Articles & Papers
24/7 presents technical papers at various symposiums. These technical papers are offered here for your education. Please choose the technical paper you would like to download or view.
Reliability Information Management Concepts
Plant-Mill Walk-Down Process
Companies starting reliability improvement programs commonly hit an early roadblock: deficient data quality in their computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). The functional location
structure and asset registry information in the system is a natural starting point for any vibration, lubrication, or other preventive maintenance (PM) or predictive maintenance (PdM) initiative,
but in many plants a good percentage of this data is either absent, outdated, or simply erroneous.
Why RCFA Needs Root Cause Case Management to Succeed
Examine why RCFA case management is needed in addition to RCFA, and how companies such as a major U.S. metals manufacturer and a large U.S. pulp and paper mill are improving equipment reliability with an improved RCFA case management approach....
RIM is the Secret to Reliability Program Success
With all the effort going into predictive maintenance (PdM) and asset management (EAM/CMMS) solutions, it is easy to overlook the fundamental role of reliability information management (RIM)...
A Major Chemical Company’s Journey to Reliability
Over the past 20 years, many US plants have invested heavily in condition monitoring technologies such as vibration, oil analysis, thermography, and motor circuit evaluation...
Why Use Tango?
Download Word Document
We asked Tango™ clients to tell us why they chose to use Tango in their reliability programs. This is what we heard ranked by most popular answers: ...
The Role of the Plant EAM/CMMS and Why a RIMS is Needed:
Download Word Document
1) EAM/CMMS is Built for accounting, lacking for reliability...
Reliability Information Management: What is It & Why Should You Care?
Many maintenance professionals agree that there are two basic reasons for the focus on reliability in industrial plants:
1) Eliminate unexpected equipment failure that can interrupt production and carry high repair cost, and
2) Extend the life of equipment between repairs to lower total lifecycle costs.
To accomplish these goals a plant must implement and manage many condition monitoring, lifecycle tracking, and failure analysis activities.
A Convincing Cost-Benefit Case for Condition Monitoring
What is the best way to justify a condition monitoring investment? This is a common question when gaining or maintaining management support for any equipment reliability program. Maintenance and reliability professionals are quick to recognize the value of equipment condition monitoring and predictive maintenance (PdM), but often have difficulty translating that value into terms the executives will appreciate.
Smart Phones QR Codes Changing Physical Asset Management
How Smart Device Technology and Tango™ are changing the way Physical Asset Management is done.
Strategic Component Management
Strategic Equipment Management is an industrial maintenance strategy for actively managing critical high value rotating machinery for highest reliability, lowest life cycles cost, and minimizes production losses. The goal of strategic equipment management is to increase a machine’s reliability, lower its maintenance cost, and increase production availability. This strategy, when aggressively implemented, can substantially increase a plant’s profit margin.
The Business Case For PAS 55: An Emerging Global Standard For Asset Management
Time to get ready. A standard's coming. Here's some insight into this framework for maximizing the return on your assets and improving safety. You'll need to think 'best practices.'
Managing Reliability Information to Eliminate Failures in Service
Make Service Companies Your Partner in Reliability
Some industrial manufacturing facilities are too small to have their own dedicated condition based inspection team. Other facilities have found that
they cannot maintain the people and knowledge necessary to provide a dedicated condition based inspection program.
Why RCFA needs root cause case management to succeed
Equipment failure is not inevitable when it can be prevented with systematic analysis.
The Key to Reliability is Information Accessibility
The array of available tools and technologies for improving equipment reliability is impressive. Individually, they are effective, but together, they can be transformational. Companies that come up short in their reliability goals typically overlook the importance of consolidating the information, because the real key to reliability is information accessibility.
Reds Meetings Communication Ensures Consistent Reliability.
Reds Meetings drive focus on vital work and eliminate the communication gap. With integrated condition status dashboards as the focal point, these weekly or biweekly, face-to-face, mandatory meetings compel individuals who are in control of spending, scheduling, maintenance, reliability, and operations to review each active case, one by one, and assign and document next actions.
Do your Walk-around Equipment Inspections Actually Contribute to Asset Reliability?
Operators doing Basic Operator Care, mechanics/millwrights/electricians performing Craft Inspections, and lubrication technicians running Lube Routes probably spend more time around your operating assets than just about anyone else in the plant. Shouldn’t you know what those inspection techs know about developing equipment condition problems?
Accountability and Communication
The goal of equipment condition monitoring is to increase equipment availability, yield, quality, and reduce maintenance cost by eliminating in service failures on critical equipment, extending the life (reliability) of plant equipment and by eliminating costly prevention (scheduled) maintenance work when condition analysis shows no need for the work.
Plants have invested heavily in condition monitoring technologies such as vibration, oil analysis, thermography, and motor circuit evaluation to provide an accurate prediction of plant equipment problems. Most plants put significant time and resources into measuring equipment condition, and then much of the information is never acted upon – What’s up?
Often the problem is that condition based maintenance programs are begun by corporate or plant managers and never get “buy-in” from plant maintenance. When plant maintenance supervisors are asked why they do not act on condition based results you can hear many excuses like:
- Do not believe the results
- Not enough time
- Lost or did not look at the report
- No money – costs too much
- Operations will not allow repair
- When a machine fails they are the hero and receive overtime
Many plants have noted that it often takes a catastrophe to get maintenance buy in for condition based maintenance. Some innovative plants have found that a consistent program of communication and accountability have made the implementation to condition based maintenance easier and faster.
