Create a winning strategy for condition-based maintenance

Taking action to reduce equipment downtime doesn’t have to be complex

Unscheduled maintenance costs businesses an average of £100,000 per week, according to research by RS and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). The same report also found that the average weekly cost of schedule maintenance is almost as high, coming in at £93,7000.

However, while it’s easy enough to acknowledge these costs, developing a strategy to reduce downtime can seem overwhelming. Here we explore three areas that provide a solid starting-point for improvement.

Condition monitoring
A condition monitoring strategy offers a lot of potential benefits, such as reductions in machine failures, less downtime and an extended asset lifetime. All machines produce heat, noise and vibration when in use. Outside of normal and expected limits, any one of those things could be an indication of impending trouble.

Rotating machinery, such as gearboxes, fans, motors, pumps or almost any type of active equipment, can benefit from vibration analysis , for example. But analysis alone is not enough. It needs to be the precursor to action, according to maintenance engineering academic Dr Moray Kidd.

“A lot of companies will say they do condition monitoring,’” he says. “But when you scratch the surface and ask what interventions they’ve made as a result of that analysis, they’ll often say they haven’t got the resources to make any.

“They’ll say: ‘We tried that – it didn’t work for us. It was expensive, so we didn’t carry on.’”

Resources, and often that means personnel, can be the biggest challenge. Many businesses are aware of the benefits of condition monitoring but struggle to take that forward and develop proactive maintenance models of their own. This is one area where adopting a specialist service provider, such as RS Maintenance Solutions, can turn those potential benefits into reality and help to identify the most efficient and cost-effective maintenance strategies.

Laboratory testing
Engineering and manufacturing sit at the crossroads of high-tech and low-tech activities. Methods and models are constantly being refined and improved, but ultimately there is still machinery cutting, shaping and hammering. Oil, grease and noise are never far away.

The simple act of conducting an analysis of oil taken from a machine, for example, can be revealing. Is there soot or debris from machine wear? Has the oil itself started to degrade? The machine might not provide direct clues as to its state of health, but the evidence is available – sometimes it’s a question of knowing how and where to look for it or finding someone who can perform that service.

“The reality is that some of the biggest gains can be achieved by doing the basics well – establishing good housekeeping processes,” Dr Kidd advises.

As with an overall condition monitoring strategy, oil analysis feeds into a condition-based maintenance model – if the oil reveals the presence of problems, prompt action can prevent costly, unplanned downtime.

Of course, it might be the case that some equipment is less of a priority. “Reactive maintenance is alive and kicking,” Dr Kidd says. “It’s okay to fix something when it breaks providing it’s not critical, and there’s redundancy.”

Clean, inspect, lubricate, tighten
Clean, inspect, lubricate, tighten: this simple mantra can take an engineering business a long way towards preserving the life and performance of its machinery. “Lubrication is a common point of failure that we see routinely,” says Richard Jeffers, Solutions and Technical Director at RS UK&I.

A simple, reliable maintenance regimen is vital, particularly with older equipment, which is a major maintenance challenge. More than a quarter (28%) of respondents in the RS and IMechE report stated that maintaining ageing assets was actually their biggest day-to-day challenge.

Defining the optimal running condition for a machine is the first step. Regular cleaning is also important – not only does it make sense, but regular cleaning provides another opportunity to inspect the machine.

Identifying the right lubricants is key, too. Lubrication failure isn’t always due to insufficient amounts – too much or the wrong kind can also cause damage. The RS Maintenance Solutions team breaks this process into four steps:

• Measure-up/develop
• Trace and analyse
• Appraise/implement
• Control and optimise

“This is absolutely a living and breathing, continuous process,” Dr Kidd says. “And the great thing is that the real value is in the journey, not the destination. It gets people thinking about what ‘critical’ means within their business. What can cause things to fail, and what the right response should be. And that can make the biggest difference in any business following a formalised approach to maintenance engineering. That’s the real value.”

Always keep in mind that change is a gradual process. Prioritise making upgrades to those assets with the highest criticality to safeguard their ongoing performance.

Whether at the cutting-edge of engineering technology or trying to juggle a mixed estate, the sooner a business takes a more strategic and scientific approach to maintenance engineering, the better. There are complexities in getting the right strategy in place, but there’s no need to overcomplicate things. Assess what can be changed, and what needs to be improved, then take step-by-step action.

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