have a bucket that has a hole in it, it is in a functional failure state. But can I still use it to bail out my sinking boat? You bet I can!

Failure comes in many ways and obviously there are many ways to combat it. If you detect the potential failure early enough (and it can be months and

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December 2017

Fig 2. You may see the P-F curve compartmentalized like this one (see sections below). However, the whole curve is the life expectancy of the machine and we monitor it using condition-based maintenance (CBM) techniques.

months before actual failure) it means that you can avoid the breakdown. You can schedule an outage to do a repair.

It’s not a breakdown, the machine hasn’t stopped, it’s not downtime. This is cost avoidance and the plant can save on the interrupted loss of production because of downtime costs.

There are a lot of examples of cost avoidance and also of cost savings. For instance, at the fiberglass plant we used ultrasound to monitor bearings. We detected a very early warning in the sound level and were able to grease the bearing and the sound level dropped. We saved the bearing of any damage, we saved a potential breakdown, so this is cost savings. Even if there is some bearing damage, the fact that we are aware and monitoring the situation lets us avoid any secondary damage.

It’s one price to replace a seal and its more if you have to replace a bearing in a gearbox. However, it can be very expensive to have to replace a shaft because the bearing has sized onto it ruined it. Secondary, ancillary damage can mount up very quickly if you don’t heed the warning given with the P of potential failure.

This warning of potential failure gives you time before any breakdown. The earlier the detection, the more time.

Time to plan; view your options. And what people tend not to do is failure analysis while the machine is still in service. A failure analysis gives you a great start on seeking out the root cause, but start right away, not when the machine is down.

Condition monitoring, or as its often called, condition-based maintenance (CBM), does work. For me, there is a downside and I will explain why shortly.

CBM is based on measurement, which is

good because we all know to control a process we must measure.

Consultants (and I’m guilty) like to put labels on things, and you may see: A. Design, Capability, Precision Maintenance.

B. CBM, Predictive Maintenance C. Preventive Maintenance.

D. Run to Failure, Breakdown Maintenance For me the P-F interval curve starts when the machine starts. That means Design and Precision Maintenance is not in the curve and this happens before startup. A small point, but it takes away from the interval meaning.

We use predictive maintenance technologies in CBM – Vibration, Ultrasonic, Infrared, Oil Analysis, NDT (that is, pipe wall thickness) and Operational Performance. They are all very good technologies, yet it is a combination of cross-technologies that works best. As an example, vibration may give you the most information, yet ultrasound may give you the earliest warning on a high-speed bearing. And then there is oil analysis, which may be best for a low-speed gearbox. It all depends on the application you have, which dictates what’s best for you. A lot of time and effort was placed on having the best CBM program and to buy the right technology.

This, I believe, lead to maintenance departments putting the focus on condition-based maintenance!

This I think is wrong because we still have failure. This means that CBM is no better than Predictive Maintenance. This doesn’t mean that I don’t recommend CBM – I do. To me it’s a must have, but it does not improve the maintenance process because you still have machine failure.

Machine failures fall into three categories: premature failure, random failure and age-related failure.

We want the latter of these. We know from studies that say that 11 per cent of machine assets fail because of age-related issues. They grow old and wear out.

This means that 89 per cent fail because of some other fault. This is a good thing because it gives us an opportunity to do something about them.

These numbers come from a very famous study, “Reliability-Centered Maintenance,” by F. Stanley Nowlan and Howard F. Heap (Dolby Access Press, 1978), which was commissioned by the United States Department of Defense. It doesn’t mean these numbers are an exact reflection for every industry, but the study has stood the test of time and I believe it has led to the development of Reliability Centered Maintenance. But let’s say its wrong and let us double the amount they say is age related (full machine life expectancy). That would make it 22 per cent and 78 per cent would be the amount of random failures. Even if we quadruple it, it’s only 44 per cent, meaning random is at 56 per cent, and we are still on the wrong side of the equation.

The maintenance goal has to be to get the full life expectancy for all their machine assets.

In order to get the full life expectancy for a machine unit I think you have to be assured of two things. One is the design of the unit, which includes all related parts (not just the pump but the piping as well). The other is the installation.

If you’re like me, and you believe that Condition Based Maintenance starts when the machine starts then you understand that there is a section of the machine’s life that happens before. You could make an argument that it starts when you buy it because, as we all know, how we store it can have an effect. However, what is important at this stage is the design and installation of the machine. In most cases, we do not design the pump, gearbox or compressor but we do size them so that they meet the required output. We do quite often design the piping configuration or the bases, for example. All of which is very important but the reality is that maintenance departments maintain alreadyin-place machine assets. So, although a new installation, requiring design work is not often done, installation is.

Remove and refit is done constantly.

And the installation is something that can be controlled. In fact, it’s the instal-

Illustrations courtesy of Benchmark PDM.

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lation that has the largest influence on the machine’s life. The goal is to create a stress-free environment for the machine to run in. No pipe strain, no distorted bases, no thermal expansion, no misalignment...

Precision maintenance is a term I first heard 30 years ago. It is part of Benchmark PDM’s M.A.A.D. training program (Measure, Analyse, Action and Documentation). It’s simple – it means working to a standard. Maintenance departments can set their own standards.

However, all must agree on it and adhere to it. This is the only way to control Fig 3. Condition-based maintenance begins once the machine has been installed. the installation process. This is the way to stop random failure and get the full life expectancy for your machine assets. The issue is that we do not have a general machinery installation standard to work to. Yes, we can and use information from other specific industry sources, such as the American Petroleum Institute (API) or the information from the OEM (both of these are guidelines), however nothing for the general industry as a whole.

But this is about to change. The American National Standard Institute (ANSI) has approved a new standard, which is about to be published. I know this because I worked on it and will be writing about it shortly.

Looking at the life cycle of a machine, we need to know and manage the failure as best we can. If we only focus or mainly focus on the failure, we will not improve the reliability of the machine. We cannot control the failure. What we can control is the installation and done correctly this will improve the proPRUFTECHNIK is a leading single-source solution provider for machine cess, giving the optimum life for laser alignment, condition monitoring and nondestructive testing. the machine.

In my day-job, I sell laser PRUFTECHNIK’s technical innovations optimize the availability of your alignment systems as well a production assets—and stop small amounts weighing heavily on your vibration instruments. If a cusbottom line. tomer were to buy a vibration monitoring tool before they www.pruftechnik.ca bought a laser system, I would think their focus is on the effect of the issue not the cause. What do think? MRO John Lambert is the president of Benchmark PDM. He can be reached at john@benchmarkpdm.com or visit is the Benchmark PDM website at www.benchmarkpdm.com.

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Make It or

BRAKE IT

Manufacturing block products is a dusty, gritty process. MagnaShear brakes have improved production throughout the manufacturing process at the St. Vrain Block Company.

Oil shear technology ensures brakes will operate in the dustiest parts of the process.

shear brake from Force Control Industries, instead. That was in 2006, and that original MagnaShear MSB4 brake is still in operation today.

The key to consistency: Oil shear technology Oil shear technology is the key to the MagnaShear system’s consistency. Force Control brakes employ oil shear technology, which transmits torque between lubricated surfaces. Transmission fluid cools the brake, and provides a fluid film that reduces friction between moving parts.

As the brake is engaged, the fluid is compressed, and transmission fluid particles shear – transmitting torque to the other side. This torque transmission causes the stationary surface to turn, bringing it up to the same relative speed as the moving surface. Since most of the work is done by the fluid particles in shear, by the time the surfaces actually meet or “lock up” wear is virtually eliminated. Because there is no direct contact between the friction surfaces during acceleration or deceleration, there is no wear – and thus, no need for adjustment or replacement of disks.

Dry brake systems, however, depend on friction between sacrificial surfaces surrounded by air to transmit torque.

Heat dissipates slowly in air, and the surfaces absorb the heat, causing wear and degradation of material. As material is abraded, positioning inaccuracy increases, requiring adjustment and eventual replacement to maintain proper parameters.

St. Vrain Block’s skip hoist assembly is living proof of the durability of oil shear technology. He estimates the Warner dry brakes would last three years in this application, and required constant adjustment and maintenance before needing to be replaced – an expensive process which shuts down the production line.

