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SMART SOLUTIONS FOR MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY

Collaborative robots are here: What that means for worker safety

Generation gap: Is it bad manners or something else?

P.9

Cross-train for supply chain success JUNE 2017

P.23

Benz's building blocks for buy-in P.28

8 steps to improve asset reliability P.38

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TABLE OF CONTENTS JUNE 2017 / VOL. 37, NO. 6

FEATURES

SPECIALISTS

30 / COVER STORY

07 / FROM THE EDITOR

Hand in Hand

R.U. Ready for Cobotics?

The rise of collaborative robots demands new considerations to keep workers safe

Even with fictional robots, it’s always been safety first

Do You Know Your Way Around An SLA?

34 / PS BLOGS

09 / HUMAN CAPITAL

Meet the Bloggers!

Is It Bad Manners or Something Else?

Service-level agreements forge solid partnerships with external and internal customers

Four of our fab online writers passed the audition and have come together for their paperback debut 38 / CULTURE

Leaders would do their best to listen across generations and avoid snap judgments

8 Steps to Improve Asset Reliability 11 / TECHNOLOGY TOOLBOX

42 / OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE

From algorithms to hardware, the new maintenance frontier is coming into view

The Industrial Internet of Things also opens the door to new business models and markets

19 / PALMER’S PLANNING CORNER

How Planners Estimate Labor Hours Trying to be super-accurate with each job estimate? That’s not how this works...

Establish a solid foundation for your organization by first focusing on the basics

IIoT Can Drive Operational Improvements

15 / ASSET MANAGER

Prioritize Prescriptive Analytics

50 / BIG PICTURE INTERVIEW

Brett Dyess, CMRP, maintenance supervisor at Nissan “To run this route, you must be at least certified Level 1 against that technology, just to ensure consistency and repeatability. ...

It also allows more buy-in and ownership of that technology.”

PLANT SERVICES (ISSN 0199-8013) is published monthly by Putman Media, Inc., 1501 E. Woodfield Road, Suite 400N, Schaumburg, IL 60173. Phone (630) 467-1300, Fax (630) 467-0197. Periodicals Postage Paid at Schaumburg, IL and additional mailing Offices. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40028661. Canadian Mail Distributor Information: Frontier/BWI,PO Box 1051, Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, L2A 5N8.

Printed in U.S.A. POSTMASTER: Postmaster: Please send change of address to Putman Media, PO Box 1888, Cedar Rapids IA 52406-1888; 1-800-553-8878 ext 5020. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Qualified reader subscriptions are accepted from PLANT SERVICES managers, supervisors and engineers in manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Canada. To apply for qualified-reader subscriptions, please go to www.plantservices.com. To non-qualified subscribers in the U.S., subscriptions are $96 per year. Single copies are $15. Subscription to Canada and other international are accepted at $200 (Airmail only) © 2017 by Putman Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. In an effort to more closely align with our business partners in a manner that provides the most value to our readers, content published in PLANT SERVICES magazine appears on the public domain of PLANT SERVICES’ Website, and June also appear on Websites that apply to our growing marketplace. Putman Media, Inc. also publishes CHEMICAL PROCESSING, CONTROL, CONTROL DESIGN, FOOD PROCESSING, THE JOURNAL, PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURING and SMART INDUSTRY. PLANT SERVICES assumes no responsibility for validity of claims in items published.

DEPARTMENTS 23 / AUTOMATION ZONE

28 / WHAT WORKS

Cross-Train for SupplyChain Success

Benz’s Building Blocks for Buy-In

Close the knowledge gap between your engineers and your procurement professionals

How a Mercedes plant conquered cynicism to help a reliability overhaul succeed

26 / YOUR SPACE

46 / PRODUCT ROUNDUP

Address Robotics Safety Hazards

Motors and Drives

Be aware of current OSHA regulatory gaps when developing your plant safety plans

Increase energy savings while enhancing machine and control system performance 48 / CLASSIFIEDS / AD INDEX

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FROM THE EDITOR

IN MEMORY OF JULIE CAPPELLETTI-LANGE, Vice President 1984-2012 PUTMAN MEDIA, INC. 1501 E. Woodfield Road, Suite 400N, Schaumburg, IL 60173 (630) 467-1300 Fax: (630) 467-1120 MIKE BRENNER Group Publisher mbrenner@putman.net

EDITORIAL STAFF THOMAS WILK Editor in Chief twilk@putman.net

CHRISTINE LaFAVE GRACE Managing Editor clafavegrace@putman.net

ALEXIS GAJEWSKI Associate Editor, Digital Media agajewski@putman.net

STEPHEN C. HERNER V.P., Creative & Production sherner@putman.net

DEREK CHAMBERLAIN Senior Art Director dchamberlain@putman.net

DAVID BERGER, P.ENG. Contributing Editor

PETER GARFORTH Contributing Editor

SHEILA KENNEDY, CMRP Contributing Editor

TOM MORIARTY, P.E., CMRP Contributing Editor

DOC PALMER, P.E., MBA, CMRP Contributing Editor

PUBLICATION SERVICES CARMELA KAPPEL Assistant to the Publisher ckappel@putman.net

JERRY CLARK V.P., Circulation jclark@putman.net

JACK JONES Circulation Director jjones@putman.net

RITA FITZGERALD Production Manager rfitzgerald@putman.net

JILL KALETHA Reprint Marketing Manager Foster Reprints (866) 879-9144 ext.194 jillk@fosterprinting.com

EXECUTIVE STAFF JOHN M. CAPPELLETTI President/CEO

THOMAS WILK, EDITOR IN CHIEF

R.U. READY FOR COBOTICS? Even with fictional robots, it’s always been safety first This issue of Plant Services features

two articles on robotics safety including our cover story, which addresses the emerging “cobotics” trend. The word is a new one, denoting the dynamic where industrial robots perform work in very close collaboration with people.

Frankly, “cobotics” is a word that I’m still getting used to. Yet the word “robot” itself was new once upon a time, debuting less than a century ago in the 1921 play “R.U.R.” by Czech writer Karel Čapek. The play is set in a factory that makes artificial people, and over time these “roboti” are forced to take on the bulk of industrial labor around the globe. This results in a revolution in which the robots kill all human beings except for one – an engineer who “works with his hands like the robots.”

Twenty years later, notions of human displacement and disruption by robots were familiar enough that Isaac Asimov could define his famous “Three Laws of Robotics,” which outline a relationship intended to maintain human safety and preserve human authority over robots: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Having defined these laws, Asimov then used dozens of novels and short stories to explore the logical loopholes that would emerge were these laws to be applied in the real world. Ever since, robotic characters from C-3PO, K9, and Wall•E to Gort, RoboCop, and the Terminator robots have been used to probe the limits of our comfort with robots.

Can we trust our safety around them, and how close is too close?

In our real industrial world, organizations including RIA and OSHA regularly issue standards and guidance documents designed to keep workers safe in a world where manufacturing automation is the norm, and where people and robots work together in increasingly closer quarters.

As Christine LaFave Grace notes in this month’s cover story, “collaborative

PLANT TEAMS MUST STAY AWARE OF EMERGING ROBOTICS SAFETY BEST PRACTICES. robots are designed to work with human operators, not strictly independent of them, and so new approaches to safety are needed.” In other cases, as Eric Esson notes in the Your Space column this month, plant teams should defer to more general safety guidelines in the absence of specific standards.

Later in Asimov’s career, he revisited his laws of robotics to add one more, as if fixing one final gap after decades of reading and writing. This law would supersede the three others: 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

It makes me wonder how a “Three Laws of Humanity” would read if they were written by IBM’s Watson, especially if Watson concludes that HAL really was one step ahead.

Thomas Wilk, Editor in Chief twilk@putman.net, (630) 467-1300 x412

KEITH LARSON VP, Content and Group Publisher

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HUMAN CAPITAL TOM MORIARTY, P.E., CMRP

IS IT BAD MANNERS OR SOMETHING ELSE? Leaders would do their best to listen across generations and avoid snap judgments I came across a quote and found it very amusing. It goes like this: “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Any idea who said this, and when it was said? It was the philosopher Socrates in the fifth century BC. It’s funny because no matter what period in history you look at, there seems to have been a level of discord between generations.

Why have there been such differences over the years? It’s because all people have a value system that is unique and tied to what is going on in history. We all have, and continuously use, a value system at a subconscious level. A person’s values govern his or her behaviors in interacting with the surrounding world. The collection of behaviors and interactions create a culture.

People make their way through the world by gathering experiences and deciding whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, normal or not normal. Understanding a person’s values can be helpful in that it allows us to interact in a way that will best meet our current and future needs.

Values are developed at a very early age. Psychologists say that during the first few years of life, we all go through an imprinting period. During the imprinting period, we are programmed with a simple behavioral information such as dinner table manners and how to address people politely. Behavior programming happens through observing our parents and learning how adults behave. As we get older, the imprinting of more complex behaviors occurs due to additional inputs.

As we move through the preteen years, a process known as intense modeling occurs. From about 10 years of age, heroes become a critical source of value information. Heroes can be immediate family members, teachers, or just about anyone. Heroes can be people from history, sports, performers, musicians, or, God forbid, reality TV. Moving through the later teen years, another type of programming occurs. This is referred to as socialization.

Social interactions become critically important to teens.

Teens try new things because “everyone else is doing it.” A major source of value programming during this period is our friends: We socialize with others whom we tend to share the same values, so common values are reinforced.

By our early 20s, a person’s values become more locked in, and for the rest of their life they have generally fixed opinions about what is good or bad, right or wrong, normal and not normal. Beyond this point, it is difficult to persuade someone to change their value system. Once we move beyond the programming period and the values are locked in, they provide a framework for how we relate to the world.

UNDERSTANDING A PERSON’S VALUES ALLOWS US TO INTERACT IN A WAY THAT WILL BEST MEET OUR CURRENT AND FUTURE NEEDS. This is a primary reason why the armed services like to get recruits who are in their late teens to early 20s. It’s much easier to mold values (honor, respect, and devotion to duty) for an 18-year-old person than for a 25-year-old person. It’s also why you see a lot of political action organizations focusing on college students.

Because we all traverse the years of our lives with different inputs, we all have different viewpoints and wide ranges of values. Many “experienced” workers make snap judgments about younger people. While experienced people have seen what works and what doesn’t, they sometimes don’t consider that technology or some other factor has changed. Younger folks are less encumbered by history.

What all this means is that we should be conscious of the way we approach others from different generations or different backgrounds. Most workplaces have people ranging in age from their 60s or even 70s down to those in their late teen years or their early 20s. Millennials should not dismiss older workers who are the embodiment of the history of their trade or profession. Older workers should be accepting of younger workers who have less work experience but who can approach problems with different perspectives and skills. They may have interesting solutions.

Give each other a break. Listen, understand, and leverage each generation’s strengths.

Tom Moriarty, P.E., CMRP, is president of Alidade MER. Contact him at tjmpe@alidade-mer.com and (321) 773-3356.

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TECHNOLOGY TOOLBOX SHEILA KENNEDY, CMRP

PRIORITIZE PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS From algorithms to hardware, the new maintenance frontier is coming into view The new frontier in asset management is prescriptive in nature, and fresh tools are emerging to pave the way.

Prescriptive analytics and prescriptive maintenance have a solutions focus. They integrate data and knowledge from multiple sources to identify the best course of action going forward. While prescriptive analytics can be used to drive broader business objectives, prescriptive maintenance uses targeted analytics to produce actionable asset management recommendations.

COMBINING DATA AND KNOWLEDGE TO PRESCRIBE ACTIONS

The combination of asset data, first principles and empirical models, process knowledge, advanced analytics, and machine learning enables AspenTech Asset Performance Management (APM) solutions “to create a world that doesn’t break down,” says Robert Golightly, senior manager of asset performance management at AspenTech.

As a result, Golightly explains, organizations gain the process insights needed to accurately predict failures and obtain the prescriptive guidance that will help prevent and mitigate problems, building a sustainable competitive advantage throughout the asset’s entire life cycle.

The AIMMS Prescriptive Analytics solution uses optimization modeling to produce recommended actions. Gertjan de Lange, senior VP of connecting business and optimization at AIMMS, offers maintenance planning as an example. Assessing resource availability in the context of specific service maintenance requirements and staying operational at critical

moments is a large puzzle with many variables and constraints that needs a lot of computational horsepower, he says.

“Applying prescriptive analytics increases operational uptime and allows you to schedule maintenance in such a way that it does not affect throughput and takes into account the scarcity of resources,” says de Lange. “A great example is our client Sasol, an energy and chemical company, who uses AIMMS to create optimal service schedules for its gas

PRESCRIPTIVE MAINTENANCE USES TARGETED ANALYTICS TO PRODUCE ACTIONABLE ASSET MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS. engines, which increased production by 4.6%.”

IBM Prescriptive Maintenance takes a similar approach.

“By understanding operational data, it classifies assets as over-, under- or well-maintained, providing insight into factors that contribute to or detract from asset reliability, so reliability engineers can continuously improve their maintenance practices and resources,” explains Jiani Zhang, program director of offering management for IBM Watson Internet of Things.

