If you like MaintenanceForums.com wait till you try Maintenance.org Join or Manage Your Profile Posting Boards Machinery Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance Posts About vibration/alignment/balance Sometimes you get frustrated
Join or Manage Your Profile Posting Boards Machinery Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance Posts About vibration/alignment/balance Sometimes you get frustrated|
Go
|
New
|
Find
|
Notify
|
Tools
|
Reply
|
|
I visit this client every other month. It is a steel Mill. I asked that the unit be aligned and the belts tightened on this grill fan for two reports. The second time I was there you could smell belts and hear the squeal.
The last time through I was told "we lost the belts on the south grill. Would have been nice to know they were THAT bad" They pay well. .jpg) |
|||
|
Dave,
What was the early symptom of impending belt failure prior to smell and squeal? |
||||
|
How could you miss that, Dave?
  Danny |
||||
|
I learned awhile back to be nice but don't about it until I check out my report. A customer called and chewed me out because one of his Frick Chillers failed. He wanted to know why I had missed it. I was on another job and told him I was sorry and I would check into and let him know what happen. On the drive back to the office I got thinking I had listed one of the Fricks as bad, sure enough when I checked it was the unit that failed. When I called him back and told him I had called it, he said - Well you didn't highlight it enough becuase he hadn't noticed it. As you said 'They paid well' I figured there was no way to win so I told him I would try to comunicate problems better.
|
||||
|
Sounds like they are not reading the report. Maybe they are not clear on how to read the priorities listings or what the priorities mean on the report.
Or maybe they are like most others, run till it fails regardless of the report. |
||||
|
David_G: The speed of the fan had slowed down by 10 RPM (I take a high res on all of the 25hz motors and fans to check speed),while the motor was running a little higher. I didn't know that until I downloaded to my computer, but it confirmed the flapping I saw with the strobe. Could also see the misalignment since the outer belts were looser than the inner (this is a five belt setup).
Danny: I don't know. I am ashamed that I didn't change them myself now  Mike: That is what I told this gentleman. I considered the source and bit my tongue. It pays to do that more often than not. Ralph: Unless the supervisor is color blind, I don't know how he could have missed the red. It was yellow the first time, red the next. But he could be color blind, or DID NOT READ THE REPORT as you say. I don't think he read it. The man I actually send the report to reads it, and then divies up the different sections to the area supervisors. I told him about it, and he hopped around some. But I'm not sure that it wasn't for my benefit however. Oh well, they are not the first that ignores things too long. But it does get frustrating sometimes. D |
||||
|
Alright I know I am really stepping into it here but in I would like to see if I can get some buy-in on a couple of points:
1) Communication is not communication if it is not received. 2) What service are you really selling? Many people can walk around a plant and collect (and even analyze) data. If I was one your clients – you had better believe I would be hopping mad. I tell our service providers that I will pay top dollar for their services but…I do not need their help making mistakes as we are perfectly capable of doing that without their help. I hire specialists to help me create a result – not to fill the need for a means. If I was one of your clients – you had better find a better way of letting me know I have a problem next time or strike 2 would be all it would take. How about a clear and colorful failure tag on the equipment itself? How about an executive summary exception report that gets distributed and signed off on as reviewed and received? How about making a follow up call or sending a follow up email to check if action has taken place with a copy to the operations/purchasing or plant manager? I can assure you that if I walked into your client after this event – and I was in the PdM services business – I would have a new client – because I would sell reliability and assurance – not PdM services. I would let my client know that we are partners and that I cannot be successful unless I help him/her be successful. That would be the easiest sale I would ever make! I am sure we could fill up a forum with the stupid things that happen in plants and the money that is wasted but if I could be heavy for a moment – I hope that no one here is also complaining about the economy and US businesses shutting down – if you are not doing everything you can do to make you existing clients successful. There is a connection. Dave – I am not trying to single you out – just look at all the validation you got – I am really pointing to all of us - including myself. We need to transform this country to go back to valuing things that matter and are real. Can you imagine a craftsperson from the 1950’s walking away from this situation without either fixing it or following up? Do you really wonder what happened to our producer companies? It starts with ourselves – we have a country based on personal responsibility – even if it is slipping. Do not wait for someone else to fix the world – start fixing it yourself. Man this forum site really gets me on my soapbox sometimes. Sorry to be on my high horse. I will step down now. Terry O |
||||
|
A different perspective from Terry. Soapboxes are ok every once in awhile.