“I’d say the MagnaShear is 80 per cent

Photos courtesy of Force Control Industries.

A

s counterintuitive as it seems, the right brakes can speed up a production line. When St. Vrain Block Company, in Dacono County, CO, began switching out faulty brakes for brakes that use oil shear technology, maintenance downtime plummeted, the production line was more efficient – even the quality of the blocks reflected the change.

Concrete block products are built to work under pressure, and look good on the job. Concrete is only as tough as the aggregates, concrete, admixtures and additives that go into it, and the process for manufacturing concrete blocks is only as tough as the conveyers, assemblies and brakes that comprise the production line.

St. Vrain Block knows a thing or two about tough production lines – they’ve been manufacturing high-quality concrete products since 1946. In 71 years of operation, they’ve learned to prioritize education of employees and maintenance of equipment, but most of all to have the right tool for the job.

Manufacturing block products is a dusty, gritty process. Ingredients are vibrated, cured, cut and moved along the production line to each step of the process. Keeping the production line in constant operation requires parts that can handle the heat – and stay in the concrete kitchen.

After a long series of short-lived dry brake motors, Randy Howard, who oversees production at St. Vrain Block, ran an experiment at the end of their Besser production line, where product that is cured goes into a cuber. The constant maintenance requirements – adjusting the distance between friction stack and pressure plate, for instance, coupled with the short service life, drove Howard to explore other options. Rather than simply replacing the Warner model EUM-180-20MBFB brake in this installation, he opted to try a MagnaShear oil

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better than the Warner brake setup. Customers like it because they can see the blended colours easier,” Howard said.

With a successful installation under his belt, Howard opted to replace other dry brakes with oil shear technology as they failed.

“We bought the first MagnaShear in 2006. We also bought brakes in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2016,” recalls Howard.

In 2014, Howard noticed that the blocks coming from the skip hoist were monochromatic rather than multi-coloured, as they should be. This design requires precise stopping to ensure proper blending of colours within the block. The Warner dry brake was used to control the amount of colour going to each block, but was delaying by critical fractions of a second. As dry brake pads wear, the distance between the friction disc and the drive plate increases, causing a delay in brake engagement. In St. Vrain Block’s case, the delay of about half a second caused variations in the colours of the finished product. Instead of multi-coloured texture throughout the product, the block would be more solid – less aesthetically pleasing to potential customers in their retail yard.

So he switched out the brake on the 5 HP skip hoist drive on the Fleming line with a MangaShear MSB4 oil shear brake. This technology allows for precise stopping, providing a good mixing of colours within the blocks, ultimately yielding a more aesthetically pleasing end product. More than eleven years after that installation, it’s still operating consistently, with virtually no downtime for maintenance or adjustment.

Braking under pressure The MagnaShear brakes have improved production throughout the manufacturing process. Dry braking is inherently a hot system, as friction on the braking surfaces causes heat. In an environment with elevated ambient temperatures, like those encountered during Colorado summers, additional heat can wear down parts faster. Dust and debris, which are common hazards in a concrete block plant, work their way onto dry brake friction stacks, causing inconsistencies and more wear on brake pads.

Simple maintenance, such as adjusting the disc pressure, could be done in 20 minutes, but if Howard had to take the assembly apart and replace parts, it could take up to four hours. It was a waste of Howard’s time, and worse yet, backed up production, as the assembly

line had to be off for maintenance.

Magna Shear brakes are totally enclosed in a rugged housing to keep dirt and moisture out. The Oil Shear Technology virtually eliminates wear with no adjustment, so Howard can keep the production line moving and tend to other jobs onsite.

More than bargained for Howard invested in the MagnaShear brakes because he knew he would be getting increased cycle life and more consistent braking. He didn’t expect them to be simple to install and work with.

“There’s a black wire and a red wire and a white wire. My operators like that there’s not much adjustment required, other than making sure the quill is set.

It does the rest on its own,” he said.

Although he originally had some qualms about ordering parts from a company across the country (Force Control Industries is located in Fairfield, OH, near Cincinnati), he was comforted by excellent customer service. When a Bescodyne needed maintenance, Force Control sent St. Vrain a replacement to use while they rebuilt it, so Howard could keep the production line moving. In the factory or in the field, even online, Howard felt supported by the team at Force Control, which eased his concerns about ordering from hundreds of kilometres away.

Consistency and quality Randy Howard has an eye for things that last: he oversees the production of concrete block products (products that only get tougher with age), at a company that’s been in operation for 70 years.

It’s no surprise then that he invested in MagnaShear brakes. Oil Shear Technology reduces friction between braking surfaces, decreasing wear and increasing cycle life.

With little maintenance or adjustment needed, Howard’s MagnaShear brakes consistently stop when he needs them to stop, ensuring higher quality mixes in products containing different colorations. The rugged housing of the MagnaShear brakes assures that the brake will operate in the dustiest, hottest parts of the process. For Randy Howard, MagnaShear brakes have kept St. Vrain Block’s production line up and running, and from the looks of things, it’ll be up and running for a long, long time. MRO This article was submitted by Force Control Industries. For more information, visit www. forcecontrol.com.

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Machinery & Equipment MRO

December 2017

Grease Skids the

How well can you troubleshoot industrial equipment lubrication problems?

BY L. (TEX) LEUGNER

I

nvestigating problems related to equipment lubrication issues can be difficult unless the troubleshooter understands two items of critical importance. Firstly, he must fully and completely understand the operation of the machine or associated components and the operating conditions, such as speeds, loads, operating temperatures and their relationship to the lubricant itself. Secondly, he must follow a fully developed troubleshooting process in order to arrive at a correct conclusion.

Troubleshooting is by definition a technique for locating machine problems and, in addition to knowing the machine, the troubleshooter must be fully aware of the rules of lubrication; in reality the lubricant is another component of the machine.

Eight questions to help boost your lube program.

1. Is it the right lubricant for the application? The troubleshooter must understand the lubricant specifications, such as viscosity, viscosity index, additive types and how these characteristics might affect the operating conditions, such as rates of component wear and operating temperatures.

2. Is the lubricant used in the right quantity? Is the system under or over filled? Are sumps and reservoirs correctly sized to ensure proper heat dissipation of returned oil? (Design engineers frequently underestimate the size of reservoirs and overheating can result, particularly if a modification has been carried out).

3. Are all lubrication points properly marked, accessible and serviced properly? Are grease points colour coded and fully accessible? Do filler caps contain an adequate filter? Are breathers colour coded to ensure that they aren’t missed during inspection procedures?

4. Are re-lubrication intervals correct? Statistically, more bearings fail due to over-greasing than under-greasing. Are re-greasing intervals, oil top-up procedures or oil changes neglected or extended arbitrarily?

5. Are lubricants properly stored? Are lubricant storage facilities extremely clean, well ventilated, temperature controlled

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Strike Oil

Answers to the following questions provide deeper insights when investigating lubricants or lubrication system problems.

1. C an you recognize lubricant incompatibility? Lubricant incompatibility can be caused by simply mixing two different oils or greases in a machine component. Incompatible greases may be indicated when the oil in a grease begins to start leaking past the seals within minutes or hours of re-greasing with a different grease type.

Incompatible gear oils may cause certain oil seals to shrink, soften, swell or harden, resulting in a leak. Excessive foaming in a hydraulic or turbine reservoir may be the result of topping up with oil incompatible with that in the system. This explains why the troubleshooter must be familiar with the specifications of the lubricants in use, as well as be familiar with the makeup of the components within the machine.

2. H ow serious is lubricant discolouration? As oils age in service, it is normal that they thicken and become darker in colour, however if an industrial oil becomes thicker and turns brown or black in colour in an abnormally short period of time, it is almost always related to excessive operating temperatures. These conditions indicate oil oxidation. Grease can also oxidize if a bearing is continually over-greased. The churning action of the excessive grease causes a temperature increase and the oil within the grease will oxidize prematurely. (If operating temperatures in a lubricated system suddenly begin to increase, the cause may not be related to the lubricant at all. The cause could be a change in operating conditions, such as increased speeds or loads). This explains why the operating temperatures of all critical equipment components should be known and monitored on a regular basis.

and free of contaminants of all kinds? Are pumps, oil containers and grease guns properly marked, always clean and used only for their particular lubricant type?

