Displaying items by tag: PdM | Plant Engineering & Maintenance

Wednesday, 27 March 2013 09:37

Pepperl+Fuchs reduces downtime with power supply diagnostic module

Pepperl+Fuchs introduces the PS3500 diagnostic module with continuously monitors the health and efficiency of PS3500 power supplies and primary side power conditions. The module provides real time diagnostics with configurable warning and alarm levels, and alerts maintenance and operations personnel to irregularities, faults and impending failures. This promotes proactive maintenance to help eliminate unexpected and expensive downtime. The power supply diagnostic module is modular and hot-swappable, and easily integrates into plant asset management systems through RS485/HART, EDDL or FDT/DTM technologies.

Designed for maximum efficiency and reliability in mission critical and continuous process applications, PS3500 power supplies are up to 91-per-cent efficient and feature a modular design with selectable wiring configurations, enabling them to be configured in N+1 or N+N redundant mode. N+1 and N+N redundancy guarantees system integrity and performance, even during module failure and replacement.

These 24 VDC, 15 A power modules plug directly into a 3- or 6-position chassis/backplane for maximum capacity of 45 A or 90 A of uninterrupted power, respectively. The system is designed with external field connectors for easy cabinet layout, LEDs and alarm outputs for quick diagnostic evaluation, and natural convection cooling eliminates the need for external cooling systems. They are certified for Class I Div 2/Zone 2 ATEX Zone 2 mounting.

PS3500 modules are user-adjustable from 22.5 VDC to 30 VDC for precise voltage regulation. Universal supply voltage of 90-250 VAC / 90-300 VDC makes them easy to integrate into an application. They feature configurable load sharing and alarm functions, and provide configuration-free replacement. The PS3500 series is backwards compatible with Pepperl+Fuchs PS2500 series power supplies.
www.pepperl-fuchs.us

Published in Products

Monday, 05 November 2012 13:45

Electronic Motor Manager improves predictive maintenance

Phoenix Contact’s new Contactron Electronic Motor Manager (EMM) precisely monitors the effective power consumed by motors. The EMM uses this data to analyze errors and provide early warning to the controller, helping to increase system availability.

The EMM converts the motor itself into a sensor. The user can set the parameters to detect dangerous operational conditions, such as overload, underload, pollution and wear. The module provides advanced diagnostics and allows the user to make informed decisions for predictive maintenance and better operation. In a worst case scenario, the EMM can shut down the motor to protect the system.

For example, the EMM could detect a clogged filter in a pump, preventing dangerous dry running conditions.

The EMM’s onboard inputs and outputs facilitate direct control of motor starters. It provides easy-to-understand remote indication of system problems. The 22.5-mm module has selectable tripping curves of class 10 to class 30, for full three-phase motor protection. Up to 16 EMMs can be controlled with a single Profibus gateway, reducing costs, space and wiring time.
www.phoenixcontact.com

Published in Products

Monday, 05 November 2012 13:44

Predictive maintenance software offers expanded asset support

Emerson Process Management has announced expanded asset support in the AMS Suite predictive maintenance software application, providing users a more comprehensive asset management application. Connectivity was established to PROFIBUS PA devices, which expands the list of assets users can integrate into AMS Suite to enable a consistent maintenance approach. In addition, AMS Suite now supports both Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) and FDT/DTM to provide users with a single application to support the full capabilities of all their devices.

The addition of PROFIBUS PA provides a complete PROFIBUS solution with the DeltaV control system, corresponding to capability already available for PROFIBUS DP devices in DeltaV. PROFIBUS DP and PA support on third party hosts is also available via the Softing FG PROFIBUS family of interfaces.

Users are easily able to launch HART and FOUNDATION fieldbus Device Type Managers (DTMs) via the DTM Launcher application, provided as a standard part of AMS Device Manager. Support for DTMs is the first step in providing Field Device Integration (FDI)-compliant products within AMS Suite. FDI is the convergence of field device management options into a unified standard to give users a single common solution for managing information for field devices.

Expanded asset support gives users the ability to choose devices based on the best fit for their application regardless of the manufacturer or communication protocol. "Our users need the right information at the right time and want to be able to access that information in a consistent manner," said Ron Martin, vice president/general manager of Emerson’s Asset Optimization and Lifecycle Care. "We are committed to openness and full support of industry standards to give our users the ultimate freedom in choice, and a consistent way to manage and maintain their assets without compromise."
www.emersonprocess.com

Published in Products

Thursday, 19 July 2012 12:00

Three strategies for maintenance professionals

Paul Michalicka, North American area sales manager of maintenance products at SKF Canada Ltd., spoke with PEM at the recent SKF Technical Press Day in Philadelphia. He describes the three main strategies at the disposal of maintenance professionals: run to failure; preventive maintenance; and predictive maintenance.

