You’re the new electrical maintenance manager at a manufacturing plant. Your boss, the plant engineer, worked in other plants as an industrial engineer. She’s concerned about the high rate of motor failure in this plant, and wants you to bring the rate down considerably and quickly.
She takes you to a few different mezzanines. On each one, there’s an environmental air blower. She points to the discarded drive belts and rags just left on the floor and to the grease left on the equipment. “This mess is indicative of poor maintenance practices,” she tells you. “Turn poor motor maintenance practices into good ones.”
What kinds of poor maintenance practices should you look for, to reduce the motor failure rate?
Your boss used the air blowers only as an example. Start by learning where failures are occurring with the highest frequency and highest cost (generate a report from the CMMS). Look for poor practices, there:
- Who lubricates the motors? Is lubrication performed according to the manufacturer’s instructions, or is someone just shooting random amounts of random grease into the motors?
- For each motor that drives a gearbox, check the temperature of that gearbox. If the temperature is much above ambient, you found a hot gearbox that needs servicing.
- Personally observe repairs and maintenance tasks being performed. Look for deficiencies in written procedures and execution of the work.
