Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/572212
4 | September - October 2015 | www.machinerylubrication.com AS I SEE IT corrective measures. It should also contain tools and devices that inspect and control conditions that might lead to failure or are incipient symptoms of failure. These include inspection tools, condition monitoring instruments, contamination control devices and much more. As mentioned, an extremely good starting point would be education and creating a culture of strategic training instead of just-in-time (reactive) learning. Training programs that present modern and technology-based concepts in lubrica- tion and maintenance will also detail the tools that enable them. With education and tools comes pride in one's work and profes- sion. This is a precursor to good maintenance culture, so don't skimp. 4. Machine Readiness In addition to a change in your skills and toolbox, you will need to change your machinery. You must ready your equip- ment for wellness and maintainability. Even today's new machines won't be equipped with the ancillary hardware to enable quality lubrication and mainte- nance. Many machine modifications are often required. These include hardware and accessories related to inspection, safety, sampling, oil analysis, contamina- tion control, oil handling, instrumentation and lubricant application. Effective training programs will describe what changes are needed and why. 5. Planning, Scheduling and General Organization In maintenance, there is a need for good workweek control. The whack-a-mole approach to maintenance workday sched- uling is destructive and costly. Activities need rhythm with few surprises. While this requires proper planning and scheduling, it also demands a built-in early warning system. You can't plan and schedule correc- tive action if you can't proactively see the need. As mentioned, an organization plagued by chronic unscheduled mainte- nance is an organization that is suffering from bad maintenance culture. Condition monitoring includes both proactive maintenance and predictive main- tenance. Proactive maintenance sees and responds to failure root causes long before a repair is needed. A good maintenance culture is a proactive maintenance culture. Make breakdown events a rare exception. Predictive maintenance is a companion to proactive maintenance. It sees and responds to failure symptoms, the earlier the better. Just as it is best to catch disease early, so too is it important to catch faults and impending machine failure early. Thankfully, technology is available to allow machine condition monitoring at a very high level. When it is well-executed, reactive maintenance is transformed to planned maintenance. This will help get work orders into compliance and reduce or eliminate the backlog of aging work orders. See the sidebar on the consequences of periodic PM forgetfulness. 6. Measurement When you measure, you are communi- cating what is important. Likewise, those things that are not measured are assumed to be unimportant. Beware of what you don't measure. People subconsciously work the metric. They know how they are being evaluated and respond in their work behavior accordingly. Constant perfor- mance measurement, reporting and course corrections are signs of a good maintenance culture. Measurement should come in many forms and at many different levels, including lagging indicators, leading indicators, macro indicators and micro indicators. Macro indicators are more holistic (the forest), providing a big picture view of plant reliability. General asset utilization numbers, such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), are good examples of macro metrics. Micro indicators see the trees and the weeds. They look at failure causes and symptoms. Machine vibration overalls and lubricant cleanliness levels would be exam- ples of micro metrics. Many of these performance indicators will report what just happened (lagging indicators), while others report what is going to happen (leading indicators). See Figure 1 on page 6. Consequences of Periodic PM Forgetfulness Lubrication requires constant attention. Vigilance is perhaps a better word. It's easy to forget the things you are not motivated to do, yet rarely do you forget those activities you are passionate about and desire to do. We are all driven by instinct to seek out the things we enjoy or that give us a gratifying reward. Because it's hard to find happiness in performing most routine maintenance tasks, it is not uncommon for many of them to become periodically forgotten or perpetually postponed. Much of this is actually "conscious forgetfulness," similar to procrastinating. Why does this happen? It is most likely due to a lack of rigor, which is the result of a lack of structure, measurement and incentive. Delinquent preventive maintenance (PM) can become habit-forming, leading to even more delinquency and a general cavalier attitude among maintenance workers toward punctuality and work quality. This "mañana mentality" or constant procrastination can lead to a destructive downward spiral. Common symptoms relating to lubrication include widely fluctuating oil levels, inspections that don't get performed or reported, filters and breathers that don't get changed on time, oil samples that never get taken or are collected improperly, oil that is not changed on time, and bearings that don't receive a timely shot of fresh grease. Periodically forgetting to perform lubrication and other maintenance tasks is equivalent to periodically accepting preventable failures. You can and should do better.