She says that IBM Prescriptive Maintenance on Cloud can offer recommendations to improve maintenance strategy and optimize maintenance schedules, prescribe proactive AIMMS

ASPENTECH

http://plnt.sv/1706TT-01

http://plnt.sv/1706TT-02

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 11

TECHNOLOGY TOOLBOX

actions to take based on predictive scoring, and provide a detailed comparison of historical factors that affect asset performance.

The Enterprise Operations Intelligence (EOI) product from IFS now leverages the IFS Dynamic Scheduling Engine (DSE), enabling prescriptive analytics to be performed “in any business scenario that involves scheduling.”

EOI gives a company the ability to map an organization from its strategy to operations down to the work execution steps, including inputs and suppliers, says Chuck Brans, VP of enterprise operational intelligence at IFS North America. “Because EOI knows the variables and drivers of the key metrics, EOI provides ‘what-if’ scenarios so managers can determine the base choice to optimize their performance, or EOI can even determine the best option.”

OPPORTUNITIES FOR MANUFACTURING AND UTILITIES

Analytics from the plant floor can solve common problems that manufacturers face. Rockwell Automation’s new FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices appliance targets lost productivity from unscheduled downtime. It transforms data from smart automation assets into health and diagnostics analytics dashboards, right on a mobile device.

“That same information will also help the application make prescriptive recommendations,” says Mike Pantaleano, global business manager of device/edge analytics at Rockwell Automation. “This way, manufacturers can improve equipment uptime and lower maintenance costs.”

ABB applies the prescriptive approach in its grid automation business to enable a “stronger, smarter, and greener grid.” Its Asset Health Center software, an APM solution, uses predictive and prescriptive analytics as well as customized models to help companies evolve from simple descriptive analytics to prescriptive analytical recommendations. As a result, utilities can improve asset performance and reliability as well as their processes for risk-based investment optimization.

The latest-generation Asset Health Center “combines the domain expertise embedded in ABB’s softwarebased technologies with the global scale of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform,” says Rick Nicholson, manager of the global product management team within ABB’s Enterprise Software product group.

Email Contributing Editor Sheila Kennedy, CMRP, managing director of Additive Communications, at sheila@addcomm.com.

Learn more about the pioneering practice of prescriptive maintenance in our May 2017 cover story! http://plnt.sv/1705-RXM

REFERENCE WEBSITES: www.aspentech.com www.aimms.com www.ibm.com

www.ifsworld.com www.rockwellautomation.com www.abb.com

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ASSET MANAGER DAVID BERGER, P.ENG.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR WAY AROUND AN SLA? Service-level agreements forge solid partnerships with external & internal customers One of the key challenges for asset managers is build-

Thus, the service-level agreement must clarify key terms in the document so that both parties have a common understanding.

ing a strong partnership with external service providers for achieving common goals. A two-way service level agreement (SLA) formalizes the relationship by establishing the type and level of service expected from the outsourcer, and the quality of input required from your operations department.

To achieve performance targets outlined in the service-level agreement, internal and external resources must clarify roles and responsibilities.

This really should be no different if maintenance work is done totally in-house. In fact, a service-level agreement between internal asset managers and operators, complete with performance bonuses and penalties, should be considered no less than mandatory to ensure that expectations are clear and not taken for granted given that everyone is working for the same company. This seems more obvious for formal, third-party, external relationships, but in practice, it should be equally applicable to internal service departments.

A CMMS is critical for developing a plan for executing against the service level agreement, and monitoring progress towards attaining service goals. Most packages at least accommodate measurement of service-level achievements and target variances on a batch basis. More-advanced packages collect service-level data such as downtime and response time in real time and integrate data with condition-based maintenance functionality.

Described below are the key components of a two-way service level agreement with operations. This can be used as a template for developing your own SLA.

Use-based maintenance. Administer program of routine maintenance on each asset (e.g., lubrication, adjustments).

Condition-based maintenance. Monitor the health of all equipment on a regular basis in order to identify repair work required. For example, collect data from key assets to determine trends in component wear. Repair or replace components trending outside acceptable control limits.

Reliability management. Track the problem reported, the root cause, and the action taken for every case reported. Use data to better maintain the asset base. For example, identify recurring problems, eliminate high-cost root causes, and fine-tune the failure tree to quickly determine the best course of action for a given problem.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

SERVICE GOALS

Different terms mean different things to different people.

For example, to maintenance, “downtime” most likely means the time a machine is down due to a breakdown. To operations, downtime may mean the total time a machine is not working due to machine breakdown, scheduled preventive maintenance, lack of parts, lack of operators, and so on.

Furthermore, the start and end of downtime can be controversial. Suppose it takes operations 10 minutes before informing maintenance of a breakdown. Perhaps the breakdown was intermittent. In either case, the start of downtime depends on your definition. Similarly, if operations does not react immediately when told by maintenance that the machine is repaired, then when does downtime officially end?

The maintenance and operations departments share common goals, such as minimizing downtime. Historically, however, efforts to set performance targets for the internal/ external maintenance function have been rather one-sided, made without regard for the dependency on operations. To minimize downtime, for example, maintenance requires timely and accurate reporting of the problem.

The SLA must be two-way to be truly effective. Therefore, operations should be given performance targets for quality of input, for example as it pertains to the state of preparedness of the equipment to be serviced.

Let’s look at what maintenance and operations might agree on for, say, emergency repair work on critical as-

SERVICE DESCRIPTION

This section of the SLA describes the various services offered by the internal or external maintenance function to operations. Three examples are as follows:

A CMMS IS CRITICAL FOR DEVELOPING A PLAN FOR EXECUTING AGAINST THE SLA, AND FOR MONITORING PROGRESS TOWARD ATTAINING SERVICE GOALS.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 15

ASSET MANAGER

sets. The service goal is to respond as quickly as possible to a breakdown and restore the equipment to good working order with minimal interruption.

Outlined below are the performance targets for both maintenance and operations in support of this goal. A good CMMS with condition monitoring and an automated shop-floor data collection system interface is the ideal means of tracking many of these measures.

Maintenance. The target response time for maintenance in answering an emergency call will be within five minutes for class ‘A’ equipment (i.e., critical equipment), 100% of the time. For less-critical equipment, the performance target is within 15 minutes, 95% of the time. Service time for emergency repair of critical

equipment will be within 20 minutes, 98% of the time.

Other possible performance measures are the time taken by maintenance to inform operations that the job is complete and the percentage of work orders logged as “emergency.”

Operations. Possible measures for establishing performance targets are how quickly operations notifies maintenance that emergency service is required, the accuracy and completeness of the work request, the time taken to begin production after notification by maintenance that servicing is complete, and the percentage of times the root cause of the breakdown is operator error.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The following are sample statements

that might appear in this section of the service level agreement: Operations is responsible for ensuring that operators are fully trained in how to set up, use, and clean their equipment and conduct minor maintenance functions such as making adjustments, adding lubrication, and performing inspections. Maintenance will assist in developing, delivering, and updating course material.

Operations and Maintenance will share responsibility for developing annually an asset care strategy, complete with five-year plan and budget (e.g., capacity planning, major equipment repair/replace schedule).

Maintenance is responsible for ensuring that contingency, business recovery, and disaster plans are established and tested to ensure minimal disruption to operations.

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If performance targets are not met by either maintenance or operations, then both parties must agree to a process by which issues will be resolved. For example, a review committee or service quality team can be formed to resolve problems, with group members drawn from across the organization.

The CMMS is used to report regularly on service levels and performance target variances. More-advanced CMMS packages provide sophisticated root-cause analysis tools to better identify improvement opportunities.

A survey should be conducted at least once a year to determine both parties’ satisfaction levels with the SLA. The survey results, coupled with service-level reports, will provide important input when reviewing the effectiveness of the service level agreement each year.

Email Contributing Editor David Berger, P.Eng., MBA, president of The Lamus Group Inc., at davidb@lamusgroup.com.

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HOW PLANNERS ESTIMATE LABOR HOURS Trying to be super-accurate with each job estimate? That’s not how this works...

This month we will talk about how planners estimate

labor hours for job plans. Time estimates are a major part of the planning process, yet surprisingly, planners do not need to create super-accurate estimates. Speed of estimating and the general accuracy are more important than the precise accuracy of each estimate. Properly executing this concept makes a huge difference in planning and scheduling success.

To begin with, planning is all about running a Deming cycle in maintenance. Planners give head starts and craftspersons give feedback. Planners are craft historians who save and use the feedback to make future jobs better. (Planners cannot provide perfect job plans.) However, two issues keep planners from planning all of the work. One is this issue of making time estimates, and the other is an issue of how much detail to put into a job plan (which we will discuss next month).

Some people advocate “engineered” time estimates when planning work. These time estimates might consider such items such as how long it should take to remove each bolt over a certain size and the number of bolts on the job. It might take into account that a person walking at a determined pace walks 3 miles per hour and the distance of the job from the shop. It might also consider adding a percentage of extra time for jobs per foot of elevation for high jobs or per degree of temperature for being unusually hot or cold.

I think these type of estimates take too long for planners to calculate and might be more appropriate for assemblyline-type work where jobs are repeated time and time again each day. However, maintenance tasks usually have far fewer repetitions: usually once or twice per year on a specific asset, and often by a different craftsperson each time.

Some people advocate averaging historical times, but again, maintenance tasks usually have a low frequency of repetition.

Viewing history also shows wide variations for specific jobs

on the same asset by different persons over the years. A typical spread of actual hours might look like: 2 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, 5 hours, 5 hours, 7 hours, 8 hours, and 16 hours.

How should a planner use this information? An average time would be 6.5 hours; a median would be 5 hours; and a mode would be 5 hours. An average throwing out the outliers of 2 and 16 would be 6 hours. Which number would make a good time estimate?

THE SPEED OF ESTIMATING AND THE GENERAL ACCURACY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PRECISE ACCURACY OF EACH INDIVIDUAL ESTIMATE. Computer programs might automatically make these calculations from past jobs, but considering that typical wrench time for good maintenance forces without proper scheduling is only 35% instead of best practice 55%, we might ask whether all of these times are too high.

Instead, planners need simply make “ballpark” estimates for labor hours for maintenance job plans. They can quickly make these “guesses” from their own experience of how long they think a job should take (or from looking at some history or talking with some craftspersons) to make reasonable estimates.

The planner makes a simple, quick judgment of how long the job should take without unusual delays and with a craftsperson who is generally qualified for that work. Being quick is a critical part of the planning process. Trying to make “perfect” time estimates that consume too much planner time hinders running the Deming cycle. It is better that planners plan all the

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PLANNING CORNER

jobs than to become bogged down on a few jobs. In addition, these ballpark estimates are often very accurate in general; although individual estimates have a wide variation of accuracy, they

have a very normal distribution. That is, even though an individual time estimate might be off quite a bit, the average of all the estimates from their actuals is probably quite close.

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An example might be that a planner estimates a job taking 5 hours and the actual time is 2 hours; another job estimated at 3 hours takes 6 hours; and a job estimated at 2 hours takes only 1 hour. Two of the jobs are off by 100%!

Nevertheless, the average of all the work estimates at 10 hours compares very closely with the actual average of the actuals at 9 hours.

The lesson from this example is that although individual time estimates are not that accurate, they are very useful to help in generally assigning work and creating schedules. For a week, a 10-person crew receiving 400 hours of estimated work really does receive about 400 hours of work.

How planners should come up with time estimates and their accuracy is certainly a controversial area of planning. However, remember that the purpose of planning and scheduling is not necessarily to be creating perfect plans and perfect schedules. The purpose of planning and scheduling is to help us complete better work and more work.

Getting all of the work through the hands of a planner before execution helps us complete better work because we are running the Deming cycle to avoid past mistakes. It also supports scheduling that helps us complete more work.

Quickly estimating job labor hours supports running this improvement cycle and scheduling. Quick estimates based on planner expertise are often good enough to prevent planners from getting bogged down and not planning enough of the work.

Doc Palmer is the author of McGraw-Hill’s Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook and, as managing partner of Richard Palmer and Associates, helps companies worldwide with planning and scheduling success. Visit www.palmerplanning.com or email docpalmer@palmerplanning.com.

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AUTOMATION ZONE

WILL JACOBSEN, MRO ELECTRIC AND SUPPLY

CROSS-TRAIN FOR SUPPLY-CHAIN SUCCESS Close the knowledge gap between your engineers and your procurement professionals Industrial automation equipment is a staple for any

trained on how to work together when making procurement decisions on automation and other advanced equipment.

Some organizations may even consider embedding an experienced supply chain management professional in specific business or manufacturing units, or vice versa by adding a versatile engineer to a procurement team.

Creating an educated and coordinated environment where these two fields can align and work in sync to achieve

AUTOMATION PROCUREMENT

THE EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT AND SOURCING OF AUTOMATION EQUIPMENT REMAINS A CHALLENGE TODAY FOR MANY COMPANIES.

major factory or machine shop. However, consistently procuring these electronics strains many organizations. These strains can lead to higher costs, wasted man-hours, and worst of all, downtime. By training employees to forecast equipment requirements, work together, and source strategically, businesses can resolve the many issues that come with automation procurement.