Still an entertaining story by Dave. An interesting aspect of human nature that I observe (which is more relevant to the customer actions in this situation imo, maybe Terry would say it's relevant on both sides): Whenever something goes wrong, everyone involved tends to look back at the situation say: "It wasn't my fault – I did the only logical thing based on the information/constraints/priorities etc that I had at the time". And if you think about it, considering that most people try to do a good job, there is hardly anything different you would ever expect them to say. When people try to look back at their own decisions and actions in retrospect, considering the exact same information/constraints/priorities etc as they had the first time around, then those exact same people will probably reach the exact same conclusion about what is the "right decision" and "right actions" as they did the first time around. It is just human nature. I see it in myself more often than anyone else. The funny thing is that when something goes RIGHT, then all of a sudden EVERYONE was responsible. LOL  |
||||
|
I'll take Terry one further. I would expect that if you really are serious you should not leave the site until a maintenance work order has been written and entered in their system (whatever system it is). If SAP typically either the unit operator or your maintenance coordinator can enter a job and give it appropriate priority.
Sorry guys, putting it in a report, even with bold red letters is not going to cut it. e-mail me at steven dot schultheis at gmail dot com |
||||
|
GOOD GAWD, SHUT THIS POS DOWN IMMEDIATELY BEFORE SOMEONE GETS KILLED!!1!1!
^next report on slipping belts  |
||||
|
I'll take Terry one further. I would expect that if you really are serious you should not leave the site until a maintenance work order has been written and entered in their system (whatever system it is). If SAP typically either the unit operator or your maintenance coordinator can enter a job and give it appropriate priority. Sorry guys, putting it in a report, even with bold red letters is not going to cut it. I think somewhere I said above Steve, there is no WO system. They still use the "yellow pad". They do have an engineer that can print out the PM's (which haven't been updated or changed in the last 10 to 15 years). The dust collector crew use the PM's pretty faithfully, but they still pump "X" amount of pumps into the fan bearing that was changed from a Link Belt to a Cooper Split 10 years ago. As far as staying until something is written or done? This job is a 2 1/2 hour drive one way for me. I have 131 pieces of equipment I take data on. Takes between 10 and 12 hours of collection. I leave home at 5:00 in the morning, and usually get done collecting data around 6:30 or so. Depends on how good I'm climbing steps in the evening. It's a long way down to the pumps in the steam plant. By the time I am finished, there are no "management" personell around. I do leave a note under my contacts door of the items I have taken notes on that I consider "red, going to fail at any time". By the time I get home around 9:00 or 10:00 that nite, that equipment could all fail for what I care at that time. It's a long day. Sometimes plants run in spite of management  Sam, I like that one. I have always said this place must make money in spite of itself, and it does. They are a niche player, that gets a premium price for their product. The incremental dollar or margin does not seem to matter to higher powers that be in this facility, and in several I have visited over the years. This particular facility has made some big strides from where they were. From just accepting my sales pitch 4 years ago and not even wanting a report, to knowing what I was talking about this particular instance, and knowing who the responsible supervisor was. That doesn't sound like much to you who are used to going into large facilities with many, many management personell, with supercomputers cranking out WO's, pm's, etc., but to get anyone over 50 to change their way of thinking to your way of thinking is a big victory. They just recently put a young aerospace/mechanical engineer on (first hire in 3 years) whose experiance was in rocket propulsion! (worked down around Dahlgren, Va.) I just had to tell him this certainly wasn't rocket science. He lasted an hour with me collecting data. I told him collecting data was about a boring a job as I could think of, I couln't imagine how boring watching some one do it was! I think he'll do what they hired him to do, which is follow up on repairs to some of the critical pieces of equipment, as well as some design in the dust collection area. He got on here because it is close to where him and his wife grew up, and they wanted to come home. Fellows, it's a funny world out there. Try to keep a good attitude and a smile. That will go further than anything else you have. D |
||||
|
All you can do is all you can do. Like the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink:.
