A piece of equipment in your plant just failed. You didn't see it coming. You aren't prepared for this. Management is demanding that production starts again. Sound familiar?
STOP! STOP! STOP!
You may be caught in an endless cycle of failure after failure. You continually look for "who to blame" versus figuring out what actually happened.
Failure, Rinse, Repeat! Isn't it time to do something different? Let's look at the entire picture to see this... Ever heard of the Uptime® Elements?
Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) is becoming more common in large motors purchases and repair validation. Many end users are starting to establish specifications that include every test imaginable to ensure that the motor is designed and built to the specification provided and will last as long as current technology and testing procedures allow.
If you are involved in the repair of electric motors, chances are you have heard about a core loss test (or core test, core loop test, core flux test, etc.) being performed on your motor. This article serves to provide a basic understanding of what a core loss test is and why it matters.
Albert Einstein famously said that "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
The same applies for industrial maintenance and reliability practices. It is amazing the amount of individuals who rather than trying something different, will hunker down and defend "the way it always has been". Many times those same people will then discuss how many unplanned failures they have had and that they got a great response from their vendor and a great turn-around time. Repair, Failure, Repeat - over and over and over.
Mistakes are such an interesting topic to discuss, especially when you are talking about them in maintenance and repair activities. We all make them, we all shake our heads in disgust at some of the obvious ones that we shouldn't have ever had.
Maintenance culture is not commonly talked about. Maintenance in general is such a reactive world where we respond and perform in order to get things rolling again. That reactive approach that is at the heart of maintenance is what causes so many of the long-term issues that maintenance departments see every day.
Information is everywhere in today's world. Insurance companies have a device you can plug into your car to gather information. That information then tells them about your driving habits. They gather the information about you to make a rate determination on what they should charge you for your premium. Facebook, Twitter, WebMD, the internet in general gives you so much social information, breaking news, etc. all this information is readily accessible and even alerts you when it happens
