What Could Your Machine Builder (OEM) Do to Make Maintenance Friendly Machines?

Put extension tubes on lube points, with zerks external to the machine.

The bottom line is profit. I think you may be looking at this from the wrong end.

From a manufacture's point of view they will add to their product or service what gives them an improved profit margin, greater market share, or both.

Unless the consumer demands it, there will be little impetus to change the status quo. The other possibility is a competitor offers a cost benefit to their customer that tilts the market their way through marketing innovation. Then other manufactures will follow suit to regain their market share.The latter may be what you are thinking about, but it doesn't always work as theory will have you believe.

In the end it is still the same triangle of cost - quality - speed and where you, as a manufacture, determine you want to be.

If the customers can convince them that maintenance friendly will increase their market share, or that the customer is willing to pay more for easier (read lower) maintenance costs, then perhaps you have a winning argument?

I don't think that you really mean, "series constructive and helpful advice".

If you want to be taken "seriesly", get the spelling right and be up front about your (marketing) intentions.

More SCADA would be nice, but it's all about the bottom line.

Things break, especially if helped along by untrained operators.

Bullet proofing and more on-line monitoring/reporting come to mind.

Have the OEM Engineers maintain their designed equipment, in a production atmosphere, for the infant life-cycle of the equipment. Very few MK 0, Mod 0, pieces of equipment survive the infant mortality.

"Product improvement" demands changes.

Suppliers change component parts, or they run out and you have to go to a new supplier and you get running changes.

Customers want special features that become standard.

Drawing revisions keep many people busy during the life of equipment.

Product improvement has nothing to do with maintainability. Detroit was famous for installing a V8 engine in a compartment made for a inline 4. Some models required the front tires to be removed to have access to the spark plugs.

I know you can think of many more examples!

It would be nice to have the PLC display and interface not only in Chinese language, unless the operator has been included.

Besides that, it is very important that you explain the process very well and highlight the variables/ parameters that should be easy accessible and how you want the interface to look and work with pics and inputs.

During the process a maintenance plan and troubleshooting guide, set up in the PLC programming is not always a luxury.

I have been building manufacturing plant and process control equipment for nearly 40 years. I am amazed that anyone would believe that the PLC skills of OEM equipment builders are lower than those of the end user's maintenance staff. We as suppliers have the advantage that we generally specialize in only a few makes of PLC. Only the larger end users are in a position to dictate that all PLCs supplied to their plant are AB or alternatively Siemens, but this is common amongst multinational companies where internal staff training is generally high. Very few customers insist on having a copy of the PLC software so that they can fault find and modify their own plant. Maybe this is because very few have the staff who would be able to operate it. Raising the standards in OEMs is not the problem.

In Company I worked we had " Customer Complaint Cell". When ever customer complaint was received, it was registered in P.C under different heads such as product, nature of complaint etc. Every month there was summary made under each product and item. If there was repeated complaint under same headings such as "Brake Failure" then it was discussed in "Quality Circle" meeting and design dept. was asked to redesign the component to avoid such failures. So quality control is based on customer feed back and willingness of management to improve the product based on customer feed back.

Make user self-service basic parts easily accessible (and sensible price), and replaceable without the need for complex specialist (expensive) tools dedicated for the purpose.

Instead of that we get (supposedly cheap) machines that turn out to be expensive to repair in terms of labour and parts - which is a deliberate ploy by the manufacturer.

I had a washing machine that broke down. I diagnosed the fault but could only repair it by changing the whole motherboard. The 'new up-dated replacement part (surprisingly not expensive by reasonable comparison to alternative suppliers) was readily available, but could only be fitted by purchasing a 'new' plastic facia that was very expensive (a rip-off quite frankly). The original component was only available through approved stockist - that was (surprise, surprise) priced the same as the combined 'new' part and and new facia - but in fairness would be fitted for a 'small' service charge - which would cover other parts that might be 'found necessary' to make the machine work properly.

I scrapped the washing machine and put the (open ended) cost of repair towards a new one from another manufacturer.

The point I am making is the original manufacturer could have priced the spares and availability to make it easy to self-service, but I guess the would have upset the stockist/service agents. No incentive here to 'help'.

You win some, you lose some!

Find the people who have to repair the machines and equipment and have them review the prints before construction. Many times moving a component just a few inches is the difference between an easy repair and a major disassembly. In a perfect world, only a journeyman repair person would be allowed to design a machine component.

The OP is in the business of selling PLC/automation training. So moving a component six inches isn't where they were going.

jhhassociates is correct.

I was engineering manager of an OEM machine builder when we switched over to PLC controls and SCADA. I hired a good engineer away from a successful company and he brought us up to the current standard in controls. Our machines had as many as 50 pimps and heaters and chem control in one 100 foot line.

