HI GUYS, WE WERE ENCOURAGED BY OUR NEW MAINTENANCE MANAGER TO GO OUT AND VISIT PLACES WITH RECOGNIZED OUTSTANDING PDM PROGRAMS, SO THAT WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL. WE ARE HEADING IN THE GOOD DIRECTION, HOWEVER, WE WERE DIVERTED MOMENTARILY AND WE ARE TRYING TO CORRECT, IF ANY WRONG APPROACHES WERE INTRODUCED. ANY SUGGESTIONS? THANKS. MANNY K

Manny, I don't know where you're located, but I can give you my 2 cents worth from the last twenty years:
-find people who are inquisitive, and persistant, who are good at thinking mechanically.
-offer them an opportunity to run their program.
-train them in the basics of several different technnologies, such as vibration, alignment, thermography, ultrasonics, oil analysis, etc
-give them a voice in the overall maintenance program. They need to be viewed as experts.
-let them not only find problems, but let them be involved in fixing them as well.
-start out slowly, with vibration analysis, and move into other technologies in a methodical manner. That way, you always have another avenue to help save the company money.
-begin testing your most critical equipment,then branch out from there.
-share you findings not only with management, but with operators and technicians. Make as many people as possible believers.
-Put dollar signs to everything you do. Everything you fix must have some cost savings, or it's not worth doing. That includes safety items.
-use mistakes to learn from, not beat yourself up over.
-"hang out " with others who are in this field, at Vibration Institute meetings, technical conferences, and great boards such as this one.

That may sound more like a sermon than what you are looking for, but I think it lays a good foundation.

Hi Manny,
It is good idea to see how other programs working, but as Stan mentioned, at the end you should put your wheel together, what is good for somebody might not be for you.

Good detection and reporting is a must.

So we have that but this is not enough.

One of the most common problems is "after detection" and this is my priority.

Example:
We found crack in ball mill bull gear, 6 month ago, but nothing is done; now crack is getting bigger, (6 month delivery), and they asking me how we can improve our detection system, not why nothing has been done after our report.

So between many pitfalls, don’t forget on “after detection”
Dragan

Sounds like time for a boondogle - I mean benchmarking - trip ;-)

We are in similar situation. I did recently do a benchmarking trip on infrared for one day at nearby nuke plant with my supervior and it was a good investment of time.

Also a number of EPRI workshops with good opportunity to interface with other nukes.

I'm sure it would be interesting to step outside the nuke world and see how things are done but I haven't had that opportunity, other than this board which by the way is great. You guys keep it up.

Manny,
1-402-533-4332 ask for Brian or Steve. They would be a good contact for proficient and effiecent pdm program incorporating multiple technologies at a billion dollar facility. vibration, Infrared, Oil, MCA, Ultrasonic Leak, UT, FMEA, RCA, RCM and the list goes on.

AMEN Stan

On the personality side of things I would add, you need someone who will pay attention to detail, better be thick skinned, patient and tolerant too.

You need someone who fills Stan's requirements as well as wanting to do this. Doing this work at a 80% level will probably not be conducive to a positive experience and can be boring.

Management has to put the right people in the right position and then give them the tools and support to be successful. My personal belief is this is where many programs fail.

ENTJ

I agree with Simon! We had an upper management change so I sent some examples of our capabilities. Machine repairs with before and after data. ODS animations, Thermography reports, and Ultra-sound finds. The word back was I had to many toys to play with. Therefore, you see management is an absolute for buy in or your program will slowly dwindle away in value until something fails and they need a scapegoat! Impress upper management with the money savings so they are able to make themselves look good and you will have it made.

You have to have a process in place to calculate how you are affecting the bottom line $$$ wise. This allows managers, who are usually under great pressure to imporve operations (profit). IF you help them they will want to keep your program in place.

What they need is not necessarily we found this and that, but we saved this amount. Good reliable data.

This is information they can use. By having an approved process in place managers know they can depend on the information and a company wide process is hard to change with each change in management. Your program must be successful or it will be seen as a cost not an asset.

How many companies are looking to cut costs?

It is not just about collecting and analyzing machine data.

On a number of occasions I've implemented PdM programs and on a number of occasions we have gone to 100% availability, 100% reliability, planned, shceduled maintenance with greatly extended maintenance intervals and as one reminded recently at a seminar I was holding at Macon Tech on alignment - (a client said to my disblief) we haven't worked overtime in many years and now go a long time without working on anything. Since I've done this a number of times I'll conclude it isn't luck. It is philosophy.