The efficient management and sourcing of automation equipment remains a challenge for many companies. Procuring this complex equipment is not as simple as ordering cleaning supplies or replacement hand tools. Often, there’s a dramatic knowledge gap between the engineers who are in need of the equipment and the procurement professionals who actually make the purchase. In regard to industrial electronics, the details matter. One product can look precisely similar to the next but hold substantial differences in how it functions. It’s important that managers train their employees on the best practices to procure this type of intricate equipment.

Additionally, it can be difficult for executives to grasp the overall spend that automation can represent. However, when these costs are added together, they can represent thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the size of the organization. By implementing tactical procedures and training aimed at reducing equipment purchasing inefficiencies, tremendous savings can be realized.

COLLABORATION

In today’s world with a global supply chain fraught with long lead times, increased logistical costs, and unprecedented volatility, it is important now more than ever before that procurement workers and engineers collaborate to achieve the most efficient resolution to a part or system going down.

Many times, engineers are left to their own devices when ordering automation products. This can create logistical and financial hassles that trained procurement professionals could easily avoid. Similar results can occur when procurement managers are left to purchase a product on their own.

Oftentimes, the wrong part is requested from a supplier, or a part that was not even needed in the first place is ordered.

It is important that these two types of professionals are

their goals is crucial to successfully seeking and acquiring replacement automation components.

FORECASTING NEEDS

Managers should train procurement and engineering employees on how to predict future automation requirements.

Forecasting the needs of future automation replacements can be extremely difficult because of its low-volume, erratic nature. Decision makers should determine whether they want to pursue a predictive, preventative, or reactive strategy when ordering components. Based on this, the lifetime need for parts over a system’s life cycle can be calculated.

Additionally, supply chain managers and systems engineers can use this information to determine how many spare components a system should have on hand in order to avoid any downtime. Engineers and supply management teams working in sync to predict the requirements of future resources can prevent many crises.

Oftentimes large global companies use sophisticated software and systems to forecast demand. However for smaller manufacturers, simpler techniques can be used to forecast supply needs such as moving averages and exponential smoothing. These techniques can be used to account for the seasonality often accompanies automation procurement.

Organized storerooms can also be used with systems in place to alert managers when critical parts are running low on stock. Remember that forecasting is a continuous process that should always be measured and improved upon.

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AUTOMATION ZONE

STRATEGIC SOURCING

Managers should also ensure that their employees are properly educated on how to strategically source industrial electronic products. Reducing equipment costs and producing value starts with finding the right suppliers. An efficient supply chain management process requires suppliers that are reliable. Managers should train employees on how to find the right supplier to prevent unforeseen supply issues from occurring. This is especially important when dealing with automation equipment, which can break down suddenly as well as become obsolete.

Training employees to identify relationships with trusted vendors who can reliably manage needs can solve many of these externalities. For one, it allows for quick resolution of problems, and lessens the administrative hassles of managing payments and purchases to and from the supplier. Suppliers are more likely to give favorable payment terms to dedicated buyers, which can further improve a plant’s cash cycle. These strategic partnerships help drive cost reductions through volume.

Furthermore, procurement managers who forecast their needs should consider using their model when negotiating

volume discounts. Relationship-building also allows for the development of goals that both suppliers and buyers can work towards to bring value to the other. Innovative suppliers can often help identify areas of improvement in the manufacturer’s own equipment requirements and processes. When educating employees on sourcing complex products, relationship development and strategic partnerships are necessary elements.

Overall, it is vital that employees, especially engineers and procurement managers, are cross-trained and given standard operating procedures on how to work together when advanced electronic automation equipment is needed. Strategically employing workplace education that keeps all stakeholders involved in automation procurement informed of these best practices is critical to safeguarding against system downtime and eliminating wasteful spending.

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YOUR SPACE

ERIC ESSON, RITE-HITE

ADDRESS ROBOTICS SAFETY HAZARDS Be aware of current OSHA regulatory gaps when developing your plant safety plans Major technological changes have taken place in

manufacturing plants during the past decade, and safety regulations have evolved in tandem. The rise of automated robotic processes throughout distribution centers and manufacturing facilities has increased productivity but has subsequently created a new slate of safety concerns and hazardous situations.

Written to be compliant with international standards

RIA 15.06 WAS MODELED AFTER EUROPEAN STANDARDS, AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF CODES AND REGULATIONS IS A FACT OF LIFE. already in place in Europe, the updated RIA 15.06 regulation is a good starting point for addressing some of these industrial robotic safety hazards. Part of this modernized standard requires better hazard identification, accounting for not only robot motion, but also the task being performed. And although OSHA will often reference RIA 15.06 and other ANSI specifications as best practices, the governing body still lacks specific regulations in its books for various automated operations.

For example, take a look at a seemingly harmless operation that’s become nearly ubiquitous at every loading dock or at the end of every assembly line in America – automated stretch-wrap machines. As with most other industrial processes, what began as a manual operation is now commonly automated. Workers who previously had the arduous task of bending, pulling, and moving stretch wrap around a pallet now just press a button once a load is placed on a pallet.

Workers who no longer have to stoop and circle a pallet of product aren’t likely to complain about potential safety hazards. However, this particular aspect of plant operation has long been overlooked as a hazard. With suppliers adding more automated functions to their floors (including intelligent conveyors, AGVs and AS/RS systems), it’s critical for safety methodology to be similar to that of other automated or robotic processes and compliant with current standards.

Currently, these machines should default to the general requirements for all machines per OSHA 29 CFR 1910.212 (a) (3) (ii), which states that the point of operation of ma26

JUNE 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

chines whose action exposes an employee to injury shall be guarded. The good news is that stretch-wrap machine operation can be isolated with proper guarding devices such as fixed fencing and automated barrier doors.

Although there isn’t a specific set of safety guidelines for automated stretch-wrap machines, every operation should at least uphold the OSHA General Requirements of All Machines and companies should ensure the safety of their employees. OSHA’s General Duties Clause stipulates that each employer and employee recognizing a hazard must comply with occupational safety and health standards contained within this act.

RIA 15.06 was modeled after European standards, and the globalization of codes and regulations is a fact of life. It’s only a matter of time before OSHA adopts a standard similar to the European standard BS EN 415-6, which specifically references automated stretch-wrap machines.

In the case of stretch-wrapping equipment, employers should consider ways to improve safety through guarding or containment per 29 CFR 1910.212(a)(3)(ii) General Requirements of All Machines.

These standards should be upheld at all times, but unfortunately, it’s common for safety breakdowns to occur in plants. Among the reasons for these are the following: • Machinery is not designed or tested with proper safety systems or interlocks in place • Safety features are removed by the end user, employee, or maintenance personnel because they are cumbersome or get lost during routine maintenance • Employees lack proper training on procedural use of process • Production takes precedent over safety • Employer does not proactively identify safety issues that might arise • A lack of regular safety assessments For complete safety in any automated workplace, the culture around safety must always be the primary focus.

In some ways, RIA guidelines are already compelling this safety culture by calling for organizations to conduct risk assessments.

To enhance safety, risk assessments must be performed whenever new equipment is implemented into a plant. It’s

also a good practice to conduct risk assessments periodically to make sure safety standards are upheld.

Understanding the hierarchy of safety also is essential in correcting potential safety hazards. Personal protective equipment (PPE) for employees is the most convenient option, but it is the least effective at protecting workers around automated equipment and machinery. Even after training, there’s no way to guarantee that workers will wear or use their PPE. The same concerns apply to administrative controls such as warning signs and yellow lines. Although these visual cues are useful communication tools, their warnings aren’t always followed. Upgrading safety to the use of engineering controls like light scanners or light curtains can isolate hazards and provide automatic shutdowns, but the inertia of many operations can still lead to unsafe situations, well after the machine is shut down.

There’s always the option to substitute the human element and completely automate the entire process or do it entirely differently. However, this is not always possible for various reasons, including prohibitive costs.

Eliminating the risk is the most difficult option, but it’s the most effective strategy in protecting workers. In the automated stretch-wrap example, one of the most successful ways to accomplish this is with an automated barrier door and surrounding fence. In this situation, the fence restricts workers from entering the cell, while the automated highspeed barrier door serves as an efficient way in and out of the cell when operation inside the cell has ceased.

Best practices contained within RIA 15.06 and other machine-specific ANSI standards are a good starting point to stay ahead of enforceable OSHA regulations. Although general safety guidelines outlined by OSHA should apply to automated stretch-wrap machines, it likely will be only a matter of time before specific standards catch up.

Investing in a safety plan today, whether it’s an automated barrier door or other safety initiative, can help protect machine operators, allow facilities to adhere to lean manufacturing principles and, ultimately, boost the bottom line.

Eric Esson is machine guarding global sales manager for Rite-Hite (www.ritehite.com).

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WHAT WORKS

BENZ’S BUILDING BLOCKS FOR BUY-IN How a Mercedes plant conquered cynicism to help a reliability overhaul succeed Ken Hayes, senior manager for

central engineering at the MercedesBenz (www.mbusa.com) SUV plant in Vance, AL, knew he had his work cut out for him trying to convince his coworkers of the value of a total overhaul of the plant’s maintenance strategy.

In 2016, Hayes and a team of maintenance managers began rolling out their carefully developed initiative to transform the plant’s reactive maintenance approach – an effort called the Maintenance Excellence and Reliability Program, or MERP. Technicians quickly offered their own definitions for the acronym: Make Everyone Regret Participating, the Maintenance and Engineering Reduction Program, and Hayes’ favorite, the Mercedes Executive Rewards Program.

“The first thing in trying to change the culture in an organization is denial that maybe there’s something better out there,” Hayes says.

He was ready for the pushback, having already overcome skepticism from the maintenance managers when he first pulled that group together two

28

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years earlier. Hayes has worked at the Vance plant for 23 years in various roles in maintenance, body planning, body production, and assembly production. After returning to the maintenance department five years ago, Hayes says, “I decided that we’re still doing maintenance the same way we did when we started up the plant.”

Determined to find a better way, he embarked on a mission to benchmark maintenance practices at other Daimler facilities in the United States and Europe. Hayes found similarly reactive maintenance elsewhere, and so in 2014 he teamed up with Justin McCarthy, the Vance plant’s maintenance strategy engineer, and assembled the plant’s maintenance managers to work on a new approach. The managers (who represented the plant’s body, paint, assembly, facilities, and central standards departments) agreed that the maintenance status quo wasn’t great. But when the group began discussing the things that weren’t working and what it might take to fix them, inevitably someone would protest that proposed changes

weren’t feasible or wouldn’t stick.

Initially, there was a lot of “But that’s the way it’s always been...” at the team’s weekly two-hour meetings, Hayes says.

His response to the team: “There’s a lot of power in this room.” If the maintenance managers could come to agreement on goals and present a unified front to their respective teams and to upper management, he noted, a major maintenance overhaul stood a much greater chance of succeeding.

As a team, “(we would) try to frame up exactly what maintenance utopia would look like, our dream, our vision, if we could change anything with no restrictions,” Hayes says. “It was a lot of painstaking arguing inside that room for two hours every Thursday debating where we should go next.”

After six months of debate, the team finalized a vision statement: “Become the benchmark maintenance program by adopting a proactive mindset through evolution, not revolution.”

The long-haul approach was necessary, Hayes, McCarthy, and the managers recognized, to ensure that the push to take a more proactive maintenance approach didn’t fizzle out as a “flavor of the month” initiative.

Maintenance managers received basic reliability training developed with the support of training and education firm Eruditio (www.eruditiollc.com).

Technicians and engineers (as well as colleagues from other departments) attended three-day reliability “boot camps.” To improve use of the plant’s SAP CMMS system, a CMMS specialist who had a reliability background was hired. That move resulted in better, easier data and work-order management, which was vital for tracking

not just work itself but also the progress of reliability efforts.

In addition, a kitting system was successfully piloted, and vibration sensors were installed on critical assets to promote real-time condition monitoring and predictive maintenance.

By late 2015, “MERP” hadn’t even made its formal debut yet, but the plant was already recording early wins in the form of an avoided major breakdown and other avoided expenses. These wins helped win further backing from upper management; additional support for the team’s efforts came when a report from a third-party assessor noted that the plant’s maintenance personnel had quick response times to problems but that the organization still could realize substantial cost savings and efficiency gains by continuing the transition to more-proactive maintenance.

It was a finding echoed in one of the banners that hung in the maintenance management team’s “war room,” as Hayes calls it: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get the same result.”

Early in 2016, MERP had its official name and was ready for prime time. But although 170 people at the plant by that point had undergone reliability training, many technicians greeted the program’s kickoff with snickering and cynicism. Getting people trained in developing a reliability mindset and reliability strategies was one thing; willingly putting it all to work was another.

