Plant production equipment and the electrical equipment composing the plant’s electrical infrastructure typically isn’t designed for maintainability. For example, zircs (i.e., grease fittings) are typically installed in a threaded hole near the bearing instead of at the end of a lubrication tube where it would be much easier to get at. Why is that maintainability feature omitted? Because it costs money to include, and end-user bean counters typically don’t want to pay for it.
Until the day arrives when decision-makers actually compare apples to apples and do such apparently “nutty” things as evaluate purchases based on the total cost of ownership, manufacturers will continue to (generally speaking) ship equipment without these features.
So the maintenance department wastes limited resources performing tasks inefficiently. Instead of connecting the digital multimeter (DMM) or power analyzer or harmonics analyzer or insulation resistance tester to test ports, what are they doing? Removing covers and making the job much more involved, time-consuming, dangerous, and expensive than it has to be.
When maintaining equipment that lacks maintainability features, track the additional time/cost. Then use that to justify a maintainability upgrade.