6. Are lubricants kept clean? Is oil pre-filtered before being added to reservoirs? Are lubricants in service regularly monitored for contamination such as dirt, water, process fluids or other contaminants?

7. Are lubricants in service kept cool? Standard mineral oils and grease containing mineral oil in service begin to deteriorate at operating temperatures higher than 160°F (71°C).

8. Are lubricants kept free of water? A drum of oil stored outside and allowed to cool at night will collect as much as a gallon of water within a few weeks in such conditions. These same conditions can occur in hydraulic reservoirs, gear cases and other lubricated components that are subject to dramatic temperature changes.

3. H ow do you spot lubricant contamination? Contamination by dirt, water, wear metals, process fluids, varnish and other particulate matter, cause about 70 per cent of lubrication-related equipment failures. If contamination is suspected, the troubleshooter should obtain an oil sample in a clean glass jar and let the sample sit overnight. When viewed in the morning, the contaminants will have settled on the bottom of the jar and may be determined. If water is obvious in the jar, it confirms that there is too much water in the oil.

If water is suspected, but can’t be seen, put a few drops on a hot plate; if a sizzling sound is heard, it indicates water in the oil. In either case, an oil analysis requesting the right tests should be immediately carried out to determine the contaminant type or amount of water.

4. A re all filters inspected as part of the lubrication program? If contamination is suspected but not obvious in the oil sample described in 3 above, the oil filter should be opened, the filter media spread out on a clean surface and the remaining oil wiped away. With a magnifying glass, the troubleshooter will “see” the contaminant particles (anything smaller than about 40 microns cannot be seen with the naked eye). If there are particles present that appear shiny and metallic, the troubleshooter moves the magnet under the filter media. If ferrous material particles are present, they will “move” and prove to be wear metals such as steel or iron. Non-magnetic particulate of copper or bronze colouration may also be in evidence.

(Even non-ferrous material may be attracted to the magnet, because tiny non-ferrous particles have a tendency to be attracted to, or attached to, the ferrous materials during oil filter inspections).

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December 2017

Myths About RCM You know that reliability centered maintenance can lead to effective asset management, but you’re not sure where to begin. Start by unravelling RCM facts from the myths, misconceptions and half-truths.

BY JAMES REYES-PICKNELL

D

espite its well-documented successes, reliability centered maintenance (RCM) has always drawn a lot of discussion and controversy. Much of it is because of a lack of understanding and “myths” generated to discredit RCM as a viable business solution. Here we attempt to fill in some of those gaps in understanding and debunk some of the myths.

RCM is a type of maintenance (wrong)

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Wrong. Maintenance is an activity performed to sustain the capability and functioning of any physical asset. It can include both proactive and reactive activities. Those intended to avoid failures and their consequences are proactive. Repairs are usually reactive – taking place after something has broken down.

Those activities combined are a maintenance program. RCM is none of that.

RCM is a method for determining the best activities to manage failure consequences. It uses an analysis process defined by a standard, SAE JA-1011. It produces decisions about maintenance as well as operator performed tasks, procedural changes, training upgrades, and even when it is best to allow an asset to run to failure. It produces a superior maintenance program and it can be part of your ongoing continual improvement program efforts, but it is not “maintenance.”

RCM is a lot of work (myth) The best RCM analyses are carried out by teams of people who know the assets best – usually operators, maintainers, planners and engineers. Occasionally it involves manufacturers and other specialists. Well-selected analysis teams comprise three or four persons, plus a facilitator. All need training – about two days is enough for most first-time participants. Any new method will require training and some programs require considerably more than two days. A typical analysis project will take a week to perform. The cost of that typical analysis is five person weeks of time – about 175 working hours.

Most analyses produce anywhere from 13 to 32 per cent reduction in maintenance costs – some much more. Savings accrue from reductions in repair work (typically three times the cost of proactive work) and from elimination of unnecessary PM work. It is common to find that existing PM programs are actually inducing failures in some assets. If you have a maintenance department with only 10 personnel (a small operation), you are expending roughly 18,760 hours of labour per year.

Savings of 2,439 to 6,000 hours are possible per year. That’s enough to pay for the first year RCM effort on 14 to 34 assets/ systems, and that is enough for most operations to cover all their important assets.

Given the numbers, RCM saves a lot of work! And we haven’t even talked about the additional production capacity and revenue generation, which often far outweighs the maintenance savings.

RCM must be done on all your assets (wrong)

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When RCM was relatively new, the leading proponents argued that RCM was needed on all assets because you just don’t know which equipment contains the failure modes that could have serious safety or environmental consequences. From a theoretical perspective that is accurate, but more practically, we know which of our assets carry the greatest risks. If we didn’t know that, then we couldn’t do any form of Asset Criticality Analysis. The potential for safety and environmental impacts is usually known for all of our assets. Since we know that, we can weed out the non-critical assets – those with no anticipated safety and environmental impacts, and those with only minor operational / production impacts.

RCM training is excessive (myth) If you want different results you need to change what you are doing. To do that, you will need to change your thinking. In many cases, that means you will need some sort of education or training, or you won’t get different results. The amount of

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training investment depends on the particular brand of RCM that you choose.

The newest brand is RCM-R, by Conscious Reliability. RCM analyst training is only 2.5 days (and includes an exam). To learn how to do the reliability analysis there is an optional advanced course (3.5 days including an exam) that mathematically savvy analysts can take.

Their facilitators require more. They need that advanced math class plus another skills class (2.5 days including an exam). In total, they will receive about 8.5 days of classroom instruction (includes the basic and advanced classes) plus coaching from an experienced facilitator (five to 10 days). Along the way they should have performed at least five full analyses, each of which produces usable results on their plant assets.

Most organizations have only two or three facilitators (one is usually not enough). If you train one full basic class (20 people) and two facilitators from that group, you will have invest-

ed a total of 62 training days, plus another 110 person days of analysis time (for seven analyses). You will have produced seven usable RCM analysis results – half of your first year effort in a smaller organization considering the numbers in myth 2.

Yes, it requires training, pilot project facilitation and coaching support, but the training component is roughly a third of the first year’s potential effort in a smaller organization. The average amount of training for those two persons is just over three days – probably less than 1.5 per cent of their working year. If you believe that is excessive, then you really can’t expect to see a lot of improvement from today’s performance using any method!

Shortcut RCM methods and PM Optimization are faster and cheaper (wrong)

8

I’ve never been a fan of shortcut methods. There are a number that are just plain dangerous. John Moubray, one of the architects of RCM, wrote an excellent paper on that back in 2000. However, there are some streamlined methods that are better than others. Nevertheless, they require that those using them undergo RCM training in order to understand the concepts they are shortcutting. Consequently, the training for those is actually longer than it is for RCM. During the analyses they do, they are usually skipping steps that are a part of a proper RCM analysis. They are omitting information in the process. That missing information makes decision making more challenging. That can result in questionable decisions and it often takes longer overall because of discussions in the team that is lacking information.

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In the end, those so-called streamlined or shortcut methods can actually take longer to complete and their decisions are always somewhat questionable.

PM optimization can be an exception. If used as an initial analysis method, it will very likely miss failure modes that RCM catches. It is inherently less thorough. However, if it is used to optimize a program developed using RCM, it can be beneficial as well as quicker than a complete RCM review.

RCFA is just as good as RCM (myth) Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA or RCA) is inherently reactive to failures that have already occurred. It is used where failures have resulted in some unacceptable/unwanted consequence. You’ve suffered a major loss of production or customer service, a quality, safety or environmental incident.

RCFA is quite precise – it targets a specific event. Because it is usually successful in eliminating future occurrences of that same incident it almost always has a high apparent return on investment. It’s only too bad that you had to rely on the incident occurring before you apply the method.

If you think that is fine, then the next time you get on an airplane to go somewhere, just ask yourself if you would be happy if they developed its maintenance program with RCFA.

I can do RCM on my own (wrong)

8

We engineers are really smart and we know it. However, sometimes we are too smart for our own good and for the good of our employers. We need to set our egos aside and accept that teamwork produces better results than we can do on our own.

