Many changes have occurred over the past 10 years as the overall economy continues to globalize. The United States industrial manufacturing base has been working overtime to make their operations more ‘lean’ while working more closely than ever with suppliers to help them find ways to reduce their operating and maintenance costs. Sound familiar?
BRI, Inc. has been assisting customers and has developed specific strategies that work. Consider a chemical company in St. Louis who was able to reduce their pump maintenance personnel significantly, or another chemical company in western Kentucky who has taken their mean time between failure (MTBF) for pumps from 20 months to 67 months.
In first hand surveys taken for the past 12 years, BRI’s customers have overwhelmingly indicated that 70-80% of all pump failures occur due to human error and/or system upsets. How can these failures be prevented? BRI has developed a four part reliability program that is ready to be implemented in your plant. The four elements of this program are:
Training – to help operators and maintenance personnel address equipment more competently. Failure Prevention – technology available today that prevents rotating equipment from failing when events caused by human error or system upsets result in equipment running in a failure mode. Predictive Maintenance – reducing the cost of each maintenance or repair event by accurately detecting when a component of a piece of rotating equipment is starting to deteriorate that left undetected would result in a more catastrophic failure and repair expense. Consultative Services – reliable, experienced rotating equipment and process engineers who can troubleshoot and recommend solutions to rotating equipment reliability issues and other business issues such as inventory management or business transaction efficiency.
A typical industrial manufacturing plant case study is attached which will demonstrate the financial magnitude of these cost reduction initiatives. In summary, these initiatives offer our customers with significant cost reduction opportunities, far greater than simply concentrating on first cost for equipment and spares.
Our motto is as follows: “What is the cheapest part you can buy? It’s the one that you don’t have to buy.” If you will let us help you prevent premature failure and therefore extend the MTBF of your equipment to 60+ months, reduce the costs associated with each repair, find ways to reduce your investment in inventory and increase your transactional efficiencies, you