HAND & POWER TOOLS
FEATURE SPONSOR
THE MAINTENANCE JIGSAW Do you have a piece missing?
Maintenance: whether it is at the dizzying heights of a power generation asset in the North Sea, in a factory processing food items, or in an advanced automotive production line, it always has a number of commonalities and challenges to the modern professional engineer. These shared experiences allow a natural cross-over of tried-and-tested knowledge between those employed to keep the equipment working despite everything that operators, the weather and increasingly narrow life-cycle tolerances demand. ‘Maintenance’, as a broad term or its equally well-known ‘MRO’ abbreviation typically focuses on lubricants and greases. Lubricants are just one aspect of the maintenance process: so why, when it comes to maintenance and maintenance chemicals, lubricants are usually the only chemical type talked about? It’s probably a historical preoccupation with lubricants keeping the wheels of industry turning that has been reinforced in the media over the years, but to talk of maintenance chemical and lubrication as interchangeable and inevitably linked terms does not show the complete maintenance chemical situation.
THE MAINTENANCE JIGSAW – NOT JUST CHEMICALS & OILS…
Typical Maintenance Inputs
THE MAINTENANCE JIGSAW – CLEANING & INSPECTION VITAL BEFORE LUBRICATION:
To say that lubrication is the primary focus of the chemical constituent of a maintenance process is not incorrect as often a squirt of grease or top-up of oil is all that is required to complete the works order, but should more extensive servicing be called for it will require some component or part of equipment to be taken apart, inspected, and replaced in order to identify if it is the cause of (or likely to cause) problems. This is where the maintenance chemical options open up
revealing the true extent of the choice: cleaners/degreasers, lubricants, anti-corrosion, metal cutting, welding, wipes and more.
Typical Maintenance Inputs CLEAN DEGREASE REPAIR
RELUBRI- CATE
CLEAN
Cleaners and degreasers are designed as a critical first stage of the servicing process, ensuring that all lubricant, grime and dirt contamination is removed allowing the clean surfaces to be inspected without the risk of dirt obscuring faults, getting into close-tolerance gaps and preventing recontamination during re- lubrication and assembly. So a maintenance schedule needs to start and finish with cleaning to ensure a thorough job.
COMPONENTS PARTS CHEMICALS TOOLS
TIMELY SCHEDULE
ENGINEERING FACILITIES
TRAINING
SUPPLY CHAIN
A typical ‘MRO’ or ‘maintenance’ operation involves many components, each equally as important as the others to ensure a reliable, productive and efficient inter-maintenance-cycle operation. No one wants unexpected down-time.
Whether it is ‘invisibles’ such as… •
training, • timely schedules/planning,
• and service agreements; Or physical ones…
• Tools • Components & parts •
Chemicals QUALITY RELIABILITY
EFFICIENCY
PRODUCTIVITY
Each combines with the others to deliver a service greater than the sum of its parts. Should one piece be missing, sub- standard, or overlooked, then it is often the case that the trinity of ‘reliability, efficiency, productivity’ is compromised resulting in increased maintenance frequency or breakdown.
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