RCM requires inputs from operations, maintenance, experienced personnel and technicians, as well as engineering. RCM isn’t really expensive when you consider its benefits – it generates a lot of value. However, organizations who pay too much attention to their accountants, are often looking to keep costs down without considering the value they may be missing.

Because RCM is an analysis process that is quite technically involved, it is sometimes delegated to more junior engineers to perform. They usually lack sufficient field experience and that practical perspective that technicians always have. Most of our corporate maintenance management systems have relatively poor reliability data. Younger engineers tend to rely on those systems, often not realizing just how weak the data really is. That data is usually not much use in RCM analysis work.

Doing RCM on your own will inherently leave out valuable insights that can only come from those field technicians and make up for that bad data in corporate systems.

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Yes, you can produce an RCM analysis on your own, but it will be lacking in practical insights to the decisions made. RCM is an optimization tool – don’t cheap out and sub-optimize it.

Anyone can facilitate an RCM analysis (myth) There are many good facilitators for business throughout the world. There are societies for facilitators and extensive program and certifications for them. They are truly good at general facilitation. Some specialize in specific methodologies and types of facilitation work. RCM is one such field where specialization is needed.

When facilitating general business meetings it is not necessary to have a deep understanding of the subject matter – you only need to be good at facilitation and let the team do the brain work. RCM is not like that though. It is quite technical and technical people in the team can easily get into too much detail and get sidetracked onto related (but irrelevant) topics.

An RCM facilitator must be a technical person who can understand what is going on. He or she must also understand the RCM process well, the math that is required and how to apply it and know enough about maintenance technologies to make up for any gaps the team being analyzed may lack. Without those, the analysis can go dramatically off track, produce erroneous results and take much longer to produce than it should.

A lot of RCM projects fail (some truth to this one)

4

By now you can see that RCM does require some dedicated effort and a great deal of care. When organizations decide to do RCM, most of them do choose to do it “right.” If they have cut corners, they usually realize at some point that they need to do a better job and they correct themselves. However, more importantly than good RCM execution, success requires comprehensive follow-up after the analysis effort is completed.

I’ve been in a number of organizations that have done RCM “years ago” and they claim that it either had no impact or its initially positive impact disappeared over time.

Where it had no impact, a bit of digging revealed that they didn’t implement the results of the analysis into their day-today programs. Maintenance and operational tasks were never embedded into their PM programs and operating procedures.

Training and procedural changes were never implemented.

Design change recommendations were never acted upon.

Those organizations treated RCM as an analytical exercise only and failed to grasp that it is far more than that.

Where results were initially positive and diminished, the organizations did not keep the RCM effort going. Beyond the

initial analysis and implementation there is much to do to ensure the results are valid. Operational circumstances change, asset performance expectations change, personnel change, maintenance execution discipline can fluctuate, etc. All of those can impact on the decisions made and later tasks, task frequencies, even failure modes. Those organizations have failed to take full ownership of the RCM program as an ongoing continual improvement tool.

To avoid this failure the organization must treat RCM as an ongoing program. How they do that will vary by organization and industry, but it must be done or the effort will ultimately produce less than the desired outcomes.

RCM is a maintenance project (wrong)

8

RCM originated in the aircraft industry where a great deal of energy was put into making sure designs were reliable and maintainable. Operators (pilots) don’t do maintenance beyond performance of their pre-flight checks (which are actually a combination of condition monitoring and failure finding tests). Sustaining reliability was predominantly a maintenance activity and hence the use of the word “maintenance” in the name of RCM. Application of RCM in most other industries however, requires the inputs and participation of people from other departments – primarily operations, planning and engineering.

Implementing the outcomes of your RCM analysis will touch on several other parts of your organization – procedures, processes, training / HR, operations, engineering and of course your PM program. If maintenance is the sole party to the analysis, those groups will be less likely to assist in implementing the decisions and you will end up with a failed program.

Keeping the RCM effort going as a continual improvement program will also require more than just maintenance input and support. Without top-level managerial support, in environments of continual cost reduction pressures and production output pressures, the improvement program can easily become neglected.

RCM requires broad-based participation and support across multiple departments and strong managerial support to get maximum benefit. MRO Jim Reyes-Picknell of Barrie, Ont.-based Conscious Asset Management is the co-author of Reliability Centered Maintenance – Reengineered: Practical Optimization of the RCM Process with RCM-R (Productivity Press, 2017). Visit his website at www. consciousasset.com, reach him by phone at 705-719-4945 or email at james@consciousasset.com

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Don’t Let the

WRONG HYDRAULIC FLUID Slow You Down

Dr. Julie Hardwick, Research and Development Product Specialist, Petro-Canada Lubricants Robert Farthing, Marketing Category Manager, PetroCanada Lubricants Paul Michael, Research Chemist, The Fluid Power Institute, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Introduction

Using an inefficient fluid in your hydraulic system is like having a flat tire - not only will it slow you down, it will increase the energy needed to reach your destination. In hydraulic equipment, the fluid is the medium for power transmission. Rotary power at the input shaft of a pump is converted to fluid power in the form of flow (kinetic energy) and pressure (potential energy). The resulting power is used to perform the work of moving cylinders and rotating hydraulic motors. The efficiency of this energy conversion is affected by flow and pressure losses within a machine. Flow losses, due to internal leakage through gaps in pumps, valves and motors, reduce the volume of fluid available to create machine motion. Pressure losses, due to mechanical and fluid friction, reduce the linear and rotary force available to lift or move the payload. The net effect is that volumetric losses decrease system efficiency while pressure losses increase energy consumption.

Putting Fluid Efficiency to the Test

Petro-Canada Lubricants teamed up with the Fluid Power Institute at Milwaukee School of Engineering to investigate how hydraulic fluids affect machine productivity and energy consumption. Milwaukee School of Engineering is a private university located in southeastern Wisconsin and home of the Fluid Power Institute, one of the leading academic fluid power research centers in North America.

In this study, a hydraulic dynamometer, consisting of a variable displacement axial piston pump (Danfoss Series 45) and a fixed displacement hydraulic motor (Danfoss Series 90), plus directional and proportional control valves, was used to evaluate fluid efficiency.

This pump and motor combination is similar to a hydraulic system that might be found on the swing drive of an excavator, the propulsion system of a skid-steer or the winch on a hydraulic crane. Two fluids were evaluated: a conventional, mineral oil-based monograde (3707) and Petro-Canada’s high performance HYDREX XV All Season (3708). HYDREX XV is a semi-synthetic, multigrade hydraulic fluid formulated with a shear stable polymer and carefully selected additives to maximize viscosity stability and fluid longevity. The fluids were tested at 50, 60, 80 and 90°C. The hydraulic pump speeds were 800, 1200, and 1800 rpm, while the hydraulic motor speeds ranged from 1 to 600 rpm.

The system pressure was regulated from 67 to 276 bar in 34 bar intervals by a proportional electrohydraulic compensator control. A total of 1,782 data points were collected for each fluid during this demonstration. Hydraulic motor torque, pump flow and system power losses were the key performance properties examined in this study. These three parameters quantify the energy inputs that do not produce work. Going back to our automobile analogy, these 3 kinds of losses are explained in a simplified manner below (Figure 1):

,

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Higher Friction, Higher Fuel Consumption

Motor torque losses were determined based upon the difference between the theoretical and measured torque output of the motor. At low speeds, torque losses are due to friction between moving surfaces. At high speeds, a large volume of oil is required to rotate the hydraulic motor. This results in high pressures at the outlet of the motor which reduces the torque available to move the load.

As shown in Figure 2, HYDREX XV exhibited 10% lower torque losses than the conventional monograde at 90°C. Reducing torque losses in a hydraulic machine could increase how far a skid steer pushes its bucket into a gravel pile or increase how deep a horizontal boring machine drives its augers into the ground.

Lower Flow, Lower System Efficiency

The flow losses for the dynamometer were measured for the pump case, compensator valve, directional control valve and hydraulic motor. These flow losses are the result of pressure-driven flow through hydrostatic and hydrodynamic gaps within the machine. Hydrostatic losses occur at constant gap interfaces, such as in directional and pressure compensator control valves.

