Nothing lasts forever, not even industrial equipment, but what can be done to extend and improve its operation?
In Brazil’s history, the struggle for industrialization has always been on the agenda, but hardly any sectors have reached state-of-the-art technology. It is still a very difficult reality within the scenario of today’s internal economic policies.
Added to this factor, the importance of care and maintenance with industrial equipment and machinery is even more eminent.
The process of industrializing a company, the decision to produce any product nationally, requires not only a lot of planning, but also a large amount of money involved.
This patrimony, besides its speculated monetary value, has its production value inherent to the quantity produced at a certain time.
It is known that despite the estimates of durability of industrial equipment, due to use, many of these do not complete their expected life cycle or start working less time to ensure their functionality. Therefore, maintenance is essential to perpetuate the useful life with quality of industrial equipment and machinery.
FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO REDUCED EQUIPMENT LIFE SPAM
Some wear-related factors can be avoided or mitigated, such as wear due to misuse of the machines.
For this, it is necessary that the employees who are handling the machinery have training to obey restrictions regarding its use and handling, so that they can also understand the limits of the machine, its complete functions, and even how to recognize some inconsistency in the day-to-day operation of the equipment.
In addition, for the employee’s own safety, to be extremely prepared to manage a large piece of equipment so that possible risks of work accidents are close to zero.
Another factor for wear can be evidenced in weaker materials that make up the equipment. For example, many machine parts that are in contact with water use steel as the material for direct contact with the water surface (and/or possible solid elements), but could be strengthened with a tungsten carbide layer for durability. Thus, the wear is due to the structure of the machinery itself, which perhaps – within the possibilities of the specific industrial sector – could be more resistant.
But the greatest possibility of human interference in an attempt to exceed the durability of parts and equipment is maintenance due to natural wear and tear.
Natural wear can come from some interactions of different materials, or even the contact of different states of materials, such as steam in contact with certain types of metals that over time can lead to erosion.
Or yet, the most classic example, the recurrent friction of gears in the running of an engine, gradually, over time, its use causes these surfaces to wear down and no longer function at their best.
Precisely because it is a situation where contact between parts cannot be avoided, or between different materials and long processes with these contacts, there is a need to invest in maintenance.
IMPORTANCE OF MAINTENANCE TO AVOID WEAR AND TEAR
The longevity of industrial equipment can be achieved with maintenance. The traditional maintenance mechanism is called preventive maintenance.
Normally, maintenance is scheduled from time to time, and is carried out through a scheduled productive downtime of the assets, identified through a previous evaluation of the “machine health”, which is performed by the responsible team.
It is essential to have maintenance so that the cost of production downtime is less for a routine procedure than for damaged equipment caused by unknown reasons.
Another and more modern form of maintenance is predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance appears as an option for cost reduction both within the production as well as in the certainty of the need for equipment shutdown.
Predictive maintenance is modern and analyzes in detail aspects that, to the naked eye, are not perceptible.
It is the installation of an equipment that collects data about the daily operation of the equipment; it is possible to generate temporal graphics and to notice small wear in certain analyzed points in advance.
For example, when coupled with a device that reads data regarding the vibrations of a centrifuge, it is possible to see through the vibrating frequency if there is something different.
Within the same analysis, it is possible to establish operating parameters, such as, for example, if the operating motor of a screwdriver heats up 5ºC above the usual temperature, the procedure is to issue a warning to the system and paralyze the machine so that total loss of the machine can be avoided.
EFFICIENT SOLUTION
Therefore, the effectiveness of the industrial asset conservation of large machines can be achieved by a combination of both types of maintenance, depending on each type of machine.
Currently, with technological advances, the use of predictive maintenance is an investment that can save a lot of productive and financial costs, besides maximizing the use of equipment, since the machine stoppage only occurs if, through analysis, a real need for a pause is verified.
With the advancement of Industry 4.0 and smart solutions in mind, Dynamox has launched the Solution, an innovative solution to monitor the health of machinery and equipment.