I am seeking information for cost justification for a balancing machine. My management wants
industry reports or other industry literature to help us justify expending the money to purchase a balancing machine.

Of course the logical arguements and the "precision maintenance" philosophy do not hold up to the accountant and MBA people. Does anyone have any leads on reports or information regarding the before and after cost of energy, maintenance and other costs of running unbalanced equipment?

The bean counters have so little competence in running a factory in real life that you should not expect them to understand this. They will most probably question any numbers you come up with claiming it is not precisely from your plant. You should move on the level of understanding they can handle.

Keep it oversimple. Say, -What if you run heavy unbalance in the car wheels? What if you run with much too high or much too low air pressure? - and you are the car owner yourselves, Mr Accountant. Is it only a general smooth feeling you are considering or does if have an impact on your purse?

We, in the workshop/maintenance, do not know how to run the money in this plant, but we have spent a lifetime learing the hard way to run the plant on smallest budget ever made, squeezed by you. Leave the know how on methods and tools needed to us, we leave the know how of the money to you. Although we are very sceptical about your competence observing as just one example how you set competent people out on the street when you have made a small calculation error. Without a thought to and without any personal consequencies on direct losses in how much the company has invested in their knowhow and how cheaply you give their capacity away to competition.

Alternatively, note what arguments are used from the management to run your jobs. Nail them on the wall and scrutinize each and brainstorm for the good arguments. An open debate is healthy in any organization. Look at competition and ask why they do this and that. Egotrips or plain money earning tricks?

Arne -

I agree that the "bean counters" do not understand the technical aspects of maintaining a facility but the balance is that most maintenance people do not understand bean counting. Communication is a two way street.

I heard a story recently about a maintenance department that moved to a zero based budget - each year that had to justify 100% of the maintenance spend. The first year - they got their clock cleaned (did not do too well) but then took some basic accounting training and prepared the next year budget using defensible accounting principles.

The accounting department gave them everything they asked for without resistance.

Internal competition for funds require that maintenance professionals understand the business case for a spend, if they want to accomplish the mission.

Maintenance improvement return on investment makes a great business case - so get some finance and accounting training - even at a basic level - and be forearmed when asking for money or justifying an expense.

Maintenance must learn the language of business to excel.

On another note - I like your car comparison. The same guy who cuts maintenance budgets will take Wednesday afternoon off to make sure he gets his 15,000 mile BMW service performed on the day it is due. He achieves 100% maintenance compliance on his Bimmer!

Check out a Business Case for Reliability article - makes some great points most maintenance professionals should understand.


Terry O

I would say that some/most aspects of the need for balancing go beyond accounting. Some of this is just physics. One can break many laws, sometimes without consequence, but don’t try to break the laws of physics – the physics cop is unforgiving.

The business side is that the equipment may not even run if it is not balanced, depending upon the equipment. The equipment will experience more breakdowns, potentially shortly after placing in service.

Not only will there be an impact to maintenance, but also there will be an impact to operations. What is the price of downtime to operations?

As to the justification to purchase a balance machine, that does appear to be a business issue, which should require some accounting. Generally, equipment needs balancing, but not everyone requires a balance machine.

You probably won't get far in trying to justify energy savings through improved balance of machines - the differences are tiny, if not immeasurable.

Everyone 'knows' that well balanced machines last longer than unbalanced ones, but again, this is common sense and the benefits are diffcult to quantify.

You might want to find out how many rotors you sent to outside shops for balancing in the last year, figure out the cost of doing this and give this number to your management, along with the cost of a balancing machine so that they can figure out the payback time for their investment in a balancing machine.

You can also quantify time savings that would accrue from an in-house machine - no need to transport to outside shops etc.

Balancing machines come in different sizes to accomodate different type of rotor - you want to make sure that whatever price you put forward is for a machine sized to suit your needs.

Don't forget to add in something for training personnel to use the new machine, regular calibration checks and on-going maintenance of the machine.

