Machine Maintenance

In a perfect world, that would be a perfect answer. Things break here and we fix em. Machines are often made up of various parts made by multiple manufactures. Normally the machine manufacturer will supply that information but not always. You might have to go to the parts manufacturer from time to time. Example: Mitek roof trackers use Baldor motors. Mitek has no information on motor maintenance but go to Baldor and you can find the right gear oil, brush & bearing part numbers, ect.

Nishant,

The periodic preventive maintenance depends on what type of equipment you have as well as the working components in the machine.

Do you have auto lube systems and what do they protect?

Does the machine have sliding components?

Are the bearings sealed or open?

Does it contain bushings?

There are many other questions that would have to be answered to set up schedules for any of the three types as stated above.

I have been managing maintenance for 25 years and although the best place to start is in the manual provided with the equipment, it will not necessarily cover all the needed preventive maintenance for any given piece of machinery.

Basic rule of thumb I have imparted to other over the years is this.

If it rotates with a bushing oil it every 8 hours.

If it slides with a bushing oil it every 4-6 hours.

If it take grease then a pump or 2 once a week will do for a typical 40 hour week.

If it moves it needs lube.(prelubed as in a sealed bearing should not need attention)

This hardley covers every situation and before I get reamed from my fellow maintenance buddies I know there is much more to it than this. But if we can at least give him a start maybe his machine will last a while longer.

There is one "GOLDEN RULE" of maintenance that covers just about everything. " If it doesn't fit, force it. If it breaks, it needed to be replaced anyway!"

A radical thought!

Contact the manufacturer of the machine and ask them for their recommended maintenance schedule.

And if that does not work, contact the manufacturers of the major components in the machine for their recommendations.

Could not agree with prbarry's answer more. When all else fails, follow the manufacturers instructions. The manufacturers instruction manual will, or should, give you daily,weekly, monthly etc., or hourly (e,g, 50hrs, 100hrs, 250hrs,etc.) schedules for maintenance. You will also find recommended lubricants, coolants, etc. If your machinery is from a reputable manufacturer and you follow his words of wisdom, in the main, your machinary may give you what you expect - many hours of trouble free service - we hope.

With respect to all who have provided information I believe there is one thing that has not been considered.

Is this a NEW machine or a USED machine.

Having purchased both and in one instance,where the manufacturer was no longer in business new or used it was just a nightmare. I say this because where it makes a difference is that sometimes there is no suppied literature with the machine and as in my case no manufacturer.

As I stated in my previous post, the manufacturers manuals are usualy the best place to start. And I like PBarry's follow up with looking for possible component manufacturers. But in the unlikely incedent that Nishant may have a discontinued machine with no paperwork whatsoever and none of us know what it is or does, the only advice we can give is hypothetical.

Bear in mind that there is a big difference between predictive maint. and preventive maint.

Preventive maint. requirements are typically inspection, cleaning, lubing, and minor adjustments during normal operation of equipment. As already said above there are different items to do based on operating time and the manufacturers specs. Most places run some sort of software for scheduling/tracking. In my plant we do about 300 manhrs of PM tasks a month.

Predictive maint. is different. Equipment or components are replaced at specific intervals regardless of apparent condition. For example, in our plant I have a large wire cut dough machine that runs at 95% rated load 22 hours per day. We run about 800,000 lbs a day through the beast. Downtime (equipment failure) costs are $630 per minute. Every 4 months I gut the machine. Every bearing, bushing, chain, gear, etc., is replaced. The $7k in parts and labor are nothing compared to the loss if it breaks for something stupid like a bearing failing.

When I was building machinery, we always had written recommendations as to maintenance for all new machines and included them in the manual. However ... as to used or "out of business" machines you simply have to be diligent and check the fluid levels often. Look for pump, gearbox, etc manufacture for lubricant specs. Also check with lubricant suppliers for replacement times. And of course The filter guys for change times. Grease or oil lubricants can be monitored and logged as to how much, type and how often. Keep in mind to make notation on dirt and or debris in sliding. rotating or open bearing areas. After awhile you will have your own maintenance schedule. Depending on size and type of machine you can have the operator do a spot check at the end of his shift.

Wow you mean you work for a company that actually lets you shut down the achines for a period of time to get to do real maintenance on them???