Hydrodynamic flow losses occur at moving gap interfaces, such as between the piston and cylinder wall.

In both cases, flow losses have the greatest impact when the machine is operating at high pressures and temperatures. As shown in Figure 3, the monograde fluid showed higher average flow losses than HYDREX XV at 60, 80 and 90°C. Reducing flow losses in a machine could increase the trenching speed of a backhoe loader or decrease the time it takes for an agricultural spraying machine to fertilize a field.

Power loss is the difference between the input and output power of a hydraulic machine. Hydraulic systems are designed to minimize power losses, so that the maximum amount of energy is converted into work. Typically, this is accomplished by regulating the input power of the pump through load-sensing or pressure compensator control. The power losses in the dynamometer were determined from the difference between the input power of the pump and the output power of the hydraulic motor. As shown in Figure 4, the monograde fluid showed higher losses than Petro-Canada Lubricants’ HYDREX XV (3708) at 276 bar.

These losses not only reduce the work output of the machine, they increase the oil temperature, which in turn intensifies the cooling requirements of the machine. Since it takes power to drive the cooling fan, the energy consumption of the machine increases as well.

This twofold loss in efficiency is like riding a bicycle not only uphill, but also with a flat tire.

Summary

Using energy efficient HYDREX XV gets you where you are going faster while using less energy, by increasing the hydraulic system flow rate and motor torque output, while reducing energy loss and consumption.

On mobile equipment, this inevitably leads to reduced consumption of fuel needed to drive the hydraulically controlled functions of the machine. These benefits are greatest when the machine is working hard and power is needed the most: at peak loads and elevated tem-

peratures. In today’s business where heavy equipment is often being pushed to the limit, this creates a significant energy savings opportunity by selecting the right, high performance fluid.

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During simulation, usually three weeks in length, the users are expected to complete a certain percentage of their daily maintenance tasks in the new system (usually 50 per cent), while continuing to use their current system (100 per cent). So it is a very busy time as maintenance personnel work in two systems while learning to use the new software.

Planning, preparation and support are the key elements to ensure a successful simulation. Your implementation team needs to provide clear direction for each of these three items.

There are many key issues in each of the three items; I will focus on the main areas.

Planning

The ERP Challenge The ERP planning simulation is like a dress rehearsal. It is designed to iron out process kinks before the system goes live.

– Part 10

BY PETER PHILLIPS

O

ur new ERP system is nearly ready to go live at the building materials manufacturing plant. We have completed a software simulation and, in January, we will turn it on for real.

At this point in the ERP implementation, simulation, planning and preparation of our new processes and systems is essential to ensure things go as smoothly as possible when we are up and running.

Simulation is the dress rehearsal with our opening day just around the corner.

It will mimic every possible transactional process we will use in the maintenance module of our ERP. We will also simulate the bolt-ons that were purchased to use with the ERP main program.

Bolt-ons are an alternative to developing additional functionality within the

base ERP software. Many ERP software vendors purchase third-party applications (from another vendor), and sell the software as a “bolt-on” module.

ERP history has shown that vendors often push bolt-ons once their clients discover during the software evaluation that their base package does not address their needs in specific areas.

Next, vendors get their clients excited about the additional functionality that can be provided with a bolt-on, without explaining the potential downside risks. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to test the bolt-ons just as rigorously as the main ERP software.

The goal of simulation is the final debugging of the software and to test the program for errors and to test the transactions with master data that the maintenance department have submitted.

One of the most important elements is the identification of the roles and responsibilities of every person that will use the new software. For each ERP transaction there should be process flow charts developed to follow during simulation. ERP systems, especially for maintenance, tend to be more complicated than a standalone CMMS systems.

There are more screens to navigate and more fields to populate to complete a transaction. For example, a work request will flow through several distinct steps in the ERP software from the time it is created until it is closed by the maintenance department and settled by the finance department. Each person that touches the work order must understand their responsibility in the new system in order to move the work request towards its successful completion. The process flow chart will identify each person and their role to complete the ERP transaction. For every activity the maintenance department performs in the system, there must be a corresponding process flow diagram.

Once the responsibilities have been defined, specific training needs to be provided for the users. Training can come in the form of an on-site instructor lead, remote instructor lead training and e-learning through a company website.

Comprehensive training manuals need to be provided in all delivery models.

Preparation Master data needs to be loaded and validated in the software well in advance of the simulation. User access and the transactions to be practiced during simulation need to be error free and the master data needs to be clean and accurate. This can only be achieved through

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pre-simulation testing and validation.

The IT data loading team needs to ensure a complete load of every maintenance record without errors. Transactions need to be tested and bolt-ons need rigorous testing to ensure minimal errors during the simulation period.

Resource planning During any new system implementation the people involved are very busy.

They are usually required to complete their regular day-to-day activities and are also expected to participate in the implementation. Generally speaking, anyone identified as having a key plant role in the implementation will spend 50-70 per cent of their day working with the support staff to solve issues and train people. This will continue for the full three weeks. It is important to provide resources for these people to help them perform their normal day-to-day duties during this period. Backup resources need to be identified, trained and available to fill in where needed during both simulation and go-live.

help or need to be encouraged to use the new system. Generally, practicing in the new system needs to be at a 50-per-cent level of what is normally carried out in the old system. These records can also identify bottlenecks in the system.

There is a great deal more to prepare for the simulation and go-live phase and I have only scratched the surface. Many companies opt out of simulation and decide to go directly to go-live. The majority of these implementations fail or are implemented very poorly and require a lot of rework after the system is live in the production environment.

Simulation allows us to validate our plan, preparation and support, and is intended to correct the many issues that can happen with large implementations.

We will go-live in less than two months.

Every plant will continue to practice in the simulation database until then. We will be preparing as much as we can as we wait with anxious anticipation for Go-Live. MRO Peter Phillips of Trailwalk Holdings, a Nova Scotia-based maintenance consulting and training company, can be reached at 902-7983601 or by email at peter@trailwalk.ca.

The Gold Standard for Performance

Support On large ERP implementations support teams will be at each plant during simulation and golive. There will be an on-site expert in each ERP area. They help to identify and find solutions to user security roles, software and master data errors, and provide training where needed.

At a global level there needs to be a team to address serious software issues that require programming, reloading of data and user access issues. These teams are generally remote and support all the sites involved in the simulation.

The on-site support team needs to have daily meetings to discuss user and software issues and overall software concerns.

They need to keep a running list of problems, then log which ones have been resolved and which ones are outstanding, and add new issues to the list.

They need to keep daily participation records and the number of transactions that have been performed by the users.

This will identify who may need

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Power transmission and bearings How bearings assist in power transmission.

BY DOUGLAS MARTIN

Europe versus North America Since the curved, outer-race design was now patented, others had to come up with an alternative design. In the U.S., the solution was to put a curved surface on the outer diameter of the bearing and fit the bearing into a housing with a curved bore allowing the bearing to align in the housing.

This development left its imprint in the legacy of engineering design. There is a tendency in the U.S. to use “unit block” type bearings (those whose outer diameters are sphered). European designs tend to use self-aligning bearings (spherical roller bearings and self-aligning ball bearings) in split housings.

Unrelated to this, one can also see this same design preference for spherical roller bearings, cylindrical roller bearings and tapered roller bearing between U.S. and European designs.

Since tapered roller bearings were invented in the U.S., they are seen more often in North American machines. In contrast, Europeans tend to use cylindrical roller and spherical roller bearings – at least in those applications where either will work.

Issues with power transmissions (drivelines) Where do we see a similar role played by bearings in modern machinery? One main application is the driveshaft of a ship.

The driveshaft will transmit the power of the engine to the propellers or the azipod unit. In a typical ferry arrangement in which the ferry is symmetric front to back, a driveline will go “forward” (No. 1 end) and another will go “backward” (No. 2 end).

These driveshafts may be rather long and have six to eight bearing positions supporting the shaft. The more important job of the bearings is to control the shaft from whirling at some harmonic speed so that the engine drives the shaft

through. So we don’t necessarily see bearings failing from fatigue – in fact, they seem barely during routine inspections.