Only large customers had their own controls engineers. That's why the HMI screen was graphic and simple and geared to operators. (And password protected)

A big problem we had was untrained operators trying to "improve" production and quality.

Once properly programmed, the controls usually weren't a problem.

What industry were you in that had 50 pimps in its system?

Printed circuit board fab equipment. (The photo above is not our stuff)

Some of our equipment was 80 feet long with many multiple process and rinse chambers (with multiple pumps), with heated sumps and air knives/dryers between different processes and at the end.

This equipment sometimes ran 24/7.

Our customers didn't tolerate down time very well.

OK, I missed the pimps part.

I didn't, but i missed the "series" in my post, 'serous contributions' ... LOL If we discredit everyone who ever made a typo in their life, there would be hardly anyone left to hear from.

No offense but just pulling your chain.

I'm surprised Tornado didn't jump on it first.

To Tornado #14 ...don't ask Lyn 13# to spoil my fun.....I had visions of a brothel 'pick-and-place' conveyor belt system....not that I have any idea of what the internal layout of a brothel looks like.....!

It was likely a Hoes company...I mean hose... no, I was right the first time...

Amen!

The automotive industry hasn't taken that advice, have they?

A common item in a lot of the comments, component accessability. Sooner or later components fail. Nothing worse that having to spend hours dismantling a lot of still working parts to get to a failed component, no matter what it is, or not being able to get your fingers in somewhere to tighten a terminal or insert a wire into a terminal block.

I've done a few very large complicated pieces of equipment, both mobile and stationary, and I tried to make sure that whomever had to work on them for PM or breakdown maintenance didn't spend the first couple of hours, or longer, swearing at the designer.

The best method for making any engineered system more user friendly, is to have the engineer run and maintain the system in it's designed function. This is how I learn to eliminate PIA repetition, wasted movement, time consuming functions that add no value, placement of controls and maintenance access.

Many customers demand, "time consuming functions that add no value".

There is no right or wrong or one answer to a question like this. Every machine is different and has different levels of complexity and maintenance needs.

We have built machines intentionally very hard to work on unless you know how to go about it in a systematic way because we do not end-users inside the machine because it can be too dangerous to be inside the cabinet if you did not know what you were doing.

Others can be made open and easy to work on as possible, it all depends on the machine and its' designed function and safety.

How do you deal with a manufacturer that tells you a version of this? "What broke? Are you sure? We have used that part for years, and never had one go bad."

You say,"Well then, I'm sure that you and your supplier will want to have your service tech come out and replace it so that you can do a failure analysis on your first failed part. Otherwise, it's going into the trash along with your reputation."

Unfortunately the number of companies building that type of vehicle is small. And they all have their "issues" That company owned that market for many years because of some sharp people that designed a very good design. But then they rested on their butts, and failed to improve as needed.

So true.

Also, I've had a plant manager who refused to pay for training because every time someone got trained, they got a job at another company. He never did put 1 and 1 together. I found a job at a different company without him having to pay for my training. Rather, he trained me in a way he didn't realize and paid by having me, and others like me, leave .

It has happened to me too. So many times.

I, like so many of the other dedicated workers become VERY disappointed when I / we get treated like I / we don't matter.

1. When I am training on a new piece of equipment, I literally DIVE into it.
2. Think about how many hours / days / weeks you spend on training, ON YOUR OWN TIME! Especially if you want to advance in the company.
3. Sometimes I would have a manager that recognized my effort, but not usually!
4. I'm not the kind of person that would shove my experience in a managers face, I believe that my work success rating speaks for itself.
5. How can a dedicated worker make sure that the manager recognizes their effort?

What we get is the training from the manufacturer and then they don't put the unit on line for two years (of course after the warranty is over), so details are forgotten or techs have left, transferred, or promoted.

So true Original_Macgyver, very common.

Believe me, I would love to be very well versed in PLC's of all kinds, however my brain only remembers so much

- just look at this blog -

Memories and Men

At this time my job only requires me to be proficient at the TWIDO PLC's and that is where my focus is. I understand that there are a lot of similarities in all PLC's but the individual software programs are the difficult part for me. I get frustrated with the wide variety of interfaces, especially when there are buttons that look alike and I don't have my glasses on.

Not familiar with that Twido brand of PLC. But I understand your frustration. For PLC brand specific training on less popular PLC brands, you are best going to that manufacturer for training on their specific software. Most of us get well versed in a couple brands, then know enough to figure out the other niche brands life brings our way. The better your foundational PLC training you have received, the easier it is to adapt when life brings your way a PLC brand that is new to you.

You are very correct in that statement. Twido is the Telemecanique brand of brick PLC's and is installed in many of the BMU's our company services. I have some AB and Siemens PLC experience but only enough to do a quick read and maybe a troubleshoot. I appreciate your input and one day I hope to meet some of the regular contributors on this forum.