I am in a constant battle here and try to convince them every year that I need this time. I fight and fight but production always wins. For some reason they just dont get it here.

I have all the people here doing the preventive maintenance on their machines and am lucky that all the machine operators do their part.

When I first started in here the machines broke down at least daily. Now with the proper preventive maintenance schedules running throughout the plant I might have 1 major breakdown every 2 months and minor fixes (5-30 mins) once or twice a week.

Nishant,

I hope you have read all the replies posted. I expect you acknowledge it. Answer to your first question is clearly given (reply no.1), second and third are also answered. All are very good replies .If you carry out pre planned and scheduled preventive maintenance your breakdowns will be bare minimum or none. For predictive and preventive maintenance there are some difficulty in Indian conditions as some of the machines will be running round the clock and 365 days due to production target as these machines being very costly and these machines may be tightly managed by production man. So in such cases it will be the responsibility of the maintenance man to convince the production man about the possible breakdown and arrange pre planned preventive maintenance to the convenience of production man

I'm very grateful for all of the knowledge and experience that is shared here. Thanks to all. I would like to pose a couple of questions with a few of you:

First, At least two of you stated that with the proper maintenance scheduling, our new friend will see less breakdowns if any. What kind or type of machinery are you maintaining and, do you change it out regularly?

2. Another point that I found interesting: It was stated that some production facilities resist or deny scheduled maintenance p.m. shutdowns. At our facility we not only schedule p.m. shutdowns, but also shutdowns for things like cleaning, painting, internal inspections and many other reasons. My question is: How long have these facilities been in operation?

Trussway,

The equipment I maintain are screen printing presses. Most of the maintenance concerns mechanical components. The electrical components do however require periodic maintenance as well, especially where dc motors ar concerned. These require the almost annual replacement of the brushes.

Due to the competitive nature of our business a good portion of the time is allocated to production. Also because of this if I have scheduled maintenance it will likely be bumped to run a job.

Many time I have tried to get executive management to understand that preventive maintenance is important and they have come around to accepting that. But when it comes to predective maintenance or press upgrades they are less important to them as the machines are running.

Typically implementing a full blown maintenance program where none were in place before takes a leap of faith on the part of those in charge. In the 25 years i have been doing this the current company Work for as maintenance Manager has been the most difficult to get to come around to this way of thinking.

Trussway,

I am basically Electrical Maintenance person . But as Head of Department of Engineering Group our Job does not limit us only in electrical field It stretches out to other services Mechanical Civil water supply material handling etc.In the 40 years of engineering job my major area of experience was in maintenance of Electrical Distribution (HT & LT ), Machine tool , Heat Treatment Furnaces , casting ,forging and miscellaneous equipments . The machine tools we had to maintain were from pre world war II Lathes and Drilling machines to most modern Robotic controlled packing units ,Modern production and Tool Room Machines with NC, CNC , PLC controls , SPMs, Heat Treatment Furnaces ,HF Induction Heating Equipments etc. So pattern of preventive maintenance vary from machine to machine and depends on type of equipment ,age , regularity of use ,number of machines of same type ,ready availability of spares .So each group is asked to frame up their own Schedules considering all these aspects. I have made specific case study of various plants where regular and proper planned preventive maintenance was carried out and where only breakdown maintenance was carried out ,the difference is very clearly visible production loss due to breakdown was measured including the expenditure incurred on preventive maintenance.So we arrived at Maintenance planning. Regular replacement of plant and machines were carried out after evaluating and assessing replacement cost and production loss due to breakdown .So it is total maintenance planning which is required to minimise breakdowns and loss of production. In one of our Factories we had to replace the entire age old Electrical equipments to get rid of frequent breakdowns and transmission loss of energy .We decided to covert the system from 3.3 Kv to 11 Kv . The production of the Factory was so much vital and the production could not be stopped for even a day. The factory was working 24 hours 365 days with full capacity production.We took up the project and completed with out stopping production with proper planning.This was not possible with out the coordination and co operation of Production Department .This I could attain only after repeated meetings with various production departments for making them understand the importance of the project and understanding their schedule and difficulties properly.The result was that now there is not a single case of breakdown reported after completion of the project.

Great points! Thanks.