What we do see is fretting corrosion between the outer diameter of the bearing and the housings. Since almost all split housings use a loose fit to allow axial expansion, there is space.

And this space of a couple thousands of an inch gives some freedom of movement, and the rotating load of the shaft will make the bearing creep in the housing.

Universal joints / cardan shafts One important consideration with power transmission systems is the effects of cardan shafts. Cardan shafts are two power transmission shafts whose axes are not in line and are joined by a universal joint. The universal joint actually creates an oscillating axial load and a rotating radial load.

In terms of the oscillating axial load, this can be damaging to some spherical roller bearings as this back and forth motion can cause each roller set to load and unload at the frequency of the axial load (2x rotation). Some bearings may experience roller skidding damage from this loading/unloading cycle.

The rotating radial load will have the effect of causing the outer ring to creep in the housing causing the appearance or score marks that look like the bearing is spinning in the housing. If creep does not occur, then at least fretting corrosion is likely to occur.

Unit block over-greasing One regular problem with the unit block bearings (those with the curved outer diameter) is over-greasing. Since these bearings are most often sealed with a lip contact seal, there is limited space for grease. Care must be taken to only insert the right amount when re-greasing.

What I find curious about unit block bearings is that they probably don’t need to be greased – at least not as often as one thinks. Take for instance a 25HP motor driving a line shaft supported by two unit block bearings. The 1200HP motor is connected to the line shaft by sheaves and a belt that reduces the speed to 600rpm. Consider two factors: 1. Would you grease the motor bearings that are going 1200rpm? Probably not. In many cases, motors of this HP size are “sealed for life” and never re-greased.

2. The ball bearing inserts (with the curved outer diameter) are the same internal design as the ball bearings in the motor.

They are going half the speed of the electric motor bearings (which never get greased). So why do these unit block bearings need grease? At least for lubrication sake; perhaps to protect against contamination they may need some, but, as noted before, in the correct amount.

Douglas Martin is a heavy-duty machinery engineer based in Vancouver. Reach him by email at mro.whats.up.doug@gmail.com.

Image courtesy of www.skf.com.

L

et’s start at the beginning. Mass-produced bearings date back to the end of the industrial revolution (late 1800s) and one of their major uses was to support the line shaft suspended from the factory ceilings that transmitted power from the steam engine or waterworks to the machines (often textile machines). At one end of the line shaft was the steam engine, and all along the line shaft were sheaves and flat belts that drove the textile machines.

Although these were an amazing development that reduced the power losses from the friction of a plain, sliding bearing, they had a drawback in that they could not accommodate the angular misalignment that inevitably existed in old factories.

One of the first major developments that followed the invention of the ball bearing was the invention of the self-aligning ball bearing. Sven Winquist, a maintenance engineer in a Swedish textile factory (see image) needed a better bearing to replace the existing unreliable “hangar” ball bearings. By using a curved outer race and two rolls of balls, he developed the first self-aligning ball bearing. This greatly improved the reliability of these line shafts.

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CHECK, REPLACE, RENEW

An on-site visit at a Dow turnaround in a chemical plant in Böhlen, Germany, reveals the complexities of a well-planned turnaround.

BY HANNO KURZEJA

W

hen some machines rest, others are running at peak levels. This is what happened at a chemical plant in Böhlen, Germany in September 2015, as it happens every three to five years during so-called plant turnarounds. Installations, compressors, pumps, and turbines stand still, but cranes and lifting platforms are on the move – during the safety inspections by TÜV SÜD Chemie Service and during clean-ups, repair and renewal works.

“Where the cranes are is where the action takes place,” says Reiko Hass, turnaround manager in the Dow plant in Böhlen, during the inspection of the premises of the chemical plant near Leipzig. The 320 ha large premises is covered in cranes and scaffolding. This is why riding on bikes, other than usual, is forbidden. About 30 cranes stretch up into the blue sky. Disassembled parts are lying around everywhere – from fittings to pipes up to boilers.

The regular shutting down of chemical plants is called turnaround or (largescale) shutdown. The term “turnaround,” which is mostly used in Böhlen in particular, highlights the long lead time of 30 months. It starts right after the last turnaround. Furthermore, it is fitting that each single part is turned around, that is, disassembled, maintained and reassembled.

The term “shutdown” however, refers to the downtime of regular operation: usually, these installations are in operation for 24 hours, seven days a week and only a few people enter the premises.

But every three to five years the installations are shut down in order to carry out statutorily prescribed and other inspections – mainly based on industrial safety regulations – as well as repair works.

The period is calculated based on the measures “relevant for the turnaround” since the last turnaround: in this case 1.5 months.

Usually, almost 600 Dow employees

and an external service team of 300 persons are working at the location; however, during the large-scale shutdown, another 1,500 employees from various companies are working there as well.

Many of them go there every five years.

And despite everything being strictly organized and monitored by security guards, the atmosphere is concentrated and familiar.

But next to personal efforts, an extreme amount of logistics is needed for the project, not only with regard to inspection and repair works. “Everything needs to be planned up to the cutlery,” says Hass. The materials storage covers for this period, among others, two tents with 240,000 parts, 290 shower and changing containers, 50 containers for granting the work permit on site, 63 office containers and a kitchen tent. For the access to the premises, not only a large car park was created, but also additional traffic lights installed.

The heart is the cracker It is noisy during the round tour, a rattling thunder in the background: the “washing machine” is in full swing. It

Peter Goth, TÜV SÜD Chemie Service, has worked on site at the plant for 40 years.

Here he discusses possible solutions for a leak with employees.

Discarded instruments in front of the machine house.

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Reiko Hass, Dow turnaround manager, shows the plans of the plant.

Dye penetrant testing is used to verify the integrity of the pipe welds.

cleans materials by spinning it together with gravel. At some locations it smells of caustic soda from the cleaning – “not dangerous,” says Peter Goth. Here, cleanliness is a part of safety. The TÜV SÜD Chemie Service expert witness has been working for 35 years for the chemical plant in Böhlen. Until 2009, he was working at the self-monitoring at Dow, from which this TÜV SÜD Chemie Service location emerged. Three to four employees are always on site. According to his own words, Peter Goth fell in love twice: once with his today’s wife and once with the cracker on site – there is a reason why it is called the “heart of the plant”.

In the cracker, petroleum is cracked into hydrocarbon compounds – ethylene and propylene – in 15 furnaces at around 800 °C, basic materials for the plastic production. Petroleum is delivered via a more than 430-km long pipeline directly from the harbour in Rostock to this plant. The cracker is the heart of the Dow Olefineverbund in central Germany. It supplies the plants and installations in Schkopau and Leuna with intermediates, which are further processed and made into plastics.

Also within the plant in Böhlen, several installations depend on the cracker, especially since it produces the process steam for further installation parts. “When the cracker coughs, everyone coughs,” says Olaf Fuchs, head of Plant Monitoring Central Germany at TÜV SÜD Chemie Service. For this reason, all other installations and parts need to be shut down when the cracker needs maintenance. Shutting down and cleaning all installations alone takes 10 days. The oldest parts of the cracker, located in the traditional plant founded in 1921, are older than 40 years, that is, they

Measuring instruments.

Olaf Fuchs, head of Plant Monitoring discusses the job with his colleague Peter Goth (right).

are from 1975. This makes it even more important that it is regularly checked to consider which parts need to be replaced or repaired.

1,200 to 1,500 jobs, 25,000 sequences The cracker’s powerhouse is the most active today. One worker is measuring the turbine’s bearings, others are working on the fittings. “Here in the heart of the plant only highly qualified experts are at work,” says Hass. The different trades and employees jointly dismantle the affected parts completely, check, replace or renew parts and reassemble everything afterwards – subject to the strictest safety regulations.

In order to ensure smooth procedure, comprehensive and thorough planning is required. The colleagues of the turnaround team need to co-ordinate 1,200 to 1,500 jobs with a total of 25,000 sequences, that is, individual tasks. All depend on each other. “There is no point in bringing all these people here to have them check something and then there is no security guard,” says Hass. “To ensure that the colleagues can start their work, security guards, a crane, scaffolding and the right material are needed.”

