Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/957021
4 | March - April 2018 | www . machinerylubrication.com production, etc.), inspections can easily be divided once the information has been gathered. e critical path is getting good data and all the data. e rest will fall in place accordingly. Common Goals Inspection should be purposeful. It should provide routine answers to important questions about the health and condition of the machine overall as well as of the individual components and the lubricant. Inspection is a vital condition monitoring method that requires unifi- cation with other companion methods. All condition monitoring activities and technologies should conform to or align with corporate goals and business objectives, particularly as they relate to asset management and machine reliability. As mentioned, it should start at the top and become increasingly granular and prescriptive as it works down into the specific tasks of condition monitoring and inspection. For instance, if the corporate goal is to increase earnings per share, then inspection must directly and indirectly be structured toward achieving that goal. is might come from increased worker safety, lower maintenance costs, greater asset utilization (productivity) and reduced energy consumption. Ranked Failure Modes What are the questions that inspections are supposed to answer? ere could be many, but one is always the general state of your machine's health. Specifically, is there confirmation of health or evidence of incipient or impending failure conditions? erefore, you need to know the types of failures to be looking for, ranked by likelihood and risk factor. You also must know which inspection tasks and methods can alert you to a failure in progress and perhaps how advanced it might be. Next, you should understand the root causes associated with each of these ranked failure modes and how these root causes might be recognized by inspection. One root cause can be associated with multiple failure modes. To prevent the onset of failure, it's important to catch root causes early. All known high-risk failure modes should have at least one or more methods in your inspection plan that can reli- ably reveal their presence. So, when writing an inspection plan, cross-check that all inspection methods and tasks are aligned to a prominent failure mode or its root cause and that there are no high-risk failure modes that don't have an associated inspection method or task for early detection. is will bullet-proof your inspection strategy when executed properly. Machine Inspection Ownership: Operator or Resident Expert? Each task or method defined by the inspection plan must be performed with seriousness of purpose. e inspector should be responsible and accountable for quality work. In some organizations, the best choice for such an inspector is the machine operator. is is the person who works near the machines and can recognize subtle differences between what is normal and abnormal. is approach is often referred to as operator-centric inspection. In other cases, the inspector may be a specialist who works full-time in all disciplines of condition monitoring. Perhaps the inspector is the resident expert who only does inspection routes. e advantage here is the ability to have more rigorous training and continuous practice. If you combine deep inspection knowledge with a linguistic understanding of other condition monitoring technologies (e.g., oil analysis, vibration, thermography, etc.), the value and effectiveness can be tremendous. Regardless of whether the inspection plan is operator-centric or supported by a resident expert, it must clearly define responsibilities. Inspection Points Inspection points are physical locations on the machine that must be defined clearly in the inspection plan. ese could be couplings, shaft/seal interfaces, AS I SEE IT "What are the questions that inspections are supposed to answer? ere could be many, but one is always the general state of your machine's health."