Happy holidays everyone! We hope you enjoyed our December series on Predictive Maintenance and the use of thermal imaging. We look forward to working with you next year and providing you with quality service for your facility! IR Infrared Services thanks you for your business and we look forward with you toward a safe and prosperous 2011!
Brian
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Key Things to Remember About Predictive Maintenance
So now let’s pull it all together!
Key things to remember from this series:
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com// or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
Key things to remember from this series:
- Reactive maintenance is costly and ineffective.
- Predictive Maintenance has several benefits; it is cost-effective, increases safety, and reduces maintenance costs and equipment replacement expense due to unexpected failures. It also reduces financial loss due to lack of production and personnel downtime.
- You need a good Predictive Maintenance Plan that includes baseline measurements and a clearly defined inspection schedule.
- Infrared thermography should be a key component of the inspection part of your Predictive Maintenance Plan.
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com// or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Predictive Maintenance Inspection Schedules
At last, we get to the part of your maintenance program where I hope you’ll call me – Your Predictive Maintenance Inspection Schedule.
How often you inspect your equipment should be based on the work you’ve already done in creating your predictive maintenance program. However, keep in mind that as assets age or become heavily loaded, you may need to increase the frequency of your inspections. Don’t forget to conduct a follow-up inspection when repairs or modifications are made!
Skipping an infrared thermal survey can result in unidentified equipment problems that produce their own crises, which further postpones the already-delayed infrared scan. This can put you right back into a reactionary maintenance mode.
Consistent infrared thermographic scans are the only way to make thermography an effective tool in preventing avoidable equipment failures. Of course, we encourage you to start your Infrared survey schedule as soon as your equipment is first commissioned to establish baseline data. However, since we are talking about creating a new predictive or preventative maintenance program, you might use your first survey to create baseline data for your new database tracking system.
Regardless of when your initial survey occurs, a good guideline would be to conduct thermal scans annually. Of course, certain equipment will warrant more frequent surveys while highly reliable electrical components might not need another thermal inspection for as long as three years after your first one-year follow-up.
Because we know that a good maintenance program involves a regular follow-up schedule, we work to develop long-term relationships with our clients. Using our thermographic services ensures consistent results and reassures both your employees and your management that any equipment is in safe working order.
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com// or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
How often you inspect your equipment should be based on the work you’ve already done in creating your predictive maintenance program. However, keep in mind that as assets age or become heavily loaded, you may need to increase the frequency of your inspections. Don’t forget to conduct a follow-up inspection when repairs or modifications are made!
Skipping an infrared thermal survey can result in unidentified equipment problems that produce their own crises, which further postpones the already-delayed infrared scan. This can put you right back into a reactionary maintenance mode.
Consistent infrared thermographic scans are the only way to make thermography an effective tool in preventing avoidable equipment failures. Of course, we encourage you to start your Infrared survey schedule as soon as your equipment is first commissioned to establish baseline data. However, since we are talking about creating a new predictive or preventative maintenance program, you might use your first survey to create baseline data for your new database tracking system.
Regardless of when your initial survey occurs, a good guideline would be to conduct thermal scans annually. Of course, certain equipment will warrant more frequent surveys while highly reliable electrical components might not need another thermal inspection for as long as three years after your first one-year follow-up.
Because we know that a good maintenance program involves a regular follow-up schedule, we work to develop long-term relationships with our clients. Using our thermographic services ensures consistent results and reassures both your employees and your management that any equipment is in safe working order.
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com// or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Cost Analysis – or How Do You Get Management Buy-in?
Making the transition from reactive maintenance where there is a clear and obvious need for repairs to a predictive or preventative maintenance program can be challenging. However, there is plenty of data that careful, well-planned maintenance prolongs the life of equipment and prevents costly downtime. You may want to check out the NFPA 70B: Recommended Practice for Electrical Equipment Maintenance It contains insurance data that shows almost 50% of damage associated with electrical failures could be prevented with regular maintenance.
So how do you create a cost analysis? First, you need two pieces of information (1) the probability of a failure and (2) the cost of the failure. Multiply these two numbers to estimate how much you have invested in your infrastructure, including maintenance.
Remember to included unplanned downtime cost variables in the cost of your failure. These might include:
Lost revenue during downtime
Replacement cost of damaged electrical or production equipment
Repair costs, especially labor
Cost of scrap
Cost to clean and restart production
Now compare those costs to the cost of a maintenance program.
1. Calculate net income per hour of output for your production line or other critical process.
2. Calculate average downtime for each equipment failure and number of events per year.
3. Multiply the results of net income per hour of output (#1) by average downtime for each equipment failure and number of events per year (#2).
