In today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, the financial pressure is intense to maintain manufacturing equipment. Plants are expected to maintain more equipment and deliver throughput at a lower cost and with fewer personnel. As a result, companies need to be continually searching for ways to improve their efficiency and bottom line. One method to accomplish these business goals is benchmarking equipment maintenance against competitors and industry averages. “Measurement is the heart of any improvement process.” – Edward Deming, Quality Expert Benchmarking…
Technical Articles
Vibration: A Very Broad Technology
Whenever I overhear people state that ultrasonics captured a problem that vibration didn’t, it always makes me wonder if they know enough about vibration technology and vibration analysis or whether they are just repeating what they’ve heard from others over the years? Before accepting this statement as fact, you too may want to pause and ask several basic application questions. Was the vibration capture point set up to capture that specific data? Vibration technology has a lot of adjustability from…
The Crossroads – The State of Technology and Manufacturing
We are coming to another major crossroads in how we manage and monitor our manufacturing processes to ensure that reliability, quality and most importantly profitability goals are being met. Technological advances with the use of embedded technology and IIOT are being looked at as possible alternatives to traditional methods of obtaining data and measurements through the use of Condition Monitoring (CM) techniques and the inspection results of Preventative Maintenance (PM) tasks every day. The discussion around the replacement of man with…
How Controlling Manufacturing Costs Improves Profits
When looking at any manufacturing industry, there’s a system of equipment and processes. There are raw materials, a conversion process, and then finished goods and products. Questions to Ask Yourself Can you control what your raw material costs are? Can you control what the market share of your finished product is? The answer to the two questions above is no. You typically have little or no control over the cost of raw materials or the market share of your finished…
The Role of Machinery Protection Systems
The reprint excerpt below is from a case analysis of a cogeneration facility. The original article was authored by Allen Bailey and subsequently published in Uptime Magazine April/May 2016. In today’s industrial environment, most turbomachinery has permanently installed machinery protection systems that incorporate vibration monitoring instrumentation. These systems typically utilize proximity probes to monitor both radial and thrust events (i.e., relative vibration measurements), case-mounted seismic vibration transducers (i.e., absolute vibration measurements) and a shaft speed/phase reference measurement. By incorporating the…
Condition Monitoring for the Steel Industry
After years of decline due to economic conditions, the outlook for steel around the world is starting to look more positive. This is especially true for US steel producers as government officials discuss reforms to not only lower the corporate tax rate but also control the glut of imports from overseas markets which has been so problematic in recent years. Current infrastructure improvement plans have the potential to provide additional markets for those mills that are able to meet the…
Applying Infrared Thermography for Mechanical
What is Infrared Thermography? Infrared Thermography (IR) is a non-intrusive method used to monitor the condition of in-use equipment, based on temperature values. Infrared is a natural enhancement to the performance of visual inspections. As a condition-based monitoring (CBM) technology for manufacturing, infrared thermography is one of the most adaptable technologies with applications for mechanical, electrical, and stationary equipment uses. Once you know how to use a thermal imaging system properly, you will be able to see what you previously…
Fear You’ve Picked the Wrong Vibration Services Company?
On a recent phone call, an American manufacturing company recalled the terrible experience they’d had with the company they picked for their vibration analysis services. They asked, “how can we avoid picking the wrong vibration services company for our vibration analysis?” I replied, suggesting they ask a few up-front questions to help avoid wasting resources (time and money) on a services company and vibration program that are not right for them. This manufacturer was somehow convinced that the BIGGER the…
Training Produces Competence with Confidence
Success for your organization in 2017 and beyond will require a honing of skills and technical expertise. A training development program brings all employees to a higher level, so they share similar skills and knowledge which will produce a higher quality of work produced by those who complete basic work tasks as well as those who perform complex procedures. Employees with access to the appropriate technical training and development programs are far better off than the employees in other companies…
Visual Inspection the Original NDT Method
Visual inspection is the original nondestructive method and greatly undervalued as a technical discipline. Alone, it is considered an inferior practice compared to the advancements in predictive maintenance (PdM) technologies such as Vibration Analysis, Infrared Thermography (IR), Oil Analysis, and Ultrasonics. “Visual inspection can use both the unassisted eye and a variety of predictive (PdM) technologies during an inspection to observe the condition of components within an operating system.” Objectivity is foundational and the cornerstone of visual inspection. When the…
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