Plant Services - February 2008 - (Page 45)

lopay Plastics in Augusta, Ky., never heard of automated lubrication until six years ago, when machine reliability became more of a focus for our plant. Unplanned downtime reports from our CMMS told us that staying competitive meant that machine reliability must improve. Like most plants, we operate with limited maintenance staﬃng. erefore, adding more bodies to handle preventive maintenance procedures simply isn’t realistic. One area of great focus here is lubrication. We consider lubrication to be the backbone of all maintenance systems. We wanted to know how to serve the plant’s lubrication demands most eﬀectively and eﬃciently. Manual lubrication consumes labor hours and, in most cases, the machine being lubed must be idle for safe access to the lube points. But, inserting grease into bearings when a machine is idle isn’t considered to be a best practice. Our own breakdown analyses and the reports from the consultants who we brought in to review some bearings both made it obvious to us that our failures were caused by insuﬃcient lube, wrong lube, contamination, over-lubrication and insuﬃcient training for the technicians doing the manual lubing. In the plastic ﬁ lm-extrusion business, avoiding drag on bearings is crucial because drag aﬀects the fragile plastic web as it threads through the many idler rolls on the equipment that carries the ﬁ lm. TIPS FOR BETTER AUTOLUBING 1. Wire electronic lubricators into the machine’s PLC. Electronic units have their own timers and will initiate lubrication even if the machine isn’t running, which leads to over-lubrication. Wired into the PLC, the unit’s time clock will only advance during actual machine operation. 2. Mount electronic lubricators on vibration pads to protect them and prolong their useful life (Figure 1). 3. Mount electronic units and battery-operated units in an enclosure (Figure 2). They’re Figure 1. Note the vibration pads sensitive to water. Pre- on these units that lubricate 36 vent any possibility of water pump bearings. water getting on them. 4. Use tubing that has the highest pressure rating you can nd. Some lubricators can develop 3,000 psi. Regular tubing can burst, especially when purging the lines during commissioning. Also, use tubing with the highest temperature rating you can nd if the lubricators are to Figure 2. A battery-operated unit be installed around heat lubricates six critical bearings. Quick disconnects are used on sources or near hot mate- these grease- lled tubes subjected rial that might drip and to only 300 psi. The unit is enclosed melt the lines. in a Plexiglas box to eliminate (Continued on p. 46.) contact with water. Possible solution ese were some of the factors that led us to a closer examination of the world of automatic lubrication. e big advantages we see in automatic lubrication are the labor savings and the assurance that bearings unambiguously get lubed at F .PLANTSERVICES. 45 http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - February 2008

Plant Services - February 2008 Contents From the Editor Letters The PS Files Up and Running Crisis Corner What Works Asset Manager: Why Six Sigma? Technology Toolbox: Ensuring a Calm Response Cover Story: Best Practices Awards Lubricants: A Slick Success Story Motors: Reliable Torque Compressors: Before You Call for Help Web Hunter: Exploiting Intellectual Capital In the Trenches Product Picks Classifieds Fast Facts Energy Expert: Energy, Climate and Food

Plant Services - February 2008

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