You’re having an after-conference dinner with some folks you met at last year’s technical conference. Recently, Jeff changed jobs and is now the plant engineer at a three-shift plant. “We have a crazy high rate of equipment failures,” says Jeff. “We’ve got motors spinning their bearings right in the middle of a production run, motors failing due to shorted windings, and breakers not operating.”
Somber looks all around.
Then Jeff says, “The plant manager wants me to analyze each failure and submit a report detailing the cause. I told him, ‘No, I will troubleshoot the system, and my ‘report’ will be a sharp decline in surprise failures.’”
What might Jeff be thinking?
The plant manager seems to believe all this equipment is failing independently, while Jeff believes there are systemic causes.
- If motors are throwing bearings in the middle of a production run, that can be stopped by installing vibration sensors on the motors to permit early detection and intervention. That’s a system fix.
- If motor windings are shorting at such a high rate, one cause that must be considered is how maintenance lubricates the motors (another system cause). Or the bonding system might need attention.
- If breakers fail to operate on a rampant basis, that is a maintenance system failure.
Given the symptoms, correcting the relevant system defects is the logical initial approach.
