Hydraulic & Pneumatic Equipment Responsibility

depending on the size of the company there are many solutions.

A small company will rely on the vendors to supply and install the gear. Any faults are fixed by vendor under warranty while it lasts and then you call a repairman after that.

Larger companies can justify and inhouse hydraulic/pneumatic man as they have enough work to keeo him busy and he gets to it faster and cheao=per than a celled in man.

I've work in same company once, that utilizes these equpments, being part of the maintence on that company area, we grouped our technicians into 1 electronics and 1 mechanic in a 3 shifting duty for 24 hr(two technician per shift) just to maintain all pneumatics and hydraulics.

We are also responsible for the designing and modification of the machines to increase production and decrease downtime.

In the factory where I work, the electrical-instrumentation guys are in charge of pneumatics. This came about because the factory started out with pneumatic control systems before it upgraded to PLCs. Instrumentation guys were working on the pneumatic controllers to it was logical to give the entire system to them for troubleshooting and maintenance. When PLCs arrived and the pneumatic controllers were removed, the instrument guys retained their jurisdiction over pneumatics.

As for hydraulics, this is where it gets complicated.

Our hydraulic devices are controlled with pneumatic devices. That is, the hydraulic devices were air-actuated. That being the case, hydraulic equipment became the domain of the instrumentation section as well. However, hydraulic pumps, hydraulic piping and shutoff valves went to the mechanical boys.

We used to have arguments back then over who was in charge of what. Today, things have become pretty clear though we still have a few discussions every now and then.

Scenario:

An operator can't get a valve to open. He calls instrumentation since valve control belongs to instrumentation. The technician checks it out and declares that the valve is stuck and that the actuator is fine. He leaves.

The operator calls the mechanic and says that the valve is stuck and needs to be replaced. The mechanic won't touch the valve until the actuator is removed. He says this because when he removed it once before, he damaged the pneumatic tubing and got a tongue-lashing.

So, the operator calls the technician again and asks him to dismount the actuator. Eventually the job gets done but only after 30 minutes or so and after a few heated words.

Logically, people who are trained on equipment should be responsible for those equipment. Then again there are shared responsibilities. Clearly defining (and getting agreement) on who does what and how things should be done will go a long way.

Clearly defining (and getting agreement) on who does what and how things should be done will go a long way.

Intelligent Chief Mainenance Engineer should make a factory Rule-book which the 3 parties will log onto:

Operator entered fault and clear description thereof--at 10:31 hrs

Despatcher informed Instrumentation Trouble-shooter(Main man) --10:35 hr .

Main Man, informs/calls Power/Energy man --at 10:52 hr

Hopefully Operator gets back machine at 11:05 hrs.

Chief Maintenance engineer recieves dossier at 11:24 hrs

Despatcher enters whole story on that machine's Health Card 11:34 hrs

Preventive maintenance Team prepares logistics to check all similar possible fault locations for next weekend off days.