Hayes recognized the need to get technicians further involved in defining new maintenance practices. To that end, his maintenance management team pulled together three cross-functional groups of employees from different roles and responsibility levels – maintenance technicians, engineers, team leaders, and managers – to focus on three key priorities: asset criticality, problem-solving, and planned maintenance execution.

Previously, Hayes says, “We’d touch 100% of the problems but we got maybe 10% resolution on them.” Further, even for problems considered fixed, “we really didn’t go back and look (to ask) what were all of the potential causes of that problem and put it into a fault-tree diagram .... to get us down to understanding what is it going to take so that problem never comes back,” says Hayes.

To help maintenance prioritize its work and tackle problems more effectively, the cross-functional groups developed criticality matrices to quantify asset criticality, a root-cause analysis scorecard to rank problems based on criticality, and a failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) template that assigns a risk weighting for all potential failure modes on critical assets, and an equipment maintenance planning tool and PM optimization dashboard.

All of these new tools were developed with input from the technicians and other plant-floor employees who would be

using them. And the cross-functional groups didn’t work in a vacuum, either – Hayes instituted a monthly newsletter focused specifically on providing MERP updates. Hayes himself made sure to be visible, attending all monthly maintenance meetings and training sessions to answer employees’ questions.

Seeing support for their efforts, the cross-functional groups took ownership of their work, and as the tools they developed have been rolled out in the past six months, Hayes has seen that initial pushback from technicians decline. “We don’t hear (those comments) so much anymore,” he says. “After they got some experience and some exposure to what we’re doing, they’re saying, we should have done this 20 years ago.”

Now, he says, “With our root-cause analysis based on criticality, we’ve cut down to where we’re looking at the top hitters and deep-diving using good problem-solving tools to make sure we’ve got effective countermeasures put in place.

That’s been something that the maintenance guys have seen has helped tremendously.”

So far this year, equipment efficiency and asset availability are up. New cross-functional groups are tackling additional priorities, including training, predictive technologies, and life-cycle management. The plant’s painstakingly detailed approach to its maintenance transformation, designed to build buy-in at all levels by making changes incrementally and delivering quantified results, is paying off, Hayes indicates. It’s not an easy or quick process, but he thinks it’s one worthy of replication: “I would like to see us as the benchmark maintenance system in the world,” he says.

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 29

SAFETY / ROBOTICS

by Christine LaFave Grace, managing editor

The rise of collaborative robots demands new considerations to keep workers safe.

Do you trust your co-workers with your life? Do you trust them to follow the safety rules they’ve been given, to stay out of your way to avoid collisions, and to stop what they’re doing on a dime if they see you’re in harm’s way?

Would you trust a robot to do the same?

As industrial robots have become increasingly sophisticated, with machine-learning capabilities and more-sensitive sensors to detect nearby hazards, the literal and figurative distance between robots and their human counterparts is diminishing. That shrinking gap brings with it a raft of new safety considerations. And if human-robot coexistence in factories is to be defined less by separation than by collaboration, then it’s critical that plants evaluate not just the technologies but also the strategies they employ to keep workers safe.

A CHANGING SAFETY LANDSCAPE

Beyond the safety features that controllers provide, robotics safety to this point has been defined in large part by “hard guards” – cages and other physical barriers separating robots from humans – and such virtual fences as are provided by radio frequency (RF) guarding and industrial light curtains. Safety systems in the latter category depend on installation of devices (an antenna for RF guards, LED lightbeam transmitters and receivers for light curtains) around the machine to trigger a machine stop when a nearby human or object crosses a virtual barrier. (See “Machine-Guarding Basics” from our April 2017 issue; http://plnt.sv/1704-AZ.) 30

JUNE 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

“When you look at even five years ago, (robots) have a lot of hard guarding, fencing around them, kind of put in the corner if you will,” says Michael Lindley, VP of business development and marketing for system integrator Concept Systems (www.conceptsystemsinc.com).

But new, collaborative robots are designed to work with human operators, not strictly independent of them, and so new approaches to safety are needed. “The robot can now exist in the middle of the manufacturing floor, can have workers around it and in proximity working at full speed, so then companies can look at their manufacturing flow and put the robot in there,” Lindley says.

Case in point: The robots in FANUC’s (www.robot. fanucamerica.com) CR series of collaborative robots are designed for such applications as heavy lift ing and tote and carton handling – physically demanding tasks that are ergonomically challenging for humans. Because the nature of the work that these and other vendors’ “cobots” perform places them in close proximity to humans, traditional fencing systems are impractical if not impossible.

So what ensures workers’ safety? Sensor-centric systems on the robot itself. FANUC’s CR series ’bots – which are green, rather than the company’s signature bright yellow – have what FANUC describes as “highly sensitive contact sensing technology” as well as a soft exterior skin to cushion any incidental contact. They’re the company’s first force-limited robots, and as designed, if a human comes into contact

Source: ABB

ABB’s YuMi dual-arm robot at work

with one of the CR robots, the robot will stop; operation can resume with the push of a button.

The concept of power and force limiting is central to the safety architecture of many cobots. For some small collaborative robots, such as ABB’s (www.abb.com) dual-arm YuMi, incidental contact with humans isn’t necessarily something that must be avoided or that must prompt a hard stop of the machine. The imperative, then, is to limit the power and force with which the robot comes into contact with a human or other outside object and to control the nature of that contact.

Jeff Fryman, owner of JDF Consulting Enterprises and former director of standards development at the Robotic Industries Association (RIA, www.robotics.org), notes that there are two types of pressure considered with respect to human-robot contact. “One we call quasi-static, which you could consider to be pinching or trapping, where the body part is restrained while pressure is being applied to it,” he says. “Then there’s transient contact, where the robot strikes you but you’re out in the open and the body can reflexively move (away from it).”

Parameters for contact that doesn’t result in an automatic stop of the machine need to take into account both where on the body contact may occur and the user’s physical characteristics. Under most circumstances, noted current RIA standards development director Carole Franklin at the A3 Automate trade show in Chicago in April, humans experience pain before an actual injury occurs, so “if we can

prevent the person even from experiencing pain, (it’s more likely) that we’ll also prevent them from being injured.”

Stipulating these parameters is a complicated task for system integrators, who play a major role in helping lay the foundation for safe use of robotics systems in a plant. “Trying to determine where the human is going to be relative to where the robot is moving is going to be a challenge that the integrators have to look at,” Fryman says.

The good news both for integrators and the plant managers looking to install these systems: There are standards to follow. ANSI/RIA 15.06-2012, the American National Standard for Industrial Robots and Robot Systems, provides guidelines for robot system installation and methods of safeguarding workers. These specifications were harmonized into the international ISO/TS 15066, released in February 2016, which focuses specifically on collaborative industrial robot systems.

The standards’ technical specifications for safe application of collaborative robot systems are based in part on data from a study on pain thresholds for different parts of the body. The standards also provide guidance on four types of collaborative robot operations and the safety measures that define them: 1. Safety-rated monitored stop, an application wherein the cobot stops operation when a human enters a defined workspace and remains stopped while he/she is there (as is possible with virtual fencing for traditional robots) WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 31

SAFETY / ROBOTICS

2. Hand guiding, in which the robot moves only when it is under direct control of a human (this doesn’t refer to “teaching” a robot to perform certain motions) 3. Speed and separation monitoring, wherein a human and robot are allowed to operate in the same workspace but the robot will stop if a human gets too close, and 4. Power and force limiting, where the robot’s speed, torque, and motion are controlled so incidental contact between the robot and the operator doesn’t cause harm.

“It’s really important to be aware that safety is freedom from injury,” Franklin said at the Automate show. “It’s not appropriate to allow (workers) to receive a bruise per day. That is an injury – a mild injury, but freedom from injury is our goal.

Whatever type of robotic system is implemented, whether a robot is collaborative and “fenceless” or separated out by a traditional cage, keeping workers safe starts with conducting a comprehensive risk assessment, experts say.

“A risk assessment will tell you what safeguards you need and where” based on the technologies you plan to use and the applications you intend to employ, Franklin says. Further, a proper risk assessment, says Henrik Jerregard, global product manager of robot controllers for ABB, will “look at the system as a whole and not only consider the different parts.”

For the assessment to be most effective, it should be conducted as early as possible in the planning process for adding new automated elements, say Concept Systems’ Lindley and Miles Purvis, CEO and owner of safety review company ProSafe (www.prosafeinc.ca). “If you take the approach of, ‘Let’s put together a work flow and then we’ll do an assessment,’ it’s like an afterthought,” Lindley says.

Instead, urges Purvis, a risk assessment should be conducted before design work is completed. “A lot of times the risk assessment will determine what the safety expectation is so that the designers can go away with that and build toward the expectation,” he says. “What really establishes the design concept ahead of time is doing an assessment.” And whether designing a traditional or a collaborative robot workspace, the design has to be “not just what (you) thought was a good idea, it has to be what the standard actually asks for.”

This kind of up-front, in-depth analysis is a lot more efficient than the alternative, which is going through a hazard assessment after an injury or a near-miss. For some clients ProSafe has worked with after an incident, “They’re surprised that we have to tell them to change something,” Purvis says.

“They’ve been doing this for years and they don’t actually realize why they’ve been doing something a certain way.”

It’s not uncommon to encounter companies that have skipped doing the calculations to determine exactly where their light curtains, scanners, or safety mats should be, Purvis adds. And when a company fails to determine robotic safety hazards depending on where in a given space 32

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Source: Stäubli

ASSESS AND ADDRESS

A Stäubli robot featuring the TX2 Touch soft sensing exoskin

the robot is operating and a human’s position relative to it, workers can be put at risk unnecessarily.

When things go wrong, regardless of the operator’s skill, the robot’s safety features, and the design and setup of the robotic workspace, the consequences can be tragic. In July 2015, a 57-year-old Michigan woman who specialized in fixing robots was killed when a robot arm swung into the area she was working in at a Ventra Ionia plant and crushed her head between a hitch assembly and a fixture, according to a March 14 story in the Detroit Free Press. A lawsuit that Wanda Holbrook’s family filed in March against five robotics and automation companies (the plant is not named) states that the robot arm that killed her should not have been able to enter the section she was working in at the time.

For help in conducting a robotics safety risk assessment, Franklin recommends seeking assistance from a certified robot integrator. In an interview at the Automate show, Franklin noted that individuals certified through RIA’s certified robot integrator program “are folks who have demonstrated by test and audit that they have a solid understanding of the safety standard and what it requires.”

Regardless of who conducts the assessment, “you need to start with, ‘How is the worker going to engage with this piece of machinery?’ ” Lindley says. “Loaded, unloaded,

whatever they’re doing, if you start with that worker interface, then you would also immediately have to start with safety. I think that puts those two on a parallel path and gets safety to the forefront of things.”

One common misconception, according to Franklin, is that because safety technologies such as sensors and vision systems are built into cobots, there’s less of a need to consider other safety measures or be vigilant about safe-operation standards. “A lot of people seem to have this idea that if you have a quote-unquote collaborative robot, then you are inherently safe; you don’t need fences or other safeguards,” she says. “The robot itself doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It may be the case that it’s necessary to continue to have fencing around some of that robot, (and) leave a hole where the actual collaboration happens.”

Fryman echoes Franklin’s cautions, commenting that the arrival of new technologies on the plant floor doesn’t mean that traditional worker safeguards no longer have a place.

“We have a knowledge base of what’s safe and how to protect,” he says. “I simply don’t understand the rush to get rid of fences in your robot system, because that’s the leastexpensive part of a system.” He continues: “The problem people today have is the standard says you can do certain things; it doesn’t say you can do them without guards.”

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

The first of the Three Laws of Robotics conceived by science fiction writer (and “I, Robot” author) Isaac Asimov states that a robot must not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human to be harmed. Robots’ baked-in safety technologies mitigate injury risk only to a point. More important, Franklin, Fryman, and Lindley emphasize, is this essential principle of robotics safety: It’s the application, stupid.

“The application is the key part,” Franklin says. A robot will do what it is programmed to do – and that should be what it was designed to do, in the way it was designed to operate. “Even if you have a soft-edge collaborative robot arm, it’s about the application,” says Franklin. “If there’s a way for a human to experience discomfort or pain or be injured, that’s not an appropriate application.”

Some 15 years ago, when RIA coined the term “collaborative robot,” says Fryman, “Our original intention was to give some parameters to the manufacturers to take the big, bad articulated robots and turn them into wimps that couldn’t ONLY AT PLANTSERVICES.COM More from Automate 2017: Stäubli’s vision of the collaborative future http://plnt.sv/1706-CV1 Lowe’s is testing a robotic exosuit for its retail employees http://plnt.sv/1706-CV2

“ WE HAVE A KNOWLEDGE BASE OF WHAT’S SAFE AND HOW TO PROTECT.” – Jeff Fryman, JDF Consulting Enterprises

hurt anybody.” That idea proved misguided. “A wimpy robot can do no work,” he says. “What we discovered was that it’s not a collaborative robot so much as it’s a collaborative robot application. That’s a super-important distinction.”