Planning is co-ordinated months in advance and documented in a complex project plan. The particularities for the Dow turnaround in Böhlen are that all parts, also micro-parts are planned and ordered in advance. Thus, no waiting times arise. Every evening they check whether the plan was met in terms of safety and effectiveness. For deviations, good reasons must be stated. After all, the project involves high costs for Dow. Each day, the plant usually makes a

turnover of about one million euros ($1.5 million). For a shutdown of 50 days, this means a loss of 50 million euros ($7.6 million). Plus the investment of 42 million euros ($6.4 million) for the turnaround and technical innovations, such as the step-by-step introduction of a new process control system. Thus, the shutdown costs 92 million euros ($1.4 million).

Safety first Safety ranks highest on the agenda.

From the security company alone, more than 100 experts are on site and more than 2,500 safety trainings were carried out. The Safety Shop has 8,300 items available for the employees’ equipment.

TÜV SÜD Chemie Service has 13 engineers participating in the turnaround, at a maximum eight at the same time.

Without them, the project wouldn’t take place: the TÜV SÜD Chemie Service inspections are top priority as they are statutorily required. These are 80 per cent of the turnaround’s work packages.

And according to Hass, they constitute the “largest challenge.” This comprises the corrosion monitoring. For example, this year, the supporting poles of 10 containers need to be replaced due to corrosion: for 10 containers a total of 100 support poles have been replaced. For the TÜV SÜD Chemie Service expert, this meant 10 folders with inspection documentation for Dow. Decisive for the inspections by TÜV SÜD Chemie Service is the Industrial Safety Regulation including explosion protection, which is now regulated in the Ordinance on Hazardous Substances. This, for example, plays a role for agitator vessels. But also company rules are important. The U.S. company attaches

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BAD MOVE. GOOD MOVE.

move-series

The New Generation of Timing Belts Up to 75% more tensile strength and 30% higher transmittable force.

www.brecoflex.com

MRO_Brecoflex_Feb.indd 1

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great importance to safety The Dow chemical plant in so that the requirements Böhlen, covered in scaffolding partially exceed the statuto- during the turnaround. ry requirements.

While shutting down the installations is most critical due to the ongoing production processes at the beginning, the most decisive weeks are the three subsequent weeks during which TÜV SÜD Chemie Service can carry out their work.

Here too, no investigator can enter a vessel for an internal inspection booked months in advance, carpools orbefore release measurements were car- ganized. “The colleagues volunteer for ried out and proof is provided by means the turnaround,” says Olaf Fuchs. “Here of gas measurements that all critical val- they can meet colleagues from other loues are met. This is why such inspections cations, gain experience and exchange are prepared overnight or in the morning know-how.” between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Furthermore, a Noteworthy: Nearly all colleagues are safety guard must be within sight during older than 40. “Especially in a plant with the inspections. tradition as it is the case in Böhlen, exThe inspection obligations are flexibly perience plays an important role,” says defined by the operation based on the Olaf Fuchs. He is convinced that without statutorily permitted framework. For ex- the practical long-time experience in the ample, vessels under pressure need to be chemical industry, the employees wouldn’t inspected at the latest every five years. be able to correctly classify the corrosion However, if the TÜV SÜD Chemie Ser- stages. “For example, a welding seam from vice experts conclude that safety is not the past cannot be compared with the maguaranteed for the period, the inspection chine-created seams from today and still periods must be shortened. It is only pos- it can be integer,” he says. And in case of sible to extend the inspection period to a wrong findings, “a huge machinery would be initiated unnecessarily.” certain degree in exceptional cases.

Shortly afterwards, the whole team This year’s turnaround is smaller than from TÜV SÜD Chemie Service gathusual in terms of scope, but: “When some ers with Goth to talk about a leakage at installation parts are still okay, coordia heat exchanger’s welding seam. The nation is even more challenging, in parspecialists find a reliable solution that ticular with regard to safety,” says turndoesn’t endanger the scheduled complearound manager Reiko Hass. But what tion date.

Peter Goth wants to quickly go makes it a bit easier for the TÜV SÜD and take a look at the situation himself. colleagues: more internal inspections are carried out – and less of the more com- There, employees from different compaplex pressure tests. “We will have to face nies stand around the heat exchanger. them in the large-scale shutdown in five He discusses the result with them. Peter Goth, who will retire soon, says later: “I’m years time,” says Olaf Fuchs.

60 years old, but I would be happy to reExperience is what counts alize another 10 turnarounds with this Olaf Fuchs from TÜV SÜD co-ordinates team” – and of course with his great love, the inspection works. Just like Reiko the cracker.

Hass, he starts working on the shutdown project long before it starts and Hanno Kurzeja is head of Department Marketcontinues his work afterwards. The en- ing & Sales, TÜV SÜD Chemie Service GmbH. gineer has his office in Schkopau and For more information, visit www.tuev-sued. also co-ordinates the regular TÜV SÜD de/chemieservice. inspections during ongoing operation.

During the turnaround he co-ordinates the 13 TÜV SÜD experts from Schkopau, Dow Olefinverbund GmbH, a subsidiFrankfurt and Dormagen, who travel to ary of the U.S.-based The Dow ChemiBöhlen for the specific tasks: which spe- cal Company (Dow), operates produccialist is needed when? Where will he be tion sites in central Germany in Böhlen, accommodated and with whom can he Leuna, Schkopau and Teutschenthal. share a car? The hotels in the area are

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COOLING – Emerson Copeland Scroll

Winner’s Circle

The International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition (AHR Expo) recognizes some of the most inventive products, systems and

technology. Winners of the 2018 AHR Expo Innovation Awards, the annual competition recognizing some of the most inventive HVACR products, systems and technologies, are selected by a panel of third-party ASHRAE member judges who evaluate award entries based on innovative design, creativity, application, value and market impact. The winners will be recognized in a formal ceremony during the 2018 AHR Expo, that takes place Jan. 22-24, 2018, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

The latest generation of Copeland Scroll two-stage compressors from 1- 10 tons has been redesigned for improved performance and reliability in residential and commercial air conditioning systems. The third-generation technology is optimized for mid-tier comfort and efficiency rebates with improved full-load and part-load performance up to 5 per cent. www.emersonclimate.com

Congratulations to all of the winners and finalists!

Here we salute products from five categories – cooling, green building, refrigeration, software, tools and instruments.

REFRIGERATION – Chemours Opteon XP44 Refrigerant (R-452A) Opteon XP44 Refrigerant (R-452A), a non-ozone depleting, low GWP, HFO-based refrigerant replacement for R-404A/507. It offers about 50 per cent reduction in global warming potential compared to R-404A/R-507, while providing the closest match to the compressor discharge temperature of any other low GWP solution on the market.

With the regulations addressing high GWP refrigerants such as R-404A/R-507 in commercial refrigeration applications, Opteon XP44 uniquely provides equipment manufacturers and endusers an option to cost effectively cut the environmental impact of their refrigerant choice in half, without sacrificing performance or equipment reliability. www.chemours.com

GREEN BUILDING – Danfoss Turbocor TTH/TGH High Lift Compressor The Danfoss Turbocor TTH/ TGH High Lift Compressor is a compressor optimized for aircooled chiller and heat recovery applications. Engineered for high-lift applications, including air-cooled chillers and heat recovery, Danfoss Turbocor TTH/TGH models feature oil-free, variable speed, magnetic bearing operation for outstanding full- and part-load efficiency, low vibration and sound, a small footprint, and reduced maintenance – while providing an expanded operating map suitable for air-cooled chiller and heat recovery applications. www.danfoss.us

SOFTWARE – Browning Toolbox Technician Motor Efficiency Calculator The Browning Toolbox Technician Motor Efficiency Calculator is a mobile app for Apple and Android platforms. The app calculator module allows a user to identify efficiency differences between different generations of integral horsepower electric motors. This app not only identifies the potential efficiency gain, but it allows the user to tailor the motor usage parameters to mirror their application or overall facility usage so a projected return on investment (ROI) can be displayed. www.regalpts.com

TOOLS & INSTRUMENTS – Fluke T6 Electrical Tester The Fluke T6 Electrical Tester is an electrical tester that takes simultaneous voltage and current measurements without test leads. The T6 testers now make it possible to take reliable true-rms measurements in crowded junction boxes or along conductors with inaccessible endpoints, saving time, minimizing potential errors and greatly reducing the possibility of arc flash. www.fluke.com

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What’s new in PPE & Safety Cut-resistant gloves for hazardous industrial environments

Hygiene monitoring and management system

Cuts and lacerations represent 63 per cent of the more than onemillion hand injuries that occur in the workplace yearly, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics. Honeywell Perfect Fit A6 glove gives workers excellent tactile sensitivity and dexterity for performing precise manual tasks, such as small parts assembly, while also preventing cuts and lacerations.

