Processing, December 2020

MAINTENANCE Reliability produces profitable results To make sure equipment such as a conveyor has a good return on investment and a good life cycle it is critical to follow a proven process for the documentation design installation maintenance operation and monitoring of the machine health By Paul Craven Sumitomo and Jeremiah Newton Motion Industries 26 Processing DECEMBER 2020 apital projects are common in many industrial facilities across the United States There was a recent report that named four specific industries mining metal pulp and paper which collectively are spending 3319 billion in capital expenditures in 2020 alone To ensure that your company will get a good return on your investments and turn that into profit dollars due to uninterrupted production it is important to follow a proven process Initial correspondence and end user expectations Whether it is a newly designed conveyor system or a redesigned system there needs to be an initial line of communication between either the manufacturer or distributor and the end user Laying out the expectations of the end user will allow the manufacturer to design the system according to the end users specific tonnage requirements and in some cases budgetary restrictions In the cases of a redesigned system it allows the manufacturer to refer to the original operating context obtain current production information and evaluate maintenance processes Equipment rental requirements and PPE should be discussed during this initial meeting along with any additional on site or pre job safety training other than the federal or state mandated safety requirements Furthermore it may be a good idea to have a good cross section of all stakeholders in the facility senior level managers front line supervisors engineering electrical production maintenance and reliability engineers involved in this initial meeting to discuss capabilities and or restrictions This will ensure that these departments have a clear understanding of the requirements and know their part in making the design fabrication installation and operation a success with a measurable outcome Assess and evaluate current conditions Sometimes the ground is too soft and the structures design must be evaluated and or the landscaping needs to be fortified Sometimes excessive exposure to natural elements will affect the reliability of the components In some cases the original design was not engineered properly and needs to be re evaluated In some aggregate applications there could be severe conditions that are not otherwise communicated in initial meetings and conversations conditions that can drastically affect the component reliability A plant visit is crucial to assess and evaluate all the conditions before designing a new conveyor system or redesigning a current application Heres an actual scenario A mining customer of ours was utilizing a chain driven conveyor with custom made to order sprockets exposing the chain and components to the open elements Replacement sprockets had an excessive lead time and keeping these properly lubricated and free of debris was becoming an issue We were able to reverse engineer the system and come up with a more readily available shaft mount reducer option Adding reducer housing to protect the gearing components as well as belt guards to protect the drive system extended drive system life significantly not to mention that replacement parts are easier to access Condition monitoring and lubrication There is a big push in technology these days and most plants in heavy industry are implementing the use of condition monitoring devices on their components Some of these include but are not limited to the following vibration detection oil analysis thermal imaging and ultrasonic listening devices Condition monitoring will allow the end user to closely observe critical components for excessive heat or abnormal vibration An implemented predictive maintenance program will also ensure the least amount of downtime as possible and provide failure analysis for the end user and the manufacturer Most programs have a reporting system that can be set to an hourly daily or weekly report that can be reviewed by management and evaluated The most important thing is to trend this data and look for minute changes in the as found readings versus benchmark numbers What you are looking for is the rate of change in this information For example if the vibration readings change from 007 in sec to 010 in sec in 12 months then you are good However if they change from 007 in sec to 010 in sec in one day then you had better start paying close attention to that component C All images courtesy of Motion Industries