Reliability service companies such as Acuren Group in New Brunswick, Canada (formerly Bretech Engineering), are adopting reliability information management systems as a means to lower repair costs...
A Healthy Dose of Electrical Reliability
The facilities management department of a large hospital in the Eastern U.S. is charged with ensuring that all campus facilities are continuously and safely operational. Its electricians manage more than 5,000 electrical panels...
Bridging the Gap Between Condition Monitoring Reports & Maintenance Action
Tango Web Service, in a supplemental role to the plant’s CMMS system, can streamline the flow of equipment condition status between analysts, reliability engineers, and maintenance planners.
Condition Management Analysis and Program Metrics
As condition entries and assessment tasks are processed through Tango™, plantwide and area specific condition based maintenance metrics are produced.
Lewis-Evolution of Asset Mgt at Eastman Chemical Co.
Setting the vision is difficult but is often easier than determining the most efficient path to reach it. One visionary manager at EastmanChemical Company set the vision to proactively manage ALL assets by providing condition based maintenance.
Read more...
Many industrial facilities have chosen to use condition monitoring service contractors to apply predictive maintenance measurement technologies and produce reports on degraded equipment condition. Often different contractors are utilized for different PDM technologies resulting in reports with different styles, fault names, severity scales and equipment IDs. Also the ability to integrate these results is non-existent.
This paper presents strategic case history accounts that illustrate the implementation of a web-based system to manage condition contractor work and results. The use of this web-based package allows the subcontractors to post their condition status into a single integrated database without having to deal with plant IT firewalls. Benefits include:
- Standardization of equipment names, fault descriptions, and severity scales
- Integration of all known condition information for each monitored asset
- Communication of results to a broad audience of plant users via the Internet
- Accountability for timely performance of scheduled condition tasks and maintenance follow-up
- Performance Metrics that indicate progress (or lack thereof) toward reliability goals
24/7 Systems produces the Tango Condition Management Web-service that is used by several plants to manage and integrate their contractor produced PDM results.
This paper will discuss how two major food and beverage corporations use an internet-based communication service to create consistent operations and information flow in condition monitoring activities at their different plant sites, even when outside contractors are providing monitoring services. Discussion will include:
- Managing frequency & completion of monitoring tasks
- Standardizing reporting & metrics of reliability progress across the corporation
- Role of internet-based communications in creating consistent corporate accountability for reliability improvement
Alcoa Warrick Operations Smelter, the largest fully operating smelter in the United States, recently increased their use of predictive maintenance(PdM) as part of a larger Reliability Excellence (REX) program.
Putting All the Pieces Together
Over the past 20 years, many US plants have invested heavily in condition monitoring technologies such as viberation, oil analysis, therography, and motor circuit evaluation to provide an accurate prediction of plant equipment problems...
Routine Inspections Play a Key Role
Routine Inspections Play Key Role in Condition Based Maintenance at Buzzi Unicem. Points discussed will include:
- Maintenance Inspections are Automated with PDA’s
- Observations are Merged with PDM Results
- Integrated Condition Information Guides Work Priority
Lubrication routes typically concentrate on validating that grease lubricated machines have been successfully greased and over greasing has not occurred and that oil lubricated machines have adequate lubrication and the lubricant is not contaminated.
Two-Tiered Predictive Maintenance Programs for Multiple Plant Organizations
The Wastewater Treatment Division of the Metropolitan Sewer District(MSD) of Greater Cincinnati recently established a two-tiered predictive maintenance (PdM) program. MSD uses Tango to manage it's reliability information.
Managing Reliability Information to Extend Equipment Lifecycle
Motor Master Series: Mastering Motor Autopsies
It is well known that motors are the most important class of assets in a plant, yet all too often they get ignored until they fail. In order to make motors live longer, we must understand why they fail, or degrade prematurely, during service. An “autopsy” by the motor repair vendor or an in-house shop is a great way to capture this information.
Take Oil Sample Analysis To The Cloud
Working together, an end user, an oil lab, and a reliability service provider improved an important predictive-maintenance technique and gained a wealth of reliability benefits.
Managing Motor Reliability
The lifecycle tracking and reliability improvements of industrial electrical motors is difficult, primarily because the necessary information comes from a wide variety of sources including: purchasing, installations, condition analysis, stores, and repair vendors. The Tango equipment lifecycle management software produced by 24/7 Systems is a proven method of maintaining needed information and measuring motor reliability. In order to improve motor reliability, you must be able to measure it.
Shops Enter Repair and Failure Information for Plants
Tango™ Repair Tracker Standardizes Root Cause Analysis and Repair Reporting.
Read more...
Tango Functions
Non-Destruction Test (NDT)
Nondestructive testing or Non-destructive testing (NDT) is a wide group of analysis techniques used in science and industry to evaluate the properties of a material, component or system without causing damage.
RoundsLoggin Overview
View PDF -
Download Word Document
Tango™ RoundsLogging is a function that allows industrial plant technicians to use Smart Phones and Tablets for collecting equipment health information through tasks.