|
||||
|
Terry, if you were my client...I'd fire your
Life is too short to put up with crap from ignorant people who are too lazy or indifferent to do their job. It's not MY job to do YOUR job for you. If that's what you want, well they should just show you the door and give me your money... then I'd do your job for you. Consultants are not whipping boys or scapegoats. Don't let your clients jack you around. Be polite and firm. But if they persist, walk out the door and don't look back.You can always find another client, but once you lose your dignity - your manhood - you're going to have a hard time getting it back! This message has been edited. Last edited by: rustythevibeguy, Regards, Rusty "The trend is your friend." |
||||
|
Dave, Ralph, Rusty, I agree 100%. I used to send my report and then call to go over the report with the customer. Some still ignored critical items until failure. I have told two customers that they were wasting their money and my time and that we should stop the program. Their response was "we'll do better." When I started there were many sceptics, but now most people understand that pdm techniques work when properly applied. Pressure of schedules and workforce reductions cause some to revert back to their old firefighting ways.
It's hard to find a customer that will take the time to go over a report now days. Nobody answers a phone, they just rely on voice mail and usually won't return a call to go over a report. I just email the report and tell them to call or email if they have any quesitons. If I have a critical item, I send an email about the problem before I send the full report. As Ralph said, "you can lead a horse to waterm but you can't make him drink." Regards, John J |
||||
|
I have worked in hundreds of different plants and have yet to find any two that are run identically. I would really like to be able to come into a plant and have everything go exactly as I plan, but I'm usually happy if I can get a chair to sit in and access to the bathroom.
Integration of the reports into whatever kind of work order system that MIGHT exist (or that might NOT) is almost always a problem. And it's one that the outside contractor has very little control over because we are OUTSIDE. We don't make rules or operating procedures for our clients. I have a very specific way I would like my reports handled and I suggest it to every new client. I don't use it in its entirity anywhere because I can't force it on my clients. Dave, don't think that you should have changed the belts for them. I cannot even be seen carrying a wrench in some places because the union will IMMEDIATELY file a grievance. And that's here in Virginia where unions are relatively weak compared to your area. What you can and can't do is determined by the plant you are working in and it varies at EVERY plant. I TRY to report emergency situations to someone in charge, but they are frequently in meetings, gone or otherwise unavailable. I ALWAYS leave some sort of direct communication to my main contact person or other designated supervisor and I follow-up, especially in the event that I informed a mechanic, operator or some non-supervisory person of a problem. However, I can't force anyone to read their e-mail or the notes I leave or to listen to the voice-mail. Leaving a tag on the machine would be a waste of a tag and the time in most places. In some places it can get you in trouble. Mechanics that are on the floor won't pay any attention to it and no one that can actually WRITE a work order is out on the floor that often. One, time I reported a defect to the Production Manager in the absence of the Maintenance Planner, Maintenance Manager, Tour Foreman, and Engineering Manager. She wrote a work order and they made repairs but didn't make them right and the fan broke down in a couple of days. They made repairs right the second time and then called me to chew me out for reporting to the Production Manager and causing them to make improper repairs and costing them unscheduled downtime. All my fault! And this despite the fact that the Production Manager was on the list of people to receive copies of the report and therefore the 5th and only available contact person! And never mind the fact that I was right about the bearings having severe wear. And never mind about the fact that I had reported them as having early wear a year earlier, moderate wear 6 months earlier, advanced wear 3 months earlier and severe wear for the last 2 months. That's a total of 13 times I told them those bearings were wearing out before I happen to tell the 5th person in line and the LAST one who they wanted writing work orders. Progress in the use of the information we provide usually comes in small steps. In addition to the ones who failed to read and heed my reports, I have had clients who called to say "You remember that fan you reported as a Level 5 for severe bearing wear? Well you were right, it failed. Maybe we'll listen next time." Dave's case seems like maybe one of those instances. Sometimes people will only respond to a real kick in the seat, right where the wallet is. And Terry, if you were to go into a place that wouldn't accept THEIR RESPONSIBILITY for TWICE not reading and responding to the reports they ordered, you probably WOULD be able to get a new client. Enjoy them until it's your turn in the barrel. Danny |
||||
|
Rusty,
You hit the nail on the head there, brother. If you want to get back to the 50's start with personal responsibility. Dave fulfilled his. The plant people didn't. Danny |
||||
|
Danny, I think your approach and experience (and Dave's) is probably typical. We do the best we can, but as you said, we are not - nor should we be - in a position to dictate to a client how they use the information we provide.