Stan and Spencer put the hammer head on the nail. The right philosophy with the right technique and keep on keeping on and you'll get there. I'm setting up a new one now and am grinning and Picken' ??? Couldn't help myself. I started working with acceleration exclusively in 1981 and working in acceleration: simple, a picture is worth a thousand words and you can't analyze what you can't see - work in acceleration - integrating to IPS is not absolute only relative and you will loose; again, a picture is worth a thousand words.

With a heavy involvent and not enough time to do every job out there - something I feel that can greatly assist ------- warning here: unheard-of offer visit my web site and get my alignment textbook and alignment software. It will help and can assist in achieveing the ultimate goal. This is a TPdM approach and getting involved with alignment and lubrication is necessary for success.

Thank you very much guys, very good feed back!!! things are changing here and I don't know if I understand it. I was told that we don't need "Experts" on each technology (Vibrations, Thermography, Oil Analysis, etc, etc, etc.) anymore, just, I guess, "rotating data collectors" (???!!!), however, I don't know who will be doing the individual assesments for each Technologies, we don't have the "one man band" that maybe they were looking for and haven't been "lucky" yet. I would like names of Nuke Programs proved sucessfull, so that we do not have to reinvent the "wheel". Thanks again, hope to see you soon. Manny K

Manny,
I think it's important to have people cross trained for multiple technologies and techniques, but it's also important to have a "go to" person who is specialized in each area. I don't know anyone who's an expert at vibration, thermography, oil analysis and UT. You could make a career out of each one individually. If you have "rotating data collectors" who are jack-of-all-trades and master of none, who will you turn to when a real problem occurs? Due to your interest in nuke programs, I assume you work for a nuke facility. I for one would feel better if you had experts at the helm.
Also, don't get discouraged by hard headed, stubborn individuals. Especially ones in authority. Instead, seek them out. Focus your attention on winning them over, and everyone else will fall in line!

A year or two ago we moved away from having predictive technicians with specialized jobs toward the new direction you mention - every tech does every predictive technology. It was a management decision geared toward developing a smaller but more flexible work force. Since then we have also decreased the number of technicians about 20%

We still know some of the technicians have strengths in specific areas. For vibration, there is one technician we will call on for the tough jobs that require more troubleshooting and analysing than data collection.

So far I don't think it has hurt us in terms of go-to guys. In a sense we are still relying on the expertise that these guys built when there were specialists. But you have to wonder whether the skills will stay sharp when they are spread so thin., and how much further development of our specialists are we losing. One thing that the non-nuc board-members should understand is how many things are lumped in to the et cetera category: check valve testing, containment leak testing, snubber inspection, fire protection testing, motor partial discharge testing, hvac testing, and a lot more.

Also we have one-half of an engineer assigned to each of vibration, lubrication, thermography, and some more on the et cetera part. In theory those engineers might be able to step in to assist when a go-to guy is needed on a specific technology.... but that really depends on the experience level of that engineer. I have only been the thermography guy for 6 months so I'm not much of a go-to guy.

The hardest part from what I gather is just having enough people to cover the demands.

Electricpete from the southernmost nuke plant in the US outside of your state.

High guys, I retired at 55, and I'll be taking a "working break" for a little while. I'm a Mechanical Eng. with a Level II V.A. (8 years experience) and Level I Thermograph with some familiarity with Oil Analysis, Engine Analysis, Partial Discharge, etc., however, I feel really constable with the Vibration Issues. I don't think that problems will be immediately recognized by "jacks of all trades" and may be too late when identified, causing all kind of disruptions with the "Plan of the Day" (gospel) schedule (POD), if not, safety issues, if you know what I mean... I'm not a "Technical Shakespeare Plays Writer" nor an Actor. Thanks. Regards, Manny K

Hey Manny.

I agree with you on the jack of all trades thing. It seems sometimes management doesn't place too much premium on knowledge and experience... view people as costs rather than true assets. The $ savings associated with a reorganization that assumes jack of all trades can handle everything shows up as an easily calculateable number that the reorganizing management team can take credit for. The $ loss associated with losing expertise and pushing people into doing many things without mastering anything are $ that don't show up for a while and when they do show up will probably not be connected back to the reorganizing management team.

Hope you are going to stick around the board for awhile. You have started some of the most interesting threads over the years.