Many of us in Industry love the glitter and glitz of Hi-Tech, myself included. To that point, many fall victim to the, “it’s the answer to all our problems” syndrome. Largely due to industry hype, we believe it can fix everything. Many times a customer has wanted me to come out and “just take some readings” on X machine that’s in its death rattle, while I can hear it over his phone and know it’s done, it just hasn’t stopped turning yet. It never works. If it did, then all we would have to do is buy another meter, camera, or box. Maybe we can install some permanent sensors; yes, more data will do the trick.
But, before these tools can be used to really good advantage, a plant needs to have good work practices and the discipline and systems in place to make sure they are followed. The plant in this Field Service Report/Case Study was a good running plant that used vibration, infrared, ultrasound, and oil analysis, as well as a knowledgeable and aggressive supervisory and management group. But yet, they had an ongoing problem in the basement that routinely affected one of their critical process of the plant. There were finer mesh strainers and filter bags available but the plant had been seriously promoting employee involvement.
We all know of the need to push decisions to the lowest level. Since they were told it was their decision, the operators chose to use the baskets shown because they almost never plugged up, so they almost never had to clean them. The pit just filled with fines and the sprays continued to plug. This also is a good example of why the old saw “we’ll just all work together on that” doesn’t work. If you want something to work, you have to make someone responsible for it.
You may be asking yourself how this could happen, but a better question would be, Do you know what’s going on in your basement? Read the complete report with the following link.