A disorder that affects most daily a great article

Jim, excellent article. It brought to mind too many cases where I've been a part of creating a larger problem in the process of 'solving' one.

Just a thought...what if Operations and Maint could review the design of machinery, predict the time to failure designed into the machinery (B-10 life, MRTF, etc), and then set in place practices to avoid premature failure. For instance, one consultant to the industrial fan market recommends fans be supplied with bearings having B-10 (or L-10) values greater than 80,000hrs. In this case, statistically speaking, an owner should expect less than 10% of these fans running 24 x 7 to experience a bearing failure in the first 9 years of operation. Further, he should expect to have failures in less than 50% of the bearings on these fans after 45 years of operation. Now, the problem is to implement preventive maintenance and operating practices to eliminate as much as practical factors that would shorten bearing life and then to implement predictive maintenance practices that detect bearing damage prior to failure so that downtime, repair costs, and other associated costs can be minimized.

Just a thought.

Edward A. Turner
G&E Solutions

****

Have a comment? Send your email to jthompson@taii.com. Unless you tell us otherwise, we will assume we can use your name if we publish your letter.

Remember, if you please, to let your suppliers know you read Nip Impressions!