Page 418 - Improving Machinery Reliability

382 Improving Machinery Reliability

If you are thinking in the larger context of all of the systems and components in
your plant, you may ask how long it would take to break every component of every
system in a plant down to this level. This question is valid to a certain extent. One
thing to consider here is that you only have to do this one time, and the work you do
can be leveraged across all the units in your facility. After all, a centrifugal pump, or
cooling tower, or shell and tube heat exchanger in your plant has the same compo-
nents in it as the plant next to yours. Moreover, all of the plants in your company
would benefit from understanding equipment to the same level of detail without hav-
ing to again go through the same development process.
Each level of the plant hierarchy, be it systems, components, or parts, has a specif-
ic and measurable impact on the production process. To ensure production, it is nec-
essary to understand and document this impact. Defining a plant in terms of its sys-
tems, components and parts, and their function in the production process is a
prerequisite to evaluating and selecting the PM technologies to be used in the preser-
vation of function.

Understand, Evaluate, and Select PM Technologies. By understanding a
plant’s systems and components, their functions, and the required level of operating
performance necessary to ensure production, it is possible to systematically evaluate
and select PM technologies to maintain the required performance level. Part of PM
program development is knowing and understanding what PM technologies are
available. There are numerous books, training courses, magazines, and companies
who specialize in PM technologies and it is outside the scope of our text to describe
them all. Suffice it to say that one should familiarize oneself with the technologies
and their application before using them.
Select PM Technologies. A non-spared process compressor warrants more atten-
tion in a PM program than does a storm water pump. In this and every other case, the
criticality of the component in a plant is determined by the function it serves in the
production process, and not by its complexity.
If the goal is production (and it is), then the selection of PM technologies must be
driven by the goal to ensure production capability. One must resist the temptation to
preserve the function of every component in every system simply because we can.
Consider the following example.
A hydrocarbon processing plant knows that it is going to use oil sampling and
testing as a PM technology, so it sets out to determine where to apply it. The plant
can take either of two approaches. The first approach would be to apply oil sampling
and testing to all oil-lubricated rotating equipment. This approach is certainly the
easiest, but is also the least cost-effective. The second approach would be to apply
the technology only to oil-lubricated rotating equipment that has a direct impact on
plant production. The latter approach is obviously more effective.
The systematic approach is a combination of the earlier efforts to define a plant,
its systems, components and their function in the production process. With the plant
component list in one hand and the available PM technology list in the other, the
selection process comes down to answering a few questions.