Published in Video Library

Thursday, 21 June 2012 15:45

Emerson, Beamex combine advanced calibration with predictive maintenance

Emerson Process Management announced an integrated asset management and calibration solution that combines its AMS Suite predictive maintenance software application with Beamex CMX Calibration software. The integration with Beamex further enhances the calibration functionality already available with AMS Suite, providing an enhanced calibration solution that will help users transform their calibration practices to be more accurate and efficient.

This solution broadens the scope of assets that can be calibrated and includes customizable calibration reports to improve analysis and documentation of asset status, and enable manufacturers to comply with industry regulations such as ISO 9001:2000, 21 CFR Part 11, and IEC 61511. Utilizing the AMS Suite Calibration Connector, AMS Device Manager populates the CMX Calibration Software with intelligent device data. Users are able to leverage diagnostic information from these assets on overall health, including if calibrations may need to be performed. Upon completion of calibrations, CMX will provide pass/fail information to AMS Device Manager to update the device history.

One early adopter, Don Brady of GlaxoSmithKline in Cork, Ireland states, "We've eliminated 21,000 sheets of paper per year and we streamlined our end-to-end workflow, which reduced our calibration time by about 15 minutes per calibration. We've also eliminated calculation errors and rework because pass/fail calculations are performed in real-time out in the plant." Brady also mentions the plant reduced scheduled calibrations by 8% as part of the data migration from their legacy system.

"Our users need to focus their resources so they are making the best decisions possible about their critical automation assets with no wasted effort," said Ron Martin, vice president/general manager of Emerson’s Asset Optimization and Lifecycle Care. "As more and more industries require some form of regulatory compliance around calibration, this integration enables our users to optimize their calibration practices without introducing risk. The partnership between Emerson and Beamex pairs two leaders in calibration to deliver a more robust calibration solution to the market."
www.emersonprocess.com
www.beamex.com

Published in News

Friday, 09 October 2009 14:48

Waste Factor: Lean maintenance offers important benefits

Lean maintenance is the application of lean philosophies, methods, tools and techniques to reliability functions. It has the same fundamental goals: eliminating waste associated with labour, inventory, procedures and techniques. This results in improved productivity and reduced costs.

Lean maintenance doesn't imply a slash-and-dash approach in eliminating jobs and cutting costs. This common strategy doesn't eliminate waste or cut costs. A lean maintenance philosophy reduces costs by eliminating waste that can be defined as "anything that doesn't add value to the product, process or service."

There are many tools used to implement lean principles in manufacturing that also apply to maintenance. They include: 5S, Kaizen, just in time (JIT), elimination of the seven deadly wastes and the like. In this article, we'll specifically analyze how the use of a computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) system can be a tool and help you accomplish lean goals.

Waste in maintenance

Overproduction: In the maintenance environment, overproduction is doing any work that doesn't add value. Performing preventive maintenance (PM) and predictive maintenance (PdM) tasks more often than is necessary and re-doing jobs, which were not done correctly the first time, are examples.

Waiting: Areas of waste in this category include maintenance personnel waiting for equipment availability, job assignments, tools, parts, instructions other crafts and permit approval, etc. Waiting isn't a value-added activity and should be eliminated or reduced as much as possible.

Transportation: Unnecessary travel is the result of ineffective planning and scheduling. Examples include travelling to the maintenance shop to get technical information (i.e. O/M manual and prints) and travelling to the storeroom for parts and tools. Poorly designed PM routes are also a major contributor, yet not visible.

Process waste: When performing a breakdown repair, maintenance personnel are typically under lot of pressure to fix the machine as soon as possible and return it to production. Maintainers, however, aren't given enough time to fix the repair appropriately. This results in a poor repair and recurring problems. Properly performed repairs would eliminate this process waste and save lost production time in the long term.

These days, most organizations use some sort of CMMS system or enterprise asset management (EAM) system. Processing waste also occur when inefficiencies exist in these systems. Examples include a poorly designed system that requires multiple entries of the same data, or a material requisitioning process that requires redundant approvals.

Defects: In maintenance, a defect can be defined as leaving an asset in an unreliable condition. There are many causes of defects in the maintenance environment. Defects due to poor workmanship arise from inadequate training, inadequate/outdated procedures and not having proper tools to do the job.

Equipment/asset reliability can minimize defects. Machines that are reliable produce less scrap and product that's within specification, which eliminates the cause of defect correction. Equipment must be ready to run when demand is presented.