If you get a balancing machine in your site, would you be able/allowed to take in work form other nearby plants on a commercial basis to offset your costs?

Sometimes, using an outside shop for balancing is more cost effective - don't be afraid to put this option to management if the numbers stack up in this direction.

Here is the request (intended for the company accountants in head office) for a balancing machine for our paper mill back in 1998. We don’t had neglect the important safety side too…

This is it word for word:

Alec more or less covered what I was going to suggest.

Take a look at your expenditures related to outsourced balancing, equipment failures related to vibration (in any way) and any other reliability costs related to vibration (unbalance) for the past several years. Include the 'bean counters' in finding the information - you are more likely to get acceptance if they are involved in developing the business case. Use that as justification.

I am sensing much of the frustration that I have seen throughout the maintenance industry. I am including a part of the Motor Blog from last year (ATPro is no longer my employer, questions can be directed to: howard@motordoc.net or in this forum).

To respond to one of the points made earlier: An accountant doesn't necessarily understand natural laws. They deal in strange numbers and concepts such as return on investment, after tax ROI, benefit:cost ratio, etc. If they are making maintenance-based decisions, woe be to the average maintenance person. Problem is, they have been.

Hmmm... Perhaps this will make a good theme for an article.

3_Developing_Your_Motor_Diagnostics_Program_Blog_Lectures.pdf (174 Kb, 20 downloads)

There are a number of issues including OSHA. What's the machine's service; what product is involved and its environment - asbestos around? Contracting that work is sometimes the best and easiest approach. How will it affect your insurance? What about floor space and location! I may want some vibration analyses toys to do some more hi-powered jobs; but, it is cheaper to contract those once-in-a-fortnight type things? If your balance machine will operate 50-60 hours per week, then it may be justifible - but you should have to justify it instead of wanting it. My son has 3 TV screens in his pickemup cruck - that's right it makes me hair-lipped to say it.

Accountants know how to make skimmed milk! Neither do they share the cream or ice cream. A little RC toy can be built for $25,000 but it'll cost $400,000,000.00 when it's finished and operating - on Mars. But what's a $250.00 hammer among friends or a $450.00 toilet seat. Accounting must distribute money in the correct places. I really appreciate that contract you let out and BTW, the engraving is almost completed on that Browning we were talking about. Yeah, that's right they needed some property to build that warehouse on and I sure was lucky I had some in the right location but I gave them a good deal and was thinking of the new jobs the local people would get said the governor, Gotta love it! You might as well use these extra football tickets we have; we got called on a special project so the condo will be empty too - enjoy. How many stories are out there? I think I'm politically incorrect on this one. Not everyone is dishonest but a few do mess it up for many.

any other good justification ideas for a balancing machine? please share.

thanks

I bet Rusty's tool belt doesn't have this $450 toilet seat.

Where is the toilet paper or does the shit stay in the PC?

Walt

I know your situation because I have a bid into your plant for the balancing equipment. Try a couple of these ideas on for size - find out what you spent on seals & repair costs last year, along with bearing costs. Take a conservative percentage reduction in these costs if all rotating equipment thru your shop is balanced. Most plants will say that they can cut the cost by at least 25%. Also find out what you spent on sending work out of the plant for balancing last year - you can recover almost 100% of that. An intangible is that you also can be master of your own domain again and not at the control of off-site shops and their schedules. As with all equipment, however, there will be on-going costs which will be associated with the balancing machine - yearly cal/certs, continuing training of operators, replacement of "edible" parts like belts, bearings, etc. Most bean counters will not be far sighted enough to recognize any cost past the initial capital investment, however. Also, you have an old machine now - how did the old guys justify it? Email me if I can help - bsg@grandecom.net.

quote:

I bet Rusty's tool belt doesn't have this $450 toilet seat.

Hey, I'm not even part of this thread!

Bill, if you'd like, I'll send you a fully equipped, genuine, "rustythevibeguy tool belt"... at no charge!