Even when a robotics system is designed, built, and integrated according to applicable safety standards, trouble arises when individuals try to tweak an application and stretch the limits of safe operation in an attempt to do something faster or skip part of a standard operating process. “They’re trying to do something the machine wasn’t designed to do,” says ProSafe’s Purvis.

“Let’s say they want to change to the next cycle for the machine but the machine needs to go through this whole process and it’s going to take too long, so then they try and fake out the robot by making it pick up a different end effector, and the only way they can do that is if they get around the safety (mechanisms).”

Both a craving for speed and a desire to minimize costs can drive operators, supervisors, and higher-level decisionmakers to seek risky shortcuts when it comes to robotics operation, Purvis says. “We get talked to by operators, maintenance, engineering, production, and all of them look for ways to do it faster,” he says. After all, speed is a big part of the impetus for implementing robots and other automation technologies in the first place.

But according to Thomas Knauer, VP of marketing at machine guarding tools vendor Omron STI (www.sti.com), it’s a mistake to think that safety and productivity are diametrically opposed, especially as robotic safety technologies such as vision systems and sensors become more advanced, robots themselves become more nimble, and safety standards continue to evolve to take into account these new capabilities. Speaking at the Automate show, Knauer noted that easier setup and programming/reprogramming of robotic work cells is allowing for higher productivity with high safety and the flexibility manufacturers increasingly seek as they move from high-volume, low-mix to low-volume, high-mix production.

As Lindley puts it, “The more robust that safety system is, and perhaps more flexible, more dynamic, the more collaboration a worker can have with that machinery and that could create the most efficient work environment.”

As for those who would protest costs associated with ensuring compliance to safety standards – to those who say safety is expensive? “They have a point, but I would say lack of safety is more expensive in the long run,” Franklin says. “It’s your responsibility to send people home at the end of the day in the same condition as they were when they arrived.”

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PLANT SERVICES / BLOGS

Three of our fab online writers passed the audition and have come together this issue for some paperback writing

SUPPLY CHAIN JOE From DC to the blogosphere, industry veteran Joe Limbaugh shares his unique insights and observations of the distribution world, often with a touch of humor. Joe has been with industrial distributor Motion Industries (www.motionindustries.com) since 1983 and is currently VP of operations. Follow Supply Chain Joe at http://plnt.sv/BLOGJOE.

“Take Time to Smell the V-Belts” Perhaps the best part of the supply-chain world is the variety of projects that at times don’t seem to connect but in the end rely upon one another to achieve maximum overall value.

Not unlike a jigsaw puzzle, the supply chain demands that you have all of the pieces to be able to see the total picture. It is exciting to watch our supply-chain team leaders prioritize projects, sort through data, study analytics, and tally their “wins.” Their enthusiasm for what they do is contagious, and I find myself moving quickly from one topic to the next, going from, “Look at how many garbage trucks our sustainability program prevented from going to the landfill” to “I am working on a new KPI chart and would like your input.”

For me, the challenges become finding a balance between the theoretical and the practical, recommending the right investments, keeping motivation at the optimum level, and finding time to think and reflect.

Having spent 30 or so years holding various field positions, I have a deep appreciation (and respect) for our associates who actually touch our product. True, there is a lot of important work that happens in our offices…we cannot be successful without it. But the right balance, in my view, occurs when you combine both elements – those that touch the product and those that don’t. I have learned that the best way to stay connected is to take time to smell the v-belts.

I’m fortunate that here in Birmingham, the Southeast distribution center is on our corporate campus. Three flights of stairs and two building additions away sits 128,000 square feet of warehouse, containing a wide array of power transmission products. There are 4,600 feet of conveyors and 94 associates who “make it happen” each and every day.

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Shortly after relocating to Birmingham, I discovered a hallway that connects the warehouse and the main building. A doorway opens onto the second floor where the belts are stocked.

Initially, my walks through the Birmingham warehouse were meant as a way for me to get some exercise in the afternoon and arrange my thoughts. Plus, there is something about the smell of the v-belts that I find comforting. I am sure that it goes back to the late 1980s, when I transferred to East Peoria, IL. The assignment was to last three, maybe four years. But 13 years and three promotions later, my family and I were still there. As can happen when you avail yourself to change, everything that at first seemed so foreign became the new normal. The building in Peoria was about 8,500 square feet, and during the hot and still Midwestern summer months, the metal building would warm and the smell of the v-belts would permeate the offices. Like an industrial scented candle, you could almost mark the months by the smell of the rubber. Those were great years for me. I learned a lot about our industry, our market, the management process, and myself.

As my walks through the Birmingham DC became more routine, our associates got used to seeing me, and something wonderful began to happen. At first, my greetings were met with kind and polite responses and I would keep walking. Those responses changed into small discussions, and then these stretched into conversations. Not only did I get to know our associates, but also I began to learn a lot about what we do well in our distribution centers and what we could improve upon. As varied as supply chain itself, the topics ranged from workstations, tote return conveyors, and janitorial issues to microwave ovens in the break room and so much more.

These exchanges caused me to remember how critical input from everyone – especially those who are actually doing the work – really is. The challenge for me became navigating these waters by involving the right level of supervision, because there could be multiple levels of supervision between me and the associate to whom I was speaking. We have a great management structure in place, so I needed to

be sure to lead by example and encourage the right chain of command. (Admittedly, I am not always good at this, but I am trying to get better.)

Three years after relocating, I still take time to smell the v-belts. However, what was at first intended to be a way to take a breather has become a highly important and visible communication mechanism. I actually look forward to seeing the familiar faces and miss them when I don’t.

Finding time as a supply-chain leader to pause and reflect is as challenging as driving out cost. But I encourage you to develop a way to routinely do so. It will be good for you personally and professionally, and you might discover some hidden gems along the way.

“SUPER-SKILL ME: THE THRIVER’S GUIDE TO THE NEXT INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION” The “Super-Skill Me” blog is an ongoing interactive exchange between Tom Furnival, director of training services for Marshall Institute (www. marshallinstitute.com), and plant professionals like you. Topics focus on the skills and technologies necessary to succeed in the new world of smart manufacturing – a world that values adaptability and digital savvy more than ever before. Follow Super-Skill Me at http://plnt.sv/BLOGSUPER, and email Tom with your thoughts and questions at tfurnival@ marshallinstitute.com.

“Adapt-Your-Ability - Part I: The Adaptability Mindset” The legendary basketball player and coach John Wooden is credited with saying, “Adaptability is being able to adjust to any situation at any given time.” Piggy-backing on Wooden’s idea, I would like to introduce the term “adaptability mindset,” which I consider to be the willingness and readiness to adjust to any situation at any time. The adaptability mindset is a winning mindset, a thriver’s mindset.

Human adaptability is well-documented through the ages. We have adapted to live successfully in searing hot and brutally cold climates. We have learned how to domesticate animals for labor, protection, and companionship. We have become the masters of our environments with advances in agriculture, housing, and civil infrastructure. We have stabilized our societies through democracy and capitalism.

In response to external change, we adapted to survive, and in response to human-driven change, we have, I believe, unquestionably thrived. The result of human innovation and adaptation has been greater prosperity.

Industrial adaptability: lessons from history. The first Industrial Revolution (1760–1840) transformed England from a largely agricultural society into an industrial society.

The invention of machinery, steam power, and new production processes increased productivity far beyond what was achieved using manpower and hand tools. The textile, metallurgy, mining, agriculture, transportation, chemical,

and glass-making industries saw advances in technology that led to increased production output and improved quality. Although Industry 1.0 didn’t improve lives overnight, as the decades passed, arduous human labor decreased, wages grew, and living conditions improved.

During the revolution, skilled craftspeople such as weavers found their skills were being replaced by machine innovations, like the Spinning Jenny, which increased a worker’s productivity eight-fold and required far less technical skill to operate. With so many innovations, artists were slowly being replaced by operators. All of a sudden their long-cultivated skill was no longer valued and their competitive advantage was lost. On the flip side, these easy-to-operate innovations gave many unskilled workers an opportunity to work and add more value than before. And over time, machines and higher production volumes created new occupations as they introduced the need for maintenance, quality control, increased supervision, and leadership roles. These new roles required new skills.

Back to the future. Although today’s industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, is being fueled by different technology and digital advances, the outcomes on the workers and jobs will be similar to those experienced during Industry 1.0. Some jobs and skills will be diminished or replaced by technology, and new jobs with new skill sets will be created.

We will experience significant change.

Indeed, we are already experiencing change. In another post, I mentioned the Adidas Superfactory in Germany, where custom shoes are now mass-produced in a fully automated environment using the latest robotics technology. In Andrew Kinder’s article “IIoT in Manufacturing: Are We There Yet?” (http://plnt.sv/1706-TF1) he mentions that “Research conducted by IDC estimates that by 2020, 40% of all data will be machine-generated, with 20 to 50 billion devices fueling that growth. And a recent survey commissioned by Infor revealed that 52% of manufacturers globally see IIoT as a business priority, (with) one in 20 claiming it is the biggest priority.” We can already see the growing use of these technologies. I think it’s safe to predict that over time, more companies, where relevant, will become connected to the IIoT and will leverage Big Data and machine communication and learning, advanced robotics, 3D printing, etc. The benefits of increased productivity, reduced waste, improved quality, and new revenue sources will prove to be too compelling to not pursue.

The future of jobs. What is the potential impact on our current jobs? The World Economic Forum (WEF) paper “The Future of Jobs” (http://plnt.sv/1706-TF2) suggests there will be a net loss in manufacturing and production jobs from 2015 to 2020. On a positive note, the report suggests that industrial professionals may have more opportunities than those in other fields to reskill or up-skill and work with technology in new ways to be more productive.

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PLANT SERVICES / BLOGS

We may see reductions in operational positions as robotics increase process automation, but on the flip side, we may see an increase in maintenance and engineering roles to sustain robotic performance and reliability. Machine communication and learning may eliminate some decisionmaking tasks from current manufacturing roles and may eventually some replace some roles completely. However, with an ever-increasing volume of machine-generated data, we can confidently anticipate a growth in jobs related to data analysis and reporting.

The future of skills. The WEF suggests that by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets for most occupations will comprise skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today. That’s significant. If you’re not shocked yet, consider this WEF assertion: “By one popular estimate, 65% of children entering elementary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist.” If you’re still not shocked, then you are probably already preparing for this change, and if so, bravo.

The WEF is suggesting several changes (http://plnt.sv/1706-TF3) between now and 2020 to the 10 most important higher-level skills to prosper in Industry 4.0. These underlying skills, including critical thinking, creativity, and cognitive flexibility, will support workplace adaptability. Apply them in a focused way to your role and see what changes could result.

Time to act. One of the most important tasks that we can all do RIGHT NOW is to think hard about the implications of Industry 4.0 on our profession and our skill set. I urge you to ask yourself: • How might my current role change?

• W hat skills may I need to learn to thrive?

This action will put you ahead of the curve. Even if your own predictions aren’t 100% accurate, the process of thinking and acting by learning new skills will absolutely boost your 36

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resume and increase your job security, and you will be working to develop a habit of the adaptability mindset. I mean this as a hopeful message, not a doomsday one. Take action and take control of your professional future.

For those willing to share your findings, please share them online in this blog post’s comments section. Please also share your job title to help give context. Thank you in advance for taking this action and for sharing.

AIR IT OUT Chad Larrabee is director of services marketing in North America for the air business of Ingersoll Rand (www.ingersollrand. com). Chad currently serves as education committee chairman for the Compressed Air and Gas Institute (www.cagi.org). Follow Air It Out at http://plnt.sv/BLOGAIR.

“How Compressed Air Piping Can Pinch Your System Efficiency” For companies that need to add compressed air piping for an expansion or new production equipment, designing the piping structure is critical to overall system efficiency and reliability.

While most designers look at variablespeed drive (VSD) compressors or controls to enhance system efficiency, piping remains an important contributor to system optimization. Piping makeovers can contribute greatly to total system efficiency.

There are four things to consider in examining how piping affects system efficiency: • Pipe diameter – Pipes that are too small cause a high pressure drop. If systems lose pressure, businesses lose money because they need to produce more air to overcome the pressure differential.

• Lack of loop design in primary header – This causes overpressurization on the supply side to counteract pressure loss.

• Connections – Poor connections can cause leaks. If operations lose

air flow, they lose money. When air escapes the compressed air system, more air needs to be generated to compensate for the loss of power.

• Materials of construction – Some piping materials are more susceptible to corrosion and higher pressure loss.

1. Size matters. Piping systems tend to be designed for the anticipated flow at the time of original construction.

It could be that a system has grown without the header system growing with it, or operations may have a problem with pipe size or fittings in the compressor room. Piping also often is sized for the connection size of the component, such as the filter inlet and outlet size, or the compressor discharge size. This strategy does not take into account the important criteria of flow, pressure, or distance required for the transmission. For example, consider a 2-inch-diameter pipe connected to the outlet of a 2-inch threaded connection filter sized for 1,000 cubic feet per minute (cfm). If this filter cleans 1,000 cfm of air at 100 pounds per square inch (psig), the undersized piping would lose more than 5 psi over just 100 feet of pipe, which can cost roughly $3,000 per year in power to overcome the pressure differential. Increasing pipe size helps reduce pressure drop and also adds to the system’s capacitance. Although increased capacitance helps with system efficiency, there is a commercial consideration to take into account, too. If businesses are designing piping for flow rates of 1 psig or less per 100 feet of pipe, that is a commercially viable piping size, but other factors may go into the diameter selection decisionmaking.

