Editorial

Root to inspection thermal imager

With a multitude of infrared cameras available today, it's often difficult to discern what might be most suitable for a specific application. After all, many infrared cameras certainly have sufficient resolution and sensitivity for most industrial applications. So you may ask, "What makes HotShot the 'New Vision in Thermal Imaging'? It's a very simple answer and doesn't involve the imaging capability at all.

Because HotShot is tightly integrated with a PC application, it can be your guide through your infrared inspections! Simply create a list of inspection points (or export the list from your CMMS database) and upload it to your camera. Now, HotShot knows where you're going! HotShot will take you through your list of inspection points where you can capture infrared and visible images.

In the UK, current estimates indicate that the grey market for bearings accounts for between 12 and 15 per cent of total UK bearing sales. Not only does a growing grey market open up routes for more counterfeit products to enter the market, it also puts end users and distributors at greater risk of costly breakdowns, litigation and void warranties.

How do purchasers of bearings actually know that the products they are buying are genuine and will perform as well as they say on the datasheet? Most don

The first step toward realizing this goal is to figure out where you are presently. Determining the present baselines and gaps that exist in your processes and organization is best accomplished by performing a reliability assessment. This exercise will point out the areas within your business that need to be addressed from a reliability perspective. All facets of your organization must be analyzed. We have identified 21 key elements that, when integrated, provide the basis for reliability excellence (Fig. 1). Assessing the current state of each of these elements will identify the gaps that exist and provide the basis for a master plan of improvement.

Master plan

A master plan is the tool that tracks what must be done, who will do it, and in what time frame the task(s) will be completed.

The master plan should initially outline the process-launching activities. These activities include reviewing the master plan and initiating the improvement process, developing the return on investment, establishing a reliability excellence leadership team, and identifing focus teams and support resources.

The definition and use of Overall Equipment Effectiveness over the years has been widely debated.

Many practitioners have found that OEE has several uses and definitions which have led to
considerable confusion when comparing machine-to-machine, plant-to-plant, or company-tocompany.
Unfortunately, OEE was not designed to make comparisons from machine-to-machine,
plant-to-plant, or company-to-company, but it has evolved to these common levels of misuse. OEE is not a statistically valid metric, but it has been used as such for years.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the original intent of Overall Equipment Effectiveness as a metric and a measure. I initially learned OEE from Seiichi Nakajima, the

Sira is a world leader in the conformity assessment solutions field, specialising in explosion protection of equipment used in potentially explosive atmospheres (Hazardous Areas).

Already the UK

Sira is a world leader in the conformity assessment solutions field, specialising in explosion protection of equipment used in potentially explosive atmospheres (Hazardous Areas).

Already the UK

We

With advancements in digital electronics and reduced component costs in recent years, monitoring instruments for use in condition-based maintenance programs have become more cost-effective and dependable. Machinery does not need to be taken out of service as many tests are done online, and in many cases very little expertise is required for testing and data interpretation. This enables the user to make well-informed decisions for planning maintenance and repairs, which ultimately leads to increased productivity.

This article concentrates on one technology that has been developed to reliably detect broken rotor bars, abnormal levels of air gap eccentricity, and other problems in squirrel cage induction motors and driven components using motor current signature analysis (MCSA).

Consequences of broken rotor bars
Rotor windings in squirrel cage induction motors are manufactured from aluminum alloy, copper, or copper alloy. Larger motors generally have rotors and end-rings fabricated out of these whereas motors with ratings less than a few hundred horsepower generally have die-cast aluminum alloy rotor cages.