Page 15 - Intro Predictive Maintenance

6 An Introduction to Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance using process efficiency, heat loss, or other nondestructive
techniques can quantify the operating efficiency of nonmechanical plant equipment or
systems. These techniques used in conjunction with vibration analysis can provide
maintenance managers and plant engineers with information that will enable them to
achieve optimum reliability and availability from their plants.

Five nondestructive techniques are normally used for predictive maintenance
management: vibration monitoring, process parameter monitoring, thermography,
tribology, and visual inspection. Each technique has a unique data set that assists the
maintenance manager in determining the actual need for maintenance.

How do you determine which technique or techniques are required in your plant? How
do you determine the best method to implement each of the technologies? How do
you separate the good from the bad? Most comprehensive predictive maintenance pro-
grams use vibration analysis as the primary tool. Because most normal plant equip-
ment is mechanical, vibration monitoring provides the best tool for routine monitoring
and identification of incipient problems; however, vibration analysis does not provide
the data required on electrical equipment, areas of heat loss, condition of lubricating
oil, or other parameters that should be included in your program.

1.1.4 Other Maintenance Improvement Methods
Over the past 10 years, a variety of management methods, such as total productive
maintenance (TPM) and reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), have been devel-
oped and touted as the panacea for ineffective maintenance. Many domestic plants
have partially adopted one of these quick-fix methods in an attempt to compensate for
perceived maintenance shortcomings.

Total Productive Maintenance
Touted as the Japanese approach to effective maintenance management, the TPM
concept was developed by Deming in the late 1950s. His concepts, as adapted by the
Japanese, stress absolute adherence to the basics, such as lubrication, visual inspec-
tions, and universal use of best practices in all aspects of maintenance.

TPM is not a maintenance management program. Most of the activities associated
with the Japanese management approach are directed at the production function and
assume that maintenance will provide the basic tasks required to maintain critical pro-
duction assets. All of the quantifiable benefits of TPM are couched in terms of capac-
ity, product quality, and total production cost. Unfortunately, domestic advocates of
TPM have tried to implement its concepts as maintenance-only activities. As a result,
few of these attempts have been successful.

At the core of TPM is a new partnership among the manufacturing or production
people, maintenance, engineering, and technical services to improve what is called
overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). It is a program of zero breakdowns and zero