2. Loop de loop. If a compressed-air distribution design is a single trunk with branches versus a distribution ring with branches, plants may want to think about how to run a parallel pipe from the end of the trunk back

PIPING MATERIAL OPTIONS Material

Cost

Corrosion

Availability

Ease of Installation

Safety

Black Iron Copper PVC or Plastic

Maximize Uptime and Enhance Plant Safety



Aluminum Stainless Steel best /

average /

worst

to the point of generation and then connect them on each end, creating a loop design in the header. This design ensures the same pressure at any point in the loop. A straightrun trunk design with branches can rob the last user of air and create a situation in which the entire system pressure is inefficiently elevated to overcome the pressure loss at the end of the line. This is a fundamental detail but is often overlooked. Other issues, too, may cause the last user lack of air: Consider a large air event occurring in the system. It’s a good idea to measure first to determine whether the user will receive the pressure needed for the application.

3. Conjunction junction. Another weak link in a compressed air design can be the where pipes come together. Whether a joint, a fi lter, a regulator or a valve, a compressed air connection is a possible leak source. Using the appropriate seal and quality components will minimize the likelihood of losses resulting from leaks. Regular leak studies are a best practice and help form a good maintenance and system efficiency strategy.

4. Pipe type hype. Multiple options exist for pipe material: black iron, copper, PVC or plastic, aluminum, and stainless steel (see table). While there is nothing exciting about black iron pipe, it is commonly used for compressed air despite availability of better alternatives. Black iron

DamageD Bellows or way Covers? hosts the compressed air in a moisture- and oxygen-rich environment, accelerating corrosion and ultimately creating a nasty combination of scale and/or sludge moving through the piping system – this is harmful to valuable and sensitive production equipment. Laminar flow is interrupted and pressure drop is created with the turbulence. Some operations go with copper or even a composite such as PVC as an alternative. There are inherent safety risks associated with PVC when applying it to compressed air; the piping can become brittle and shatter.

Aluminum is noncorrosive and has reasonable acquisition costs. Many suppliers sell aluminum pipe that is designed specifically for compressed air applications. Diameters up to 10 inches are available. Aluminum pipe has smooth bore for low resistance and low pressure drop and is corrosion-resistant. It also is light and easy to work with and has simple connections for faster installation. Often, aluminum has a higher initial investment but lower installation costs as compared with other materials.

Finally, the solution with the best qualities for efficiency and corrosion resistance is stainless steel, but it is often cost-prohibitive both in material cost and in the cost of installation.

Consult your compressed air system professional for more information on how you can help ensure that your piping design optimizes your air system instead of squeezing your profits.

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CULTURE / RELIABILITY

by Jeff Shiver, CMRP, CPMM, CRL – Certified RCM2 and RCM3 Practitioner

Establish a solid foundation for reliability by first focusing on the basics

Many organizations struggle with a high level of un-

certainty when it comes to asset reliability. Whether equipment will be available when it’s needed to meet customer demands may be anyone’s guess. Loss of availability results in increased human and monetary costs and often can jeopardize safety or environmental regulations compliance.

When digging deeper to determine the root causes of unreliability, you’ll often find the MRO storeroom not functioning well, the PM program poorly designed (at best) and without use of effective condition-based approaches, a lack of maintenance planning, and a minimal weekly maintenance schedule. Add to that limited partnerships with other stakeholders, such as production teams, which often don’t make the equipment available for maintenance. Production personnel often lack standardized work practices themselves and induce failures while operating the equipment.

To establish a solid foundation for reliability, the organization must first address the basics. There are eight steps to accomplish this, presented here in no particular order.

1.

ALIGN THE ORGANIZATION FOR RELIABILITY

In conducting this alignment, there are three questions to address: • Which job positions are affected?

• What are the role expectations?

• How is position performance measured?

I once taught a maintenance planner-scheduler course for a large facility. During my time there, I spent a few hours each day outside of class on a smaller-scale effort to educate the production supervisors. I asked a group of 10 production supervisors, each of whom had responsibility for separate lines of production equipment, “When downtime strikes, whose line is most important?” They all raised their hand in the air.

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Role

Span of control

Maintenance manager

Varies by organization

Maintenance supervisor, lead, or foreman

8-15 direct reports

Maintenance planner scheduler

20-30 technicians

Maintenance or reliability engineer

40-70 technicians

Maintenance storeroom coordinator or lead

Varies by organization

Production gatekeeper

Not applicable

Table 1. Maintenance roles and optimal spans of control to support plantwide reliability.

Most organizations lack formal work processes that come in the form of graphical process workflows, RACI or RASI charts, and definitions documents. While these may seem trivial to many and extra work with little return, the reality is that many organizations don’t have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. They may have job descriptions when hiring, but the activities are often different when in the field. Efforts overlap and are often duplicated in the name of getting the job done. The onboarding process for new team members takes longer than necessary. These work processes define the roles required as well as their responsibilities.

In most organizations, I look for the positions identified in Table 1, along with the spans of control where applicable.

When looking at the spans of control, consider them with respect to organizational size and process maturity. The spans of control are guidelines, and the numbers are intended for multiples of a position, meaning that if 55 technicians exist, then two to three planner-schedulers are required.

On process maturity, if the organization is new to or not robust in its maintenance planning and scheduling activities, it’s better to err toward the lower number until the processes are established. For example, with a maintenance planner-scheduler, use multiples of 20 technicians. In smaller organizations, don’t assume that you don’t need a role because the number of technicians falls below the lower number on the span of control. You can easily justify a fulltime planner-scheduler for 8–10 technicians.

The position of maintenance or reliability engineer often is overlooked in smaller organizations. This position is all about continuous improvement. I encourage organizations to dedicate some level of resourcing to the function, even if it is a technician devoting four hours per week to looking at problems and equipment history in an effort to improve.

2.

DETERMINE YOUR MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES

I have found on site visit after site visit that organizations are doing too much time-based preventive maintenance. In many cases, those same organizations are issuing multiple PMs for a given period on the same asset (i.e. weekly or monthly basis). Many of these PMs are the result of knee-jerk reactions to past failures and are not generated from a root-cause perspective. I have seen as many as 10 separate PMs with the same weekly PM frequency on the same machine.

Sadly, most of these PM tasks (40%–60% from RCM2 studies) fail to address any likely failure modes. Most organizations in the top percentile of performance do only about 20% of their physical maintenance based on time. Moreover, intrusive maintenance introduces failure to an otherwise stable system at the rate of 70% or more. Winston Ledet, in his book “Don’t Just Fix It, Improve It,” says that 84% of failures are due to poor work behaviors.

The essential point is that to be effective, there must be a basis such as reliability centered maintenance (RCM2, RCM3, or FMEA) that couples proven methods and your equipment experience to define a maintenance strategy.

These strategies will be a combination of condition-based, time-based, and predictive technologies. As part of the analyses, you will also determine failure modes that must be addressed from the perspective of training, standardized procedures, or re-engineering. Once these strategies are defined, they are implemented in the CMMS and triggered for execution.

When failures occur, a root-cause process (RCA or RCFA) should attempt to identify the root causes. The maintenance tasks and strategies should be reviewed to ensure the likelihood of preventing or mitigating the consequences of failure. If changes are required, follow through must occur to ensure implementation.

3.

THE MRO STOREROOM

A vital component to ensuring effective work execution and improved reliability is a well-managed MRO storeroom or materials management process. The reality is that most storerooms are either models of excellence or very poorly executed. There does not seem to be much middle ground when it comes to an organization’s storeroom practices.

When poorly managed, it is common to find storerooms with more than 50% of the materials being obsolete. Old removed (i.e., worn-out) parts litter the storeroom shelves, waiting for reuse, only to fail quickly when they’re installed.

Drive belts hanging from pegs on the wall are cracked and dry-rotted. Conditions like these are counterproductive to ensuring asset reliability. The storeroom is or becomes a cost burden instead of a profit center when poor practices exist.

Materials should be identified and acquired in advance for planned work. These materials should be should be assembled in kits and staged in secure areas for the forthcoming work. The storeroom should have a PM program for spare rotating equipment, and the following practices and processes should be implemented: • First in, first out (FIFO) by using date stamping practices to address shelf life • Obsolescence management with “where used” for all stored items • Bills of materials maintained in the CMMS • Accurate nameplate data and item masters for both stock and nonstock items • An effective storeroom layout based on ABC principles • Adequate security and item transaction processes • Minimum/maximum and safety stocking levels.

4.

IDENTIFYING AND PRIORITIZING THE WORK

From a best-practices perspective, 90% of all work should be planned and scheduled. However, many reactive organizations engage in 60%–90% unplanned work.

Every hour spent planning the work saves three to five hours in execution. But to plan it, it needs to be identified in the CMMS. By identifying the work, regardless of whether it’s corrective, emergency or urgent, helps provide an equipment history. We understand how long an asset is down, the reliability of the asset, and where we are spending our maintenance dollars. The maintenance or reliability engineer then can utilize this equipment history to improve asset reliability and reduce overall costs.

However, for several reasons in the reactive organization, it is common to find that work, especially emergency or urgent work, is undocumented in the CMMS. Some sites do a little better with requiring technicians to complete a work order to charge storeroom parts. Maintenance WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 39

CULTURE / RELIABILITY

Priority

Label

Description

1

Emergency

Unplanned: Drop everything – pay overtime – current week focus

2

Urgent

Unplanned: Cannot wait for formal planning – no overtime – current week focus

3

PMs

Planned: Condition-based and time-based preventive maintenance – should be <20-30% of planned work

4

Essential Planned

Planned: Highest-planned-priority behind PM work – 60% of remaining planned hours

5

Desirable Planned

Planned: Medium-planned-priority work – 25% of planned hours

6

Least Consequence Planned

Planned: Lowest-planned-priority work – 15% of planned hours – ideal for reactive troubleshooters who can break away from to handle emergencies and return to work a job.

Table 2. Example of a priority matrix, which helps manage finite maintenance resources.

resources are finite on a given shift as a rule, so you need to deploy them based on asset criticality (risk) and priority.

To reach the 90% planned levels, you can’t do everything as emergency or urgent work – you only have so many resources in each time frame or shift.

One way to do this is to establish a priority matrix for execution (see Table 2). Notice that there are three planned work priorities beyond PMs. This approach allows us to segment our planned work. It also ensures that we work on all priorities rather than just a single routine work class or priority code, so that less-critical work doesn’t fall off the radar screen, frustrating those who requested it. When this happens, the response often is to re-enter the work request as “safety” in the hope that the work will get completed.

5.

PLANNING TO ENSURE RELIABILITY IN ALL YOUR ASSETS

Enforce the use of standardized work procedures.

The intent is to eliminate poor work behaviors as well as human error. Variability creates uncertainty. If everyone performs a task their own way, who’s to say which way is the right way? When you have failures, how can you determine what specifically caused the failure?

Planned work avoids delays, ensures materials availability, and drives craftsperson efficiency. When I talk about craft efficiencies, I’m not asking people to work harder. I am simply trying to give them the tools, materials, and equipment access they need to do their job better. From a reliability perspective, job plans developed by the planner are written to a specification (i.e., torque values, gaps, fits, clearances, belt tension settings, alignment tolerances).

Unfortunately, even if organizations have a dedicated maintenance planner-scheduler, it’s unlikely that the person in that role is used correctly per organizational best practices. Often, planner-schedulers have received no formal planning and scheduling training or coaching in the position. I go to sites to find sometimes 10-12 planner-schedulers. These individu40

JUNE 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

als have been in the role for years – sometimes eight years or longer – without having an understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Effective planning is a key component to ensuring asset reliability in the short and long term.

6.

PROACTIVE SCHEDULING

Poor maintenance scheduling practices (or a lack of scheduling) indicates reactivity in the organization. In reactive organizations, partnerships between maintenance and production are limited, and many times the departments are siloed. As one example, a recent site where I taught a planning and scheduling course had no formal meeting for sharing production planning schedules, production requests, or maintenance requirements for building a maintenance schedule. The technicians were left to negotiate downtime across many different functions to perform maintenance. The organization was very reactive, and maintenance costs were higher than necessary.

As a minimum, there should be a weekly schedule completed in the current week for the following week. Ideally, we prefer a more forward-looking, two-week scheduling horizon. You already know up to a year or so in advance the PMs that will be triggered (these provide the base of the schedule), and you also know of engineering projects on the horizon. Add to that the delivery of specific long-lead items.

