By Roger Story, Owens Corning
shutdowns as a preventive measure against
breakdowns. For reference, vital equipment
is defi ned as the equipment necessary to keep
the facility running and making product.
e current lubrication program is set to only
sample equipment that has 20 or more gallons
of oil or is defi ned as "support vital equip-
ment." is equipment has a direct impact on
all production operations, such as laboratory
test equipment or air compressors. rough
semi-annual oil changes, Advanced Compos-
ites was disposing of 916 gallons of oil per year
on average and spending an average of $11,475
on just 12 pieces of equipment. Changing out
the oil semi-annually on these machines started
to become a fruitless and very costly PM task.
At the end of 2012, Advanced Composites
took a step in the right direction by beginning
an oil sampling program. Unfortunately, the
program was put in place with very little direc-
tion or knowledge of how to run it. Oil samples
were scheduled to be drawn as a quarterly PM
task. e team would go to the equipment,
open it up through the breather port, and draw
a sample with the vacuum pump and tubing.
Sometimes additional contamination would
fall into the gearbox through this sampling
procedure. e reports would come back and
be fi led away.
When it came time to fi lter, personnel
would go out to the oil shed/maintenance
shop to get a plumbing fi xture to attach the
fi lter cart to the gearbox (or other equipment).
is process could take up to 30 minutes.
Sometimes the plugs and pipes were not wiped
down, leading to additional contamination
entering the system.
In 2014, after almost two years in the
evolution of Advanced Composites' early
maintenance and lubrication program, Scott
Briner was hired as the PM administrator.
His responsibility was to lead and manage this
lubrication program and the preventive main-
tenance program. Within the fi rst few months,
Briner started Noria's lubrication training and
took the certifi cation test to obtain his Level
I Machinery Lubrication Technician (MLT
I) certification through the International
Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML).
Photos
by
Harry
Acosta
www
.
machinerylubrication.com
|
September - October 2019
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