Up Time Magazine - February/March 2009 - (Page 20) area. Equally important variations include the lubricant required, number of lube fittings, and activity type (top-off, change-out, sample, etc.). Further variation comes when activities require specific step-by-step procedural instructions. With the CMMS offering no native support for lubrication, how is such information conveyed using a single PM? How many PMs are needed to convey a bare minimum of these compulsory details? Remember, give a CMMS more PMs and it will return the favor with increased work-orders and paperwork. More importantly, within these numerous work orders and pieces of paper, there is no opportunity to bring optimization and efficiency to lubrication. What’s done is done. Or is it? Mark a work order as completed and the entire block of lubrication points share the same status. A PM Datastick: The Real Alternative in Vibration Analyzers “I’ve been in the vibration business for 30 years. For a long time I have hoped for a piece of equipment that would replace the heavy, hard-to-use box I had used for all those years. Now I have it: The Datastick® VSA™-1215 Vibration Spectrum Analyzer. It is awesome. It’s small and light, very user friendly, and lets me perform very detailed analysis. ” — Joseph Niziolek, owner, N.J. Balancing, Inc. system unable to function below the workorder level can’t track the most relevant of data – all outstanding lubrication points must somehow be remembered over subsequent weeks until completed. It’s not hard to see this problem compounding week after week. Yes, having a multitude of detail deficient lubrication PMs might look and feel good on the surface, but it veils reality with a false sense of security. With such reliance upon manual effort, paperwork and human memory, it’s no surprise a recent search across popular CMMS/EAM websites for the term “lubrication” returned zero pertinent results. Once again, details required for success are left to the imagination and memory of lubrication personal. Customization — The fourth and by far the most costly approach is customization of the CMMS / EAM product for lubrication. Gaining rudimentary lubrication capability consumes hundreds of man hours, with one organization reporting having spent nearly $1,000,000 USD to modify SAP-PM for lubrication-point level of functionality. Even if successful, such customizations prove difficult and expensive to update. Personnel doing the original work are often otherwise assigned or no longer part of the organization. With corporations working to eliminate maintenance of in-house legacy systems, why should lubrication be any different? Each of these approaches is dependent on human memory. This results in lubrication points being consistently maintained incorrectly, or worse yet, missed entirely. Yet management often declares or assumes lubrication to be in good order. You don’t get immediate feed-back when a lube point is missed. Often times it takes months or even years until the feed-back manifests as costly equipment failure and unplanned down time. This points to why more equipment failures are traced back to poor lubrication practices than for any other reason. Numerous longterm studies in Canada, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States declare this fact in unison. Product engineers at bearing manufacturers such as SKF and Timken show how their bearing products can have an almost unlimited run life. Yet sales staff for these manufactures report their customers are buying bearings by the case. A large North American building products firm, just beginning to implement a task-specific lubrication reliability program, february/march 2009 Datastick: the Powerful Low-Cost Alternative Datastick handheld vibration analyzer systems come in well below $9,000 and provide performance and versatility comparable to units costing twice as much or more. But that’s not all. Datastick keeps total cost of ownership low because there’s no mandatory annual fee. If you want an optional service or support agreement, you’ll find they’re designed and priced to help you, not chew up your budget. Datastick: the Ease-of-Use Alternative You can learn to use the handheld analyzer in a couple of hours. If you’re short on in-house vibration expertise, don’t worry. The included Datastick Reporting System™ software for your PC is based on Microsoft Excel. That means that you can share your data, graphs, and reports with any in-house vibration analyst or outside consultant. And with our smartphone-based SiteConnex™ VSA-2215, you can email vibration data directly from the field. Ask about Dynamic Pressure, Impact Testing, and Advanced Analysis Tools FREE White Paper: Breaking the Barriers to Affordable Vibration Analysis www.datastick.com/wput Web: www.datastick.com/ut Email: findout@datastick.com Talk to an actual human being: Toll-free in USA 888 277 5153 or call 408 987 3400 © 2009 Datastick Systems Inc. Patents pending. Datastick is a registered trademark and Datastick Reporting System, SiteConnex and VSA are trademarks of Datastick Systems, Inc. 20DSK014 UT090115.indd 1 1/15/09 1:24:54 PM http://www.datastick.com/wput http://www.datastick.com/ut http://www.datastick.com/ut
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