Think of it as a conveyor. At the head of the conveyor, items begin to drop on (PMs). As the conveyor advances to the current week, other items, such as material deliveries and engineering work, drop on the conveyor. The conveyor continues to move forward to the current week. It’s like time: it doesn’t stop coming forward. Shorter forecast items start dropping on the conveyor. Think of the conveyor discharge as the current week. These items build the schedule for next week.

An effective schedule ensures that we have the time to do the work right and reduce potential rework from rushed efforts. Coupling effective planning with scheduling is another driver toward increased asset reliability.

7.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT LOOPS TO MOVE FORWARD

With respect to work completion, specifically for planned and scheduled work, we must have a continuous improvement loop to improve the processes. Many proactive organizations issue a feedback form with the workorder package. Using Deming’s concept of the “plan, do, check, act” cycle, this piece is the “check” portion. Here we address the following questions: • Where you able to complete the job?

• Was the scope of the job correctly identified?

• Was the time estimate appropriate for the work?

• Did we have the right materials?

• Where the listed tasks and specifications correct?

• Is any follow-on work required?

• Did we identify the correct crafts?

Ask other relevant questions. The point is to improve constantly. We want to improve items such as job plans while also improving the skill and knowledge of all involved. To me, there is no such thing as a perfect job plan. There is always room to get better.

8.

AUDITING AND MEASURING FOR SUCCESS

Much like the continuous improvement loop, auditing gives us a method to ensure our processes are working as intended. If not, we can adjust based on what we learn. To audit, randomly pull three or so completed work orders from the stack. Take the plant manager, the maintenance manager, the planner-scheduler, the storeroom coordinator, and the technician(s) who completed the work, and walk down the job by asking: • Was the work properly scoped?

• Was the asset/component properly identified at the right (lowest) level in the asset hierarchy?

• Was the work planned, and was the plan accurate and adequate with tasks, parts, and priority detailed?

BLOG: ASK JEFF!

Jeff Shiver is launching a blog with Plant Services this summer to tackle reader questions about how to build a safe, strong culture of reliability in your organization!

Get your questions ready on topics from training and management to process efficiency and teamwork, and send them to jshiver@peopleandprocesses.com. Then click http://plnt.sv/ASKJEFF to check out his answers!

Note: The names and organizations of all people sending in questions will be kept anonymous.

• Were the parts and materials correctly kitted and staged?

• Was the work completed as scheduled?

• Was the feedback form properly used, with adequate closure information entered?

• Did work order completion and closure occur?

If you find issues from the audit, you’ll need to review the business processes, identifying what’s not working well and how the process can be improved. While poor efforts on the technician’s part may be evident on the walkdown, the point of the audit is to promote continuous improvement.

You need to look at the entire process, not the work of one technician alone. There may be valid reasons for process exceptions, and we need to understand that to improve.

A plant manager at a brewery once told me, “We measure what we treasure.” In addition to the feedback loop and the audit process, we must measure to improve.

There are lots of metrics that organizations can review. In the end, focus on what truly adds value and drives behaviors. From a work execution perspective, I would suggest four core metrics to start: • PM/PdM compliance • Schedule compliance • Schedule break-ins • Inventory turns by month The first two of these are available on the SMRP website (www.smrp.org). Depending on the behaviors you’re trying to drive, you may measure these in terms of hours in addition to the number of work orders. The third metric is simply a listing and count of the items that took higher priority over items on the schedule. It is OK to break the schedule, provided you are breaking it for higher-priority work. The fourth metric gives an indication of storeroom performance.

CONCLUSION

Cherry-picking and implementing a few of these steps in isolation will result in an improvement in the short term.

However, the efforts will not be sustained over time.

Think and implement more holistically. When integrated together, the eight steps outlined form a structurally sound foundation for success. They combine to address the elements of people, processes, and profit that are fundamental to any business transformation. If you don’t know where to begin, seek help from either internal or external resources. Focus on behaviors first, remembering that change begins with one.

Jeff Shiver, CMRP, CPMM, CRL, guides organizations to success in the Maintenance and Reliability best practices. In addition to being a founder/principal of People and Processes (www.peopleandprocesses.com), Jeff is the member services director for the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP).

WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 41

by Sheila Kennedy, Contributing Editor

IIoT can drive operational improvements It also opens the door to new business models and markets A lot of attention is focused on the internet of things (IoT) and its industrial counterpart, the IIoT, but can businesses actually monetize and drive real business value from it? For companies with limited IT budgets and resources, finding that answer can be a challenge.

One way to gauge the value of the IIoT to your business is to initially concentrate IIoT efforts on key performance areas such as asset uptime and maintenance optimization.

These functions have used components of IIoT for years, if not decades, in the form of machine and process controllers and monitoring agents that acted largely independently. The IIoT allows such devices to communicate with each other.

Industrial sensors, actuators, and PLC, SCADA, and DCS systems have long been very individualized, custom solutions with a rather narrow application. Simple functions such as tracking cycle counts or when a machine was on or off were possible, but the devices existed in isolation unless some software aggregated the data and provided basic information about operational efficiencies or when maintenance was needed.

The modern technology landscape allows for greater automation, the collection of more data from a broader array of devices and sensors, and better ways of correlating and us-

ing that larger volume of information. With interconnected soft ware and systems, Big Data analytics, machine learning, and other IIoT components, concepts such as unattended operation and prescriptive maintenance become a reality, and new business opportunities open up.

OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Improving the ability to understand, intervene, adjust, and optimize performance is where the business value and monetization of IIoT takes root. IIoT helps asset owners to understand all the factors that influence their common economic drivers – operational efficiency, operational costs, maximum uptime and minimum unplanned downtime, quality, on-time shipments, etc. – so they can plan and optimize accordingly. Following are some examples: • The IIoT provides insight into the context of an asset’s performance, thus allowing for greater operational efficiency. It is not enough to know that an asset is operating at its intended load. Other factors such as the ambient temperature, humidity level, or vibration level will influence how it performs.

Collecting and correlating both operational and environ-

TODAY’S REALITIES

• Software, sensors, and controls running today’s facilities and equipment are outdated and difficult to upgrade.

Companies cannot readily incorporate new features and improvements.

• Limited integration between internal systems (managerial apps, plant data sources) and external partners creates data silos.

• Aging operating systems and vulnerable operational technologies pose security risks because they cannot be easily retired or replaced.

• Limited embedded computing or intelligence control exists at the device, product, or plant level.

Source: Accenture

TOMORROW’S VISION

• Sensors, communications, and other operational technologies are working together with information technologies, most likely meshing in the cloud.

• Standard, fast software development techniques are used to create intelligent industrial products.

• A common data model and sensing and control architecture supports the flow of insights and action throughout an organization and its ecosystem of partners.

• The IIoT infrastructure is trustworthy and resilient to inevitable compromise.

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OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE / IIoT

• With the IIoT, organizations can transition out of reactive mode and start predicting maintenance requirements and taking proactive corrective actions. “Prevention is always cheaper than cures and reaction,” says Rick Veague, CTO at IFS North America (www.ifsworld.com). “The more you can predict, and the more accurately you can predict, the better you can prevent an unplanned condition.” Transport operator Sporveien in Oslo, Norway, chose this approach when it equipped its trains with sensors that capture large amounts of data about the trains’ service needs, such as door rail bearings in need of lubrication, to allow for flexible, predictive maintenance, lower costs, and more trains in operation.

• For certain assets, uptime and operational efficiency are improved when they are maintained based on real-life cycle counts. When machines run a lighter-duty cycle than expected, the maintenance interval can be safely prolonged, reducing maintenance costs. Conversely, higher-duty cycles may necessitate increasing maintenance frequency to prevent costly unplanned downtime.

The IIoT allows EAM/CMMS solutions to process data nonstop from this equipment and trigger work orders at the right time and place.

• Location tracking, routing, and logistics optimization are simplified with IIoT connectivity. The movement of raw materials, spare parts, tools and fleets are optimized and costs are lowered when technologies such as sensors, controllers, GPS and RFID tracking devices communicate with one another.

ON AVERAGE ACROSS THE COMPANY, WHERE DO YOUR COMPANY’S BIG DATA ANALYTICS CAPABILITIES FALL ON THE SPECTRUM BELOW? 35%

18%

19% 16% 13%

Connect

Monitor

Analyze

Predict

Optimize

Figure 1. Companies’ Big Data capabilities are strongest in the area of analysis.

• The IIoT enables system triggers and actionable intelligence, which then generate inventory and supply-chain optimization possibilities. Concepts such as replenishment timing, economic order quantities, optimal inventory levels, and balancing supply with demand are more accurate and automated when there is visibility and connectivity across the entire value chain.

Advisory Group (www.arcweb.com).

“It can enable organizations to drive down unscheduled downtime to near zero, with a positive effect on a broad range of KPIs,” he says. “Case stories indicate that the combination of machine learning with a large number of IIoT sensors provides more advanced notice of a pending failure than traditional, single-variable condition monitoring systems.”

• The IIoT is a vital component of today’s digital factories, where production is far more automated and effective than in the past. For example, at Siemens’ Amberg Electronics Plant in Germany, the digital thread ties together all phases of the product lifecycle. Products communicate with production machines and IT systems control and optimize all processes. Production quality is at 99.99885%, and the plant’s level of automation is 75%.

• Energy efficiency and sustainability gains are possible with the integration of smart machines, smart monitoring, and smart environmental controls. Greater visibility into the assets, environment, and real-time data allows manufacturers and utilities to better analyze and control electricity, fuel, and water consumption and drive down costs accordingly.

• The IIoT is a prescriptive maintenance enabler. Prescriptive maintenance uses engineered algorithms and/or machine learning to assess multiple variables and provide higher fidelity for longer-range failure prediction and avoidance, explains Ralph Rio, research director at ARC

• Similarly, the IIoT presents opportunities for personal and environmental safety as well as physical security.

Any breach of safety or security has far-reaching human, financial, and reputational effects, not to mention potential regulatory penalties. A growing array of smart devices, equipment, and systems aim to mitigate such risks. For example, remote pipeline safety and integrity is improved when condition WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 43

Source: Accenture

mental data provides a clearer picture of the machine’s performance and maintenance requirements. Emerging capabilities such as machine learning are helping to detect correlations that were otherwise difficult to see.

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE / IIoT

NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

New business and operating models and growth opportunities not previously envisioned become possible with the IIoT. For instance, remote monitoring of finished products affixed with sensors can reveal how the products are performing and when they will require service or replenishment.

Michelin Group’s new fuel-consumption reduction service and tiresas-a-service offerings use tires with sensors that collect usage and condition data combined with analytics to help truck fleets reduce fuel costs. Another example is General Electric’s jet aircraft engine maintenance business, born out of its jet engine manufacturing business, which is incorporating the IIoT in its move from scheduled to preventive maintenance and expansion into aircraft fleet optimization, a new market segment.

When considering new business opportunities such as product-service hybrids and strategic partner or supplier relationships, Accenture (www.accenture.com) suggests asking: “Which companies are also trying to reach my customers and my customers’ customers? What other products and services will talk to mine, and who will make, operate and service them? What capabilities and information does my company have that they need? How can we use this ecosystem to extend the reach and scope of our products and services through the Industrial Internet?”

GETTING THE BALL ROLLING

While it is getting increasingly inexpensive to install various devices and sensors and generate large volumes of data, there is still a need to distill it down to useful, actionable intelligence for the organization’s asset management system (EAM/CMMS) and end users. Therefore, enterprise-wide adoption of this capability has been slow.

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IF WE ARE UNABLE TO IMPLEMENT OUR BIG DATA STRATEGY IN THE NEXT ONE TO THREE YEARS, MY TOP THREE FEARS ARE: Our competitor(s) will gain market share at our expense

28% 66%

We will not be able to recover and “catch up” if we delay

18% 45%

We will start to lose qualified talent to competitors

18% 48%

Our investors will lose confidence in our ability to effectively grow our business

17% 61%

Our product(s)/solution(s) cannot be competitively priced

9% 52%

I don’t believe there will be any impact

3% 3%

We have already implemented our Big Data strategy

5% 5%

None of the above

2% 2%

Top Top 3

Figure 2. Companies are aware of the risks of not implementing a Big Data strategy soon.

According to Accenture, only about one-third of companies (36%) have adopted Big Data analytics across the enterprise (see Figure 1). More prevalent are initiatives in a single operations area (16%) or in multiple but disparate areas (47%).

Organizations that are lagging in Big Data and IIoT utilization are already beginning to experience a competitive disadvantage (see Figure 2). Of those that have begun exploring these, many are enjoying the benefits of more-sophisticated analytics, though few have advanced to the level of prediction and optimization.

To simplify adoption and accelerate the benefits, software and technology providers and systems integrators are working to preintegrate and package IIoT solutions into a framework that allows for easier configuration and deployment. This includes, for example, the sensors, software, data, analytics, computing platform, and configuration required to automatically generate preventive maintenance work orders based on certain environmental conditions or cycle count thresholds.

One of the biggest IIoT challenges is just getting started, observes IFS’s Veague. “IFS’s research of over 500

senior decision-makers has shown us that 86% of businesses expect digital transformation to play a key role in their digital future, yet 40% lack a strategy for it,” he says.

