Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1449093
12 | January - February 2022 | www . machinerylubrication.com COVER STORY and showed me a picture for the crack in the hose and informed me that he'd reported it two weeks before the failure mode had been indicated, but no one had taken any action to resolve it. Immediately, the planning team fired back that he should have told them it was urgent, since they didn't have enough time to scan through the reports and emails… and within minutes the Four B's process started. If you're unfamiliar with the "Four B's" process, it's a pretty simple concept: Blame maintenance, Blame operations, Blame planning, Blame the OEM - Blame anybody. One of the utility engineers tried to break out of the blaming process by saying he wasn't convinced that normal dust could do so much damage, which worked. Everyone turned to me, waiting for an expla- nation. Because this is a concept I'm so familiar with, I was somewhat in shock that they would say this, and waited for a moment to see if someone would laugh and say, "just joking." It wasn't a joke. ey were serious. Fortunately I was able to explain how these tiny particles could cause so much trouble, they accepted that it was possible, and we were eventually able to have a productive discussion about a risk mitigation action plan. What can we learn? First, know this: Training is a necessity. You can have the best main- tenance crew, but if you don't train them properly they're doomed to fail. Even after you train them properly, you still need to enable them to do their job via inspection preparedness (Inspection 2.0). In the case Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 of our steel mill, the maintenance team member observed the crack and even took a picture of it but didn't have the knowledge to understand its criticality and the potential impacts of the failure mode it caused. is was due first and foremost to lack of training. e planning team and the maintenance super visor a lso didn't have clear protocols and organization in place to scan through the backlog of feedback from the PM tasks that had been performed. Implementing a systematic review of completed work orders would ensure that critical information isn't missed. In short, reliability requires a multi-faceted, plant-wide culture change initiative. is will help ensure buy-in throughout the plant and help each team member to be properly enabled to contribute effectively to plant reliability. The Mitigation Plan As the meeting continued, we discussed possible strategies to mitigate future risk and, more