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For most of the equipment, trying to stop the progress of wear is like trying to defy gravity. We can’t escape the inevitable. Many equipment’s perhaps are already on life support – they are too-far gone. However, this is for most of the equipment’s, but not all. A high percentage of lubricated equipment’s in normal service can have a seemingly infinite lifespan.
They are less prone to wear and failure when well-maintained. There are many reasons contributing to the failure of equipment however we are just discussing related to the environment and operating conditions to which we expose our machine’s surfaces.
You’ve probably heard the word “risk” defined as the probability of failure multiplied by the consequence of failure. When it comes to machine reliability, the consequence of failure may not be within practical control, but the probability of failure may be.
We’ve talked about the vital impact of human-agency on machine reliability. The frequency of human-agency failures tends to run inversely proportional to such factors as training, performance metrics and reliability culture.
Consider this; I recently heard a site engineer mention that maintenance has two problems:
- It’s broken because we didn’t work on it.
- It’s broken because we did work on it.
This is the maintenance paradox, no doubt. Anyone in the maintenance field has likely experienced it first-hand. Yet the answer to solving the paradox lies within, by simply restating the two problems as follows:
- It’s broken because we didn’t know how to prevent it from breaking. Or it’s broken because we didn’t know it was breaking and therefore didn’t work on it.
- It’s broken because we didn’t know it wasn’t breaking and worked on it anyway. Or it’s broken because we didn’t know how working on it might cause it to break.
“We didn’t know” is the common, operative phrase in the statements above. It too is controllable, like wear, but only when an initiative is taken to empower maintenance organisations through knowledge.
So.. no, equipment’s aren’t supposed to wear out. Yet they often do and if you investigate why, you will likely find they were in-fact murdered. If you follow the root-cause trail, you will likely find a smoking gun in the hands of one or more well-intentioned individuals (operator, craftsman, technician, mechanic, engineer, etc.) who simply didn’t know any better.
Is machine mortality inevitable?
Big Nooooo…. There are three things that cause machines to lose their usefulness : Obsolescence, Accidents and Surface degradation.
Let’s take a closure look now..
Obsolescence – It’s fundamental to the evolution of engineering and technology. The old must make way fotr the new. Most equipment face practical obsolescence long before they are functionally inoperable and there are many factors contribute to this. Yet some inventions have long life cycles, the grease fitting or timely manual greasing for example.
Accident – Accidents and other forms of human agency events can put a machine in imminent danger as well. Two identical machines working in identical work environments but operated by two different individuals can exhibit sharply dissimilar reliability and operating life spans.
The dissimilarities are typically operator (human) induced. Human agency failures also apply to errors in machine design and manufacturing. In this same category are accidents caused by acts of God (tornadoes, earthquakes, etc.) and other natural and random events.
Degradation – The third reason why equipment lose usefulness deals with the world of tribology (study of wear, friction and lubrication). Surface degradation, can be divided into chemical degradation (corrosion) and mechanical damage.
The protection of a equipment’s internal surface from chemical damage (20%) is largely affected by controllable conditions. Consider the following causes of chemical damage and the potential for their control or intervention by maintenance practices.
- Lubricants that are incompatible with seals, process chemicals, machine metallurgy or surface treatments.
- Improper preservation of stored or laid-up equipment; protection from moisture and corrosion agents
- Overextended oil change intervals
Mechanical surface degradation is subdivided into abrasion, fatigue and adhesion (for simplicity, less common wear modes were excluded). These three surface-destructive wear modes that correspond to roughly (50 %) of why machines are removed from service. More specifically, let’s examine the extent to which this internal destruction can be controlled, or even arrested.
To know more about these problem and solutions please feel free to contact us.
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All the best!
#Maintenance #life #Equipment #Damage #Lubricants #Obsolescence #Accidents #Surface_degradation