You’ve got alot on the line and accurate information is critical.

The new 3M Clean-Trace Hygiene Monitoring and Management System comes complete with luminometer and software and is used with the 3M CleanTrace Surface ATP UXL100, 3M Clean-Trace Water Plus – Total ATP AQT200 and 3M Clean-Trace Water – Free ATP AQF100 to determine the level of contamination in a sample. Identify root causes and take action quickly.

www.honeywellnow.com

Motors designed for food safety Baldor-Reliance Food Safe motors are among the next generation of food safe, stainless steel motor platform for extreme environments. Designed with smooth contours and advanced sealing, these motors exceed IP69K for water, to maximize motor life in high pressure, sanitary cleaning environments. The high ingress protection rated enclosures, offer fully encapsulated windings, effectively sealing the motor inside and out. Combined with a laser marked nameplate and a footless mounting design, crevices are kept to a minimum and allow the motor to withstand clean-in-place procedures. www.baldor.com

www.3m.com

Welding helmet with updated lens technology Lincoln Electric introduces an updated VIKINGTM PAPR 3350 Welding Helmet, now with 4C technology and an optional extended battery pack.

The 4C lens technology upgrade improves the optics and reduces eye strain by minimizing the lime-green colouring in the liquid crystal display (LCD) in both active and inactive states. www.lincolnelectric.com

What’s new in condition monitoring Ultrasound leak detection With the new Sonochek ultrasonic handheld testing device from Pruftechnik, it is possible to localize specific leaks on high-pressure pipes and to evaluate the total loss volume. Its broad bandwidth of 20 to 100 kHz allows almost every leak on all industrial compressed gas and air pipes to be tracked, even from a distance. The device comes with two apps: Use the Sonolevel app to search and find leaks, carry out basic condition monitoring tasks for bearings, check that the condensate separator is in working order and monitor electric control cabinets for spark production; and use the Sonoleak app for precise localization of leaks on all compressed air and gas pipes and to determine the exact leakage loss volume. www.pruftechnik.com

Health checks for motors ABB Ability Smart Sensor for motors uses compact sensors to pick up multiple data from low voltage motors and provides information about motor health and performance via a smartphone or a dedicated web portal.

ABB’s remote condition monitoring solution is the pioneering innovation for uptime optimization, predictive maintenance regimens and efficiency improvements for LV motors.

Predictive analytics based on data from the solution can reduce downtime by up to 70 per cent, extend motor lifetime by as much as 30 per cent and cut energy consumption by up to 10 per cent. http://new.abb.com

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Electrical test and measurement meters with thermal imaging

Infrared cameras get to root cause faster

Flir Systems, Inc. has released six new test and measurement products, including two digital multimeters and a clamp meter that feature FLIR’s IGM (Infrared Guided Measurement. Powered by the Flir Lepton microcamera thermal core, the Flir DM166 and Flir DM285 digital multimeters and the Flir CM275 clamp meter feature a built-in screen to show heat caused by electrical faults, allowing professionals to find issues faster and more safely.

When diagnosing problems, capturing and displaying small temperature variances makes all the difference. The new Fluke® Ti450 and Ti480 PRO Series Infrared Cameras have increased thermal sensitivity to capture minute differences and the latest Fluke technology for onscreen clarity to make it easy to visualize issues in the field. With the enhanced measurement accuracy and the wider dynamic temperature range of the Ti450 PRO – up to 1500 °C with NETD as low as 25 mK –technicians can collect precise information for making informed decisions that boost the company’s return on investment.

www.flir.com/test

Awardwinning cable management solutions The igus CRM rotary and TH3 hygienic energy chain systems have each earned a Red Dot Award, an international product design accolade. The CRM (compact rotation module) allows for high levels of rotation in extremely tight spaces. The CRM system can be used to provide power, data and media without interruption, increasing machine reliability and avoiding unplanned downtime. And the TH3 energy chain system is the first plastic cable carrier developed according to the EHEDG’s “Hygienic Design Guidelines” and FDA regulations. The carrier’s open design allows for easy cleaning, while rounded corners and lack of threaded connections eliminate potential spaces for germs can remain. The blue plastic material is highly resistant to cleaning agents and chemicals. www.igus.com

www.fluke.com

Portable gaspowered electric start generator Larson Electronics released a portable generator that features an electric start and 7.0 horsepower air cooled overhead gaspowered engine. This portable generator is suitable for use in remote locations. The Larson Electronics GPG-4KW-1P-120.240 features a 4-gallon fuel tank with an EZ-pull recoil start can produce 3,300 watts of constant running power and 4,000 watts at its peak. www.larsonelectronics.com

Butterfly valve for long-distance water transport

Hightemperature pumps

KSB Group has launched the new Aporis doubleoffset butterfly valve with elastomer sealing element.

This product is used for applications where huge volumes of water need to be transported and shut off reliably. Applications include systems for water transport, water treatment or in large industrial cooling circuits. The valve is available with the face-to-face lengths specified in the EN 558/ ISO 5752, Series 14, standard and in nominal sizes DN 300 to DN 2000. The maximum permissible operating pressure is 16 bar.

KSB’s Etanorm SYT pumps have been a mainstay of process industries that need to handle high-temperature water or thermal oil. Capable of dealing with fluid temperatures as high as 350°C, these rugged, reliable pumps are available with flow capacities of up to 1,800 m3/h and heads as high as 102 m. Other features include: shaft seal rings that provide bearings with more protection from hot thermal fluids passing through the pump; new deepgroove bearings with extra axial clearance to reduce bearing temperature; bearing grease has been upgraded for improved resistance to dilution from synthetic thermal oils; and vibration-proof Nord-Lock washers for the impeller nut.

www.ksb.com

www.ksb.ca

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An ounce of prevention…

Mechanical motions from rotating members, reciprocating arms, conveyor belts and meshing gears present hazards to workers. The importance of having a machine guarding / safeguarding and lockout program cannot be overstated. According to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, in Ontario about 2,000 people are injured because of machine-related incidents each year. Facilities can protect workers by posting a fresh copy of the Occupational Health and Safety Act on notice boards and by planning regular compliance checks. Take your lead from occupational health and safety inspectors in Ontatio, who will carry out a machine-guarding and electrical hazards-blitz from January 15 – February 28, 2018.

For more information, visit www.wsib.on.ca.

Mr. 0, The Practical Problem Solver

Work completion rates

HIGH-PERFORMANCE PLASTICS FOR MOTION The playful metal dinosaur “Rusty” was on display at the igus booth at Hannover Messe 2017 in Germany, where igus produced tribo injection-moulded parts using printed tools within a mere eight hours. Known for its energy chain systems and polymer plain bearings, igus displayed motion plastics products such as bionically inspired strain relief components and the 3D-printed gear wheels, much like the ones igus CEO Frank Blase is holding. Featured in the insert is the iglidur G1 bearing all-rounder, which doubles the service life at a comparable price to its predecessor.

Source: www.igus.ca

Scheduling for a week at a time to give each crew supervisor a simple batch of work greatly improves work order completion rates. This batch of work has enough planned hours to match the available labour hours. The batch gives the supervisor focus on a certain amount of work rather than just making sure everyone has something to do. The batch also serves the supervisor with backlog research. No one wants to delve into the “black hole” of the maintenance backlog. Let the scheduler provide this service to the supervisor to find the appropriate work.

Doc Palmer, PE, MBA, CMRP is the author of McGraw-Hill’s Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook and as managing partner of Richard Palmer and Associates helps companies worldwide with planning and scheduling success.

For more information visit www. palmerplanning.com or email Doc at docpalmer@palmerplanning.com.

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