A kinder, more gentle response to Terry's missive is that, "If I'm speaking clearly and slowly, and we are making eye contact, but you are not listening, then the failure to communicate is your fault, not mine." To expound a little further on what Terry said, I really think there are two different kind of "consultants" in this game. There are those who go and talk to clients (usually management) about programs, strategic objectives, cost/benefit ratios, avoided costs, buzzword, buzzword, etc, etc, ad nauseum. And then there are those who actually go take the data, do the analysis, make the calls, educate supervisors and maintenance people, encourage correct repair procedures, suggest upgrades, research options, and then follow-up on everthing, all in the name of actually fixing a piece of equipment out on the floor so that it works as intended and stays fixed. Most, if not all, of us are in that 2nd category, which is where I intend to stay and to live out the rest of my working days. Hang in there and keep pluggin' away. Regards, Rusty "The trend is your friend." |
||||
|
You know, when I posted that picture and three sentences, I did not think I would go into the epistle I ended up writing. But I am glad now I did. Many times I wonder about the customers I see, both regular and the "call ins". At times I think man, you're in a completely different world in this area than all those folks you see on the board. However, after reading some of the response, I see that industry and people are not a whole lot different here than anywhere else.
My daughter has been in Quito, Ecuador an a volunteer mission trip since January. She lives with a family there, who consists of a mother, and three daughters. One of the daughters has a two year old, whom the grandmother watches each day as daughter works. My daughter related a story to us about the three daughters and her rasseling on the floor and tickling each other. Just like families here would do. The two year took a plastic firetruck and whopped one of the daughters on the head and told them to "get off my mommy", just like a two year old here would do. I relate that little tale because I was overwhelmed with the feeling that people all over the world are basically the same in a family unit. Most of the time it would be the politics that differ, not the people. I kinda feel that way now with this little v-belt fiasco, and the responses from other consultants. We all have these type places, and many times more often than not. If the customer is trying to do anything it's a bright spot. Thank you for your replys. It really was not meant to be so big of a deal, but again, it helped me feel a little better Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get the next report for this customer over to fed ex. We have 28 total items on the exec summary. 9 red, 14 yellow, and the rest are "watching" more or less. Already been e-mailed. EDIT: I forgot to mention that 18 of those 28 are carry overs from the report 2 months ago. Some that were yellow, are now red. Makes the report easier to write D This message has been edited. Last edited by: RRS_Dave, |
||||
|
Terry
One thing I think you are missing here is the fact that I'm only providing one piece of the puzzle. The vibration condition. The other pieces can be oil sampling, when a shutdown is coming, production needs, how many spares they have, even how shifts the plant is running and on and on. For me to tell them to tear a machine down right now with no other facts other than the vibration readings is wrong. Someone needs to be the 'Maintenance Planner' who takes all the information and decides on an action. I have been a 'Maintenace Planner' but it involves gathering a lot of info and is a job better done by someone in-house with full access to that info. The plants with a good planner fix most of the problems I find when the equipment is down for another reason other than critical on my report. |
||||
|
Several years ago I tour a plant that was interested in a vibration program. The maintenance superintendent gave me the tour and after talking with him and giving him a ballpark cost figure, he said he wanted to go ahead with a program. He took me out and introduced me to his maintenance foreman. While we were talking, the maintenance superintendent got a call and had to leave for a while. The maintenance foreman told me that they never give him time to fix anything until it fails. I relayed this to the maintenance superintendent and told him if that was the case, I would rather not start a program because it would just fail. He thought a while and agreed. I told him to call me when he thought they were ready to perform scheduled maintenance. Never heard from him again until he was fired and went to another plant, fired and went to another plant, fired and went to another plant --- get the picture.
Regard, John J |
||||
|
| Powered by Social Strata | Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
Contact Us | If you like MaintenanceForums.com wait till you try Maintenance.org | Privacy Statement | Terms of Service
Copyright © 2004-2010 Reliabilityweb.com All rights reserved.