Parts inventory: Examples of waste with spare-parts inventory management include:

• Obsolete inventory: Most storerooms contain a significant amount of obsolete inventory. Obsolete inventory ties up capital and consumes management resources. It can easily amount to 10- to 20 percent of annual inventory dollars;

• Excessive inventory isn't obsolete, but it's inventory maintained at unnecessarily high levels. Excessive inventory also ties up capital and consumes management resources; and

• Inadequate PM programs cause equipment failures, which in turn, results in additional parts requirement (consuming working capital) and downtime.

A CMMS/EAM system can monitor and control parts inventory. It keeps track of inventory items, vendor performance, parts receipts, issues and returns. In addition, CMMS/EAM systems can automate the parts purchasing process. Vendor-managed and stocked inventory can also drastically reduce parts quantity (stocked in the storeroom) and save money.

Root cause: Breakdowns and failures are never planned and cause the loss of production and money. Finding the root cause of a failure provides an organization with a solvable problem. Once the root cause is identified, a fix can be developed and implemented that prevents a recurring failure situation.

Eliminating waste

Work flow: One of the common performance metrics is planned versus unplanned work orders. The benchmark goal has been 90-percent planned (PM and other planned activities) and 10-percent unplanned corrective/breakdown maintenance. In reality, with most organizations, the ratio is anywhere from 10- to 30-percent planned maintenance to 90- to 70-percent unplanned. This is indicative of operating in a reactive mode, which contributes to waste, reduced equipment life and lost productivity.

A thorough understanding and analysis of a maintenance work-process flow makes it easier to identify and eliminate waste. The goal is not only to eliminate waste, but also to develop an improved work process flow that's more effective and productive. As the flow is thoroughly reviewed and analyzed, the entire process flow becomes visible and wasteful activities, such as delays, unnecessary travel and the like, are easily identified.

Trending: Condition monitoring usually involves the use of installed devices (i.e. gauges and meters) to monitor the operating conditions of equipment and other assets. An example is a pressure gauge on a chiller. Maintenance can establish operating limits for the condition(s) being monitored and trend the observed data. If the observed data is outside of certain predefined range of values, some maintenance action may be required. This is referred to as condition-based maintenance and can be very effective and less expensive than periodic or fixed-frequency maintenance.

Planning and scheduling: The planner/scheduler role is very important in a lean maintenance environment. The goal is to optimize utilization of available resources. Detailed job plans should be developed for all approved open work orders, including:

• Number of and type of labour resources (how many plumbers, carpenters, etc.);

• Time estimates, so required manpower can be determined;

• Detail job steps, including permit/safety requirements;

• Parts and tools requirements (pre-kit if necessary);

• Clear job instructions, drawings, sketches, etc.;

• Job-site walk down to determine the most efficient way of performing work;

• Equipment availability coordination; and

• Outside contractor requirements (if any).

Delays must be avoided at all cost. Weekly scheduling must be done with daily fine-tuning as necessary. This level of detail and coordination is required to achieve a lean and efficient maintenance operation.

How can CMMS/EAM systems help?

CMMS/EAM systems can be looked upon as a tool, which can help implement and support lean maintenance in many different ways:

• The CMMS/EAM system enables the use of lean principles by refining PM activities. For example, it allows users to define assets in terms of size, type, subtype and location, as well as customize the PM to a specific asset. This way, you can control and optimize PM frequencies for specific types of equipment. A CMMS/EAM system's ability to track and manage work requests, labour, planning and scheduling allows companies to stream line the work process flow. This cuts waste and improves productivity.

• With easy access to detailed asset information, maintenance planners are better equipped to schedule tasks, plan routes and estimate materials required. For example, multiple assets that share similar requirements or are at the same location may be combined in a single work order, cutting maintenance labour costs.

• CMMS/EAM systems can produce reports that indicate overdue PM tasks. Performing PMs on time can contribute to higher equipment uptime, resulting in higher overall productivity.

• A critical aspect of maintenance planning is the availability of "real-time" data. The CMMS/EAM system utilizes the real-time information via mobile technology to allow usage-based scheduling of maintenance tasks as opposed to fixed-calendar based. For example, an air-handler PM might be scheduled on runtime hours instead of at monthly intervals.

• Real-time information allows users to set alarms that are based on condition monitoring. For example, if a temperature reading is outside of a predefined range, the CMMS/EAM system can automatically issue a work order.

Done right, lean concepts can lower maintenance cost and increase productivity.

Kris Bagadia, is president of Brookfield, WI-based PEAK Industrial Solutions. You can reach him by email at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Published in Features