4. Estimate labor and equipment repair cost.
5. Add #3 and #4. This represents avoidable annual cost in lost revenue + repair.
6. Repeat cost calculation based on planned downtown where no revenue loss is incurred (the object of your maintenance program).
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com// or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
So how do you create a cost analysis? First, you need two pieces of information (1) the probability of a failure and (2) the cost of the failure. Multiply these two numbers to estimate how much you have invested in your infrastructure, including maintenance.
Remember to included unplanned downtime cost variables in the cost of your failure. These might include:
Lost revenue during downtime
Replacement cost of damaged electrical or production equipment
Repair costs, especially labor
Cost of scrap
Cost to clean and restart production
Now compare those costs to the cost of a maintenance program.
1. Calculate net income per hour of output for your production line or other critical process.
2. Calculate average downtime for each equipment failure and number of events per year.
3. Multiply the results of net income per hour of output (#1) by average downtime for each equipment failure and number of events per year (#2).
4. Estimate labor and equipment repair cost.
5. Add #3 and #4. This represents avoidable annual cost in lost revenue + repair.
6. Repeat cost calculation based on planned downtown where no revenue loss is incurred (the object of your maintenance program).
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com// or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Basic Steps to Create a Predictive Maintenance Program
Creating an effective Predictive Maintenance Program requires some upfront work. Not every piece of equipment in your facility is mission-critical. Knowing the failure rate of your equipment and your manufacturer recommendations is very important. You will need to create some type of database that holds this information as well as the tracking measurements of your program. Generally, these are the basic steps to setting up a Predictive Maintenance Program:
1. List your critical processes, applications and equipment
2. Prioritize each item on your list in order of the impact a failure would have. For example, high failure impact would be equipment that:
4. Create an inspection schedule based on failure probability and critical impact.
5. Set up a database that contains the above information for each process, application and piece of equipment.
6. Take baseline data and store it for each piece of equipment. Be sure to include repair histories, manufacturer recommendations and operator knowledge: when units broke/ how often, why, and what they cost to fix.
Most facilities either purchase or develop a specialized database. These databases are referred to as asset management systems (AMS) or computer managed maintenance system (CMMS). In addition to the information above, many of these systems also track warranty status, depreciation records and purchasing information.
So why am I, a certified thermographer, writing about predictive maintenance? Because steps 3, 4, 5, and 6 are generally when we get called in. The use of infrared (IR) cameras in predictive maintenance is well established. Using an infrared camera, we produce thermographic images of your equipment. These temperature measurements provide an early warning of potential equipment failures and unsafe working conditions.
We help create your baseline data, and then be part of your regular inspection schedule. Most mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic equipment can be measured and tracked for your preventative and/or predictive maintenance program using infrared thermography. Most of our clients find that bringing us in while they are creating their programs is most cost-effective and efficient way of creating initial baseline data (and many times we find immediate issues that need attention!)
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-3328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com/ or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
1. List your critical processes, applications and equipment
2. Prioritize each item on your list in order of the impact a failure would have. For example, high failure impact would be equipment that:
- Directly impacts safety, the environment, revenue, or customer relations
- Is unique or costly to replace, or used constantly (24x7)
- Is difficult to find spare parts for or has a long lead time for repair
4. Create an inspection schedule based on failure probability and critical impact.
5. Set up a database that contains the above information for each process, application and piece of equipment.
6. Take baseline data and store it for each piece of equipment. Be sure to include repair histories, manufacturer recommendations and operator knowledge: when units broke/ how often, why, and what they cost to fix.
Most facilities either purchase or develop a specialized database. These databases are referred to as asset management systems (AMS) or computer managed maintenance system (CMMS). In addition to the information above, many of these systems also track warranty status, depreciation records and purchasing information.
So why am I, a certified thermographer, writing about predictive maintenance? Because steps 3, 4, 5, and 6 are generally when we get called in. The use of infrared (IR) cameras in predictive maintenance is well established. Using an infrared camera, we produce thermographic images of your equipment. These temperature measurements provide an early warning of potential equipment failures and unsafe working conditions.
We help create your baseline data, and then be part of your regular inspection schedule. Most mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic equipment can be measured and tracked for your preventative and/or predictive maintenance program using infrared thermography. Most of our clients find that bringing us in while they are creating their programs is most cost-effective and efficient way of creating initial baseline data (and many times we find immediate issues that need attention!)
Interested in learning more? Give me a call at 803-3328-2889 and let’s talk!
IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.irinfraredservices.com/ or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/infraredscans. We are proud to offer the very best thermography services in North and South Carolina!
This article series was developed using ideas from http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2009/124.html?page=full and http://www.myflukestore.com/crm_uploads/part_one_of_a_predictive_maintenace_series.pdf for source material.
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