Veague believes that the IIoT is very much an iterative process. “You start with small increments, not a shot to the moon,” he says. “Once you have the basic flow of data and understand what you can know, the more it becomes clear what you want to know.

As those ideas begin to flow, you can start to really drive the business value that you were expecting. It becomes a continuously developing solution for most customers.”

It is unlikely that there will ever be an out-of-the-box IIoT solution because the technology is continually evolving and every organization’s needs are different, but over time more solutions will be integrated and oriented toward business value and not just technology. This will enable more organizations to make the leap and embrace the potential of the IIoT. E-mail Contributing Editor Sheila Kennedy, CMRP, managing director of Additive Communications, at sheila@addcomm.com.

Source: Accenture

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PRODUCT ROUNDUP

MOTORS AND DRIVES Increase energy savings while enhancing machine and control system performance KINETIX VPC SERVO MOTORS

The new line of Allen Bradley Kinetix VPC servo motors from Rockwell Automation enables manufacturers to run machines at higher speeds and higher torque, significantly improving machine throughput. The motors’ interior permanent magnets allow for field weakening, which reduces electromagnetic resistance so a machine can carry loads continuously and well above motor-rated speeds. A cooling fan and cooling fins on the motor provide increased torque and power output. The Kinetix VPC servo motor uses larger, more-robust bearings to improve L10 bearing life by up to 60%, and an optional single cable for power and feedback helps reduce installation, setup, and maintenance time compared with dual-cable motors. The new motor line also meets or exceeds IE4 efficiency ratings, which can save energy costs compared with using an IE3 or lower-rated motor.

Rockwell Automation www.rockwellautomation.com ÖLFLEX VFD 2XL SYMMETRICAL MOTOR AND DRIVE CABLE

The Lapp Group’s ÖLFLEX VFD 2XL Symmetrical motor and drive cable is designed for high-horsepower applications. Rated for voltages as high as 2000V, this large-gauge cable offers three symmetrical grounds and features a helical copper tape shield. The oil- and UV-resistant cable delivers a minimum bend radius of 15x cable diameter. The cable’s construction includes bare stranded copper conductors, XLPE plus insulation, three bare stranded copper grounds, and the helical copper tape shielding. In addition, a specially formulated black thermoplastic elastomer jacket provides extended temperature resistance from -40 to +105°C for stationary use and -25 to +105°C for flexible use.

Lapp Group www.lappgroup.com MAGNASHEAR ELECTRIC RELEASE MOTOR BRAKES

The MagnaShear line of spring-set, electric-release motor brakes featuring Oil Shear technology is available with torque from 6 lb-ft to 1,250 lb-ft for NEMA motor frames 56 to 440. MagnaShear brakes require no maintenance or adjustment and boast service life that is often 10 times that of traditional dry braking systems. Coupler brakes, crane 46

JUNE 2017 WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM

duty brakes and hazardous duty brakes are ideal for a wide variety of uses across all industries, including cranes/ winches/hoists, palletizing, conveying, indexing, turn-overs/dumpers, coal sampling, automotive production, and marine winches/hoists, and more.

Force Control Industries www.forcecontrol.com MTRP-SERIES 56HC-FRAME PREMIUM EFFICIENCY MOTORS

AutomationDirect’s IronHorse line of general-purpose three-phase motors now includes the MTRP-series 56HCframe premium-efficiency motors available from 1 hp to 3 hp. The rolled steel motors are available in 1800 and 3600 rpm models and feature 4:1 constant torque and 10:1 variable torque speed ranges, TEFC frames, cast aluminum end bells, and removable mounting bases. MTRP-series motors meet RoHS and low-voltage directives and are CSA and EU approved; available accessories include bases, junction boxes, fans, and fan shrouds.

AutomationDirect www.automationdirect.com 438-II POWER QUALITY AND MOTOR ANALYZER

The Fluke 438-II Power Quality and Motor Analyzer uses innovative algorithms to analyze not only three-phase power quality but also torque, efficiency, and speed to determine system performance and detect overloaded conditions, eliminating the need for motor load sensors. It will also analyze the motor’s efficiency and mechanical power under operating load conditions. The Fluke 438-II analyzer provides analysis data for both the electrical and mechanical characteristics of the motor while it is in operation.

Using proprietary algorithms, the 438-II measures the three-phase current and voltage waveforms and compares them against rated specifications to calculate motor mechanical performance.

Fluke Corporation www.fluke.com

IIoT SMART GEAR DRIVE

Rexnord has developed its IIoT Smart Gear Drive. The Falk V-Class digitally connected solution monitors oil health in real time and detects vibration, load, speed, and throughput.

The internet-connected edge gear drive has the capacity to translate product performance data and analytics into alert recommended actions and become a fully predictable model for optimal asset management. A suite of digital technology including network connectivity, secure data collection, GPS tagging, and smart sensors, is built into and around this IIoT V-Class gear, offering to make customers’ jobs easier.

Rexnord www.rexnord.com HP800 HYDRAULICALLY ACTUATED PTO

Twin Disc’s latest addition is the HP800, a middle-horsepower-range option in its industrial lineup of heavy-duty, hydraulically actuated power take-offs (PTOs). With a maximum power rating of 800 hp at 1800 rpm, the HP800 is built to deliver serious muscle where other PTOs would falter. Like Twin Disc’s first hydraulically actuated PTO, the HP1200, the HP800 has a modular design allowing for either side-load “P” or in-line “I” applications with the change of bearing carriers. An advanced control system allows for smooth engagement of the driven equipment. A key feature of the HP800 is the auxiliary drive pump towers with 400 hp maximum capacity per tower or 450 hp maximum for both.

They’re rotatable by 0°, 45° and 90° either clockwise or counterclockwise to allow for clearance in any installation.

Twin Disc, Inc. www.twindisc.com HIGH-SPEED INDUCTION MOTORS

Siemens high-speed induction motors offered in the 500, 580 and 680 frame sizes are unique because they utilize standard motor components in a different way to allow operation at a fixed point above 3600 rpm. One of the benefits is there are no highly specialized components like active magnetic bearings or permanent magnet rotors required in the motor design. This product has a modified ventilation or cooling

circuit to eliminate excess motor heating while operating at speeds up to 6000 rpm. The bearing design was altered as well to allow for the necessary cooling required for high-speed operation. The rotor and shaft assembly was altered to eliminate mechanical components susceptible to high-stress concentrations while maintaining the necessary interference fits to prevent vibration.

Siemens www.usa.siemens.com SMART SENSOR FOR MOTORS

The ABB Ability Smart Sensor for motors uses compact sensors to pick up data on vibration, temperature, and other parameters from low-voltage motors and provides information about motor health and performance via a smartphone or a dedicated web portal. The smart sensor is attached to the frame of low-voltage induction motors; no wiring is needed. By converting regular LV motors into intelligent connected machines, the solution enables advanced maintenance planning that will help businesses to cut costs and boost productivity. Predictive analytics based on data from the solution can reduce downtime by up to 70%, extend motor lifetime by as much as 30%, and cut energy consumption by up to 10%.

ABB www.ABB.com IP69K-RATED VIBRATION MONITORING SENSOR KITS

IMI Sensors introduces industry-exclusive IP69K-rated vibration sensor kits that can withstand the 1000 psi sprays of 140°F (60°C) water that are typical in a food and beverage manufacturing facility’s wash-down cycle.

With these kits, a vibration monitoring system featuring permanently mounted sensors can be instituted in any food and beverage manufacturing facility. A permanently mounted vibration monitoring system can increase overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by improving equipment availability, performance efficiency, and quality rate without adding time to the sanitation team’s daily process.

IMI Sensors www.pcb.com WWW.PLANTSERVICES.COM JUNE 2017 47

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Smart Industry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 SMC Pneumatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 SPM Instrument. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Life Cycle Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Sullair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

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BIG PICTURE INTERVIEW

MAD SKILLS: MAKING TRAINING A PRIORITY Be creative when it comes to skills development, says Nissan maintenance supervisor Brett Dyess, CMRP, is maintenance supervisor at the Canton, MS, plant of Nissan North America (www.nissanusa.com). In a presentation at UE Systems’ Ultrasound World conference in Florida last month, he discussed continued employee training as a vital component in sustaining an effective predictive maintenance program – and noted that training budgets (or a lack thereof) shouldn’t dictate whether, when, where, or how workers are developing their skills.

Dyess elaborated on the training imperative in a recent interview with Plant Services.

PS In your Ultrasound World presentation, you mentioned that the Canton plant conducts pre-employment skills assessments for all maintenance technicians as the basis for personalized training plans. Tell me more about those.

BD When you interview with this company, you take a pre-employment test which goes over, maintenance-wise, 10 maintenance skills. We don’t have crafts or specialists here.

Some (employees) are better than others at different things, but all of us are multiskilled technicians. That’s the reason for the pre-employment test and the pre-assessment. It assesses all your strengths in all the areas – mechanical, electrical, hydraulics, fluid power – all of the basic fundamentals that we deem necessary to do the best job. If you’re good in this area, we might use you to train others, or (if you’re lacking in an area) we’ll educate you and develop a training plan based on that pre-assessment.

When we get that assessment back, we look at the needs in each area for that employee, and we also look at where they’re going to be assigned inside the plant. Whereas one shop might require a greater need for pneumatics or electrical skills, one shop might require a greater need for mechanical. So we take where they’ll be assigned into account and we also look at failure history. If a shop is having a good bit of downtime in a certain area, whether it be mechanical or something like that, we take all those into account and lay out a training plan based on the courses we have available.

We schedule out their time, and they take all these classes online, and then once they complete those, there’s a handson class (taken in the plant’s training center) that will give them an actual certification.

PS And all technicians must have at least a Level 1 certification for a particular technology to perform rounds on it?

BD As part of our standard operating procedures, for each technology that’s used, we have a standard procedure on 50

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how to utilize the technology and run the route. One of the requirements is that to run this route, you must be at least certified Level 1 against that technology. That’s just to ensure consistency and repeatability. For me, on the personal side, it also allows them more buy-in and ownership of that technology. It lets them confirm that they know what they’re doing, they know how to do it; they can speak to it, talk about it; they know how to analyze it. They’re not just out there as a bunch of minions taking readings every day.

PS What does continued training look like for your plant?

BD For example, with ultrasound and infrared, the main technologies that we utilize, I don’t want to have just one or two guys as specialists in those areas. I want all of my guys to be at least a Level 1 and a Level 2 if possible. For vibration or more specific or in-depth technology, we do send those guys away maybe for a four-day course or something off-site, and then they’re responsible to bring back as much information as they can to help us develop some kind of intro-level class that we can do in-house.

If they want to learn more about a certain technology and budget-wise I can’t provide that for them, and there’s a YouTube video or they Google search it or find an abstract and read it, two or three hours a week, I tell them, educate yourselves, guys. I’m not here to tell you I can get you everything you need, but if you find another way to get it or there’s a short webinar on it, and all you guys want it, I’ll pull it up on the screen. And they create work orders for that. I know what they’ve done and when they did it. We do (also) have a relationship with our local community college; they offer workforce development classes that Nissan pays for. Those they do have to take at nighttime. Nissan will pay for them, but they have to be during non-work hours.

I don’t require them to do two or three hours a week, but I’ve found that there is no need to do that because sometimes they actually will spend a little more than that.

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CSuccess ustomer Story

COMPRESSORS

Keep It Under Control!

Kaeser puts automotive supplier in the driver’s seat of compressed air efficiency PROBLEM:

A Tier 1 automotive seating and electrical supplier was interested in taking advantage of local utility rebate incentives. For their compressed air needs, they had been relying on four compressors manufactured in the 1980’s, inherited from a sister plant. Each unit operated in modulation control and was manually switched on and off, leaving the units continually fighting each other, resulting in wasted energy, fluctuating pressure, and increased maintenance costs.

SOLUTION: Kaeser performed a complete Air Demand Analysis (ADA) to identify the plant’s current compressed air needs and to develop a plan for implementing the most energy efficient solution possible. Additionally, Kaeser recommended a Sigma Air Manager (SAM) master controller to properly control the system and ensure the most energy efficient combination of units would be selected to meet current plant demand.

RESULT: Thanks to better controls and adding an energy efficient variable frequency drive compressor, the customer was able to reduce their annual maximum power consumption by 865,440 kWh—the equivalent of removing 100 homes from the power grid for one year—all without compromising stable system pressure. With the older compressors relegated to back-up, annual maintenance costs have been reduced from $37,000 to $18,000. Less maintenance also means less downtime, for increased productivity.

Specific Power of Previous System: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.93 kW/100 cfm Specific Power of New System: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.66 kW/100 cfm Annual Energy Cost of Previous System: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $252,988 Annual Energy Cost Savings: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $114,720 Additional Savings in Maintenance Costs: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $19,000 TOTAL ANNUAL SAVINGS:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $133,720 Utility Rebate: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $71,579 TOTAL SAVINGS: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $205,299

Let us help you measure and manage your compressed air costs!

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