Editorial

An Indonesian garment producer has reduced its fuel consumption by a third, simply by improving the water supply to its boiler.

The Cathay Murni Garment Factory has been using a 20-year-old steam boiler to supply hot water for washing and steam for ironing.  The factory draws its water supply from a bore hole, but the water has a hardness of 200 parts per million. In an attempt to prevent limescale build-up on the boiler

The Schaeffler Group has developed an innovative, energy efficient four-row, angular contact ball bearing, which replaces conventional tapered roller wheel bearings, resulting in reduced fuel consumption and emissions on trucks, SUVs and light vans, but which potentially could be developed for use in other heavy engineering applications

By replacing

Rationalisation simplifies selection and accounts for user preferences 

Scott Health & Safety have responded to market requirements by undertaking a major review of its Negative Pressure Respirator range, involving rationalisation and innovative design modifications to their range of half and full facemasks. Scott

What constitutes adequate PM frequency in your plant? How do you know when enough is enough? Where do you want your PM program to take you? Think before answering. No guessing allowed.

When establishing an effective maintenance program, one must determine not only which preventive maintenance (PM) routines to accomplish, but how often they should be done. On the surface, the answer to this question would seem to be quite simple. Is it really?

One proven theory is that the PM to corrective maintenance (CM) work order ratio should be about 6 to 1. This theory assumes that PM inspections reveal some type of corrective work that should be completed on an asset on average every six times it is performed. The assumption is that, if the ratio is greater than 6:1, you are performing the PM too often; if the ratio is less than 6:1, you are not performing it often enough. (The "6 to 1 Rule" was proven by John Day, Jr., manager of Engineering and Maintenance at Alumax of South Carolina, during the period when Alumax of South Carolina was certified as the first "World-Class" maintenance organization.) You might accept this theory, put it in place in your Maintenance program and forget about reading the remainder of this article. Or, you might choose to continue reading, as we attempt to prove or disprove this theory.

There is often the need to conduct a thermal imaging survey of a particularly long or tall object such as a kiln, a cracker or indeed a building.  One answer is to take the image from a greater distance away.  The problem here is this often compromises measurement accuracy although with a high resolution camera such as the ThermaCAM

Earlier this year the university of Leeds held a training course entitled "Pharmaceutical Medical Gas Testing". This was held at the new training facility of Midland Medical Services Ltd, Rowley Regis, West Midlands. 32 delegates were in attendance for 5 days.
 
The aim of the course was to teach delegates about practical testing procedures as well as legislative issues and production methods. Midland Medical are a leading supplier and installer of Medical gas installations worldwide.
 
As part of the course, the new Bekokat from BEKO Technologies was tested. Bekokat is a device designed to remove all trace of hydrocarbons, including oils, from compressed air systems. It has particular relevance in the food and Medical sectors.
 

Hosokawa Micron Ltd are now able to offer HEPA Filter Integrity Tests either as a specific task or as part of a planned maintenance programme.

Industry recommends that HEPA filters be checked at 14 month intervals or less or immediately after filter change. This is because where high efficiency filters are fitted, it is important that the filter housing/sealing device does not allow particulate material to pass and therefore compromise the classification of the controlled environment installation that is being served.
The Filter Integrity Test is commonly referred to as a DOP test  because the original smoke used in the test was generated using Di-Octyl Phthalate. This chemical was found to have carcinogenic properties and was subsequently substituted by a mineral oil, Shell Ondina EL. The smoke generated from this has identical characteristics and the term DOP testing remains, although it is now understood to mean

Introduction
The traditional approach to maintaining mobile equipment - based on fixed interval component replacements and overhauls - is rapidly dying. In its place is a new framework for maintaining this equipment using Condition Based Maintenance approaches, and which focuses strongly on the consequences of failure.
At the heart of this new approach lies a strategic tool for determining the most appropriate Maintenance strategy for key items of Mobile Equipment, and their major components - Reliability Centred Maintenance.

What is Reliability Centred Maintenance?
Reliability Centred Maintenance originated in the Airline industry in the 1960's. By the late 1950's, the cost of Maintenance activities in this industry had become high enough to warrant a special investigation into the effectiveness of those activities. At the same time, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) in the US was becoming increasingly frustrated by its experiences showing that it was not possible to control the failure rate of certain types of engines by changing either the frequency or content of scheduled fixed-interval overhauls.

What's the best way to transform a good product into something that is truly best in class? Listen to your customers, of course!

Using as our benchmark the legendary vb3000T instrument, our most popular portable vibration analysis instrument, we engineered the all-new vb7 instrument's electronics from the ground up using state-of-the-art,
lightweight components; we then sculpted the vb7 instrument into a superbly comfortable tool designed both by and for predictive maintenance professionals.

Delivering unmatched customer value is the core philosophy driving Commtest' s innovation efforts. We understand that what you value most is the ability to complete your work as quickly and comfortably as possible, confident that you are getting high quality data first time, every time. With customer
feedback directly guiding our product development, the all-new vb7 instrument offers usability enhancements that are sure to make your working relationship a pleasant one.

It's no mystery to Maintenance professionals that clean oil promotes enhanced equipment performance and reliability. There is, however, something that many of them do not know. Today's most commonly used particle counting tests for determining oil cleanliness