Archives for October 2017

Meet Brian Buchanan, Winding Leadman

“Even with certain rules and constraints of each job, I can still find ways to take artistic license and really put my mark on a job.” – Brian

Brian has been with D.I.E. since June of 2014. Another aspect of his job he enjoys is mentoring newer employees. When he isn’t at work, Brian spends much of his free time with his four grand-kids.

Fun Fact: Brian and his wife have quite the collection of animals! The “Buchanan Zoo” has 20 zebra and society finches, three dogs, two cats, a guinea pig and hamster.

Justification or Nullification

Yes, another tip on justification. At every reliability conference you will hear at least one story where a reliability program is struggling to justify their existence. In one presentation it’s world class performance backed by management and everyone is motivated and every maintenance dollar is linked to a return. Cross the hallway to another presentation and hear about a struggling facility with a “what have you done for me lately” management support, reliability technology used for troubleshooting only, and a poor taste in the mouth of the technician tasked to keep the equipment reliable.

Justification of finds and downtime prevention is very important when you are part of a reliability effort with an existing management team that has been around for a few years. The importance of justification increases to critical when a management change is under way. Don’t wait. Create a basic template for case studies that can be easily documented and shared with existing and new management to prevent the nullification of the reliability effort. Find ways to get management involved in looking at the KPI’s collected such as integrating reliability data into asset management software for dashboard review or ensuring all the technology data acquired can communicate with the latest IOT data analytics package that new management will likely be interested in. New management will be looking for cost cutting opportunities. Case studies to justify a program don’t come every day and take time to collect. Gather accurate information and document finds when the reliability support is good, so you don’t have to jump through hoops to try to save your program when the support is not.

For a look at a variety of case study examples visit our website at http://www.pdma.com/PdMA-case-study.php.

Manufacturer Sees Small Motor Failures Add Up to Large Expenses

See pictures at the bottom of page!

It was becoming routine – every few months a 5HP motor running an important application would need replaced due to unplanned motor failure! A small motor was causing downtime, maintenance expenses, and frustration with the team.

Instead of just selling a replacement, the Decatur Industrial team of experts investigated the situation to understand WHY the motors were failing at a rapid rate and see if there was a better motor solution for the application.

Upon review, it was discovered that the area where the motor sits is frequently washed down since the material being processed in the location is highly corrosive. Therefore, we recommended a Siemens IEEE 841 Severe Duty 100 motor with a copper rotor as opposed to the Brand X they had been using. This would also allow for long-term energy cost savings and better reliability.
The Siemens motor was 26% less expensive than their past motors and it had two bearing isolator seals to help keep water and contamination out. That results in a savings of $5,000 in direct expenses plus the savings in downtime and emergency maintenance. Also, for every extra year past the two years the new motor lasts provides an additional savings of $3,500.

Below are pictures of the endbells (bearing housings) on their old motor, with contaminates still in them.

The Five Whys of Equipment Failure

The five whys refers to the practice of asking five times why a motor failure occurred in order to get closer to the root cause of the problem. Failure to determine the root cause can result in treating the symptoms of the problem instead of its cause, in which case you will continue to have the same problems over and over again.

Why did the motor fail? It shorted to ground.
Why did it short to ground? The ground wall insulation failed.
Why did the ground wall insulation fail? The insulation overheated.
Why did the insulation overheat? Excessive ambient temperature.
Why was the ambient temperature so high? The cooling fan motor was not operating correctly.

Just replacing the motor would not solve the cooling fan problem and the new motor would be in the same high risk environment.

Dry Ice Blasting Prolongs Life of Motor at Paper Mill

Dry Ice

Decatur Industrial Electric performs DC and synchronous motor PMs on a routine basis for an industry leading paper mill. Our tracking and trending of electrical testing revealed that a 2,000 HP synchronous motor had degrading insulation and resistance to ground readings over time. Our reliability specialists, during a scheduled plant outage, inspected and dry ice blasted the motor onsite. The resistance had huge improvement.

Dry ice blasting is an effective and quick way to clean electric motors. It also allows the equipment to be cleaned in place and in an environmentally friendly manner. And, because dry ice converts to gas, there is no fluid or water residue. As a result, there is no disassembling of electrical components or equipment.

Through this method, we were able to clean the motor on-site to the point where it was able to stay in service and a spare didn’t have to be installed. The PM testing saved over $250,000 because the motor did not run-to-failure causing unplanned downtime. The on-site cleaning altogether saved downtime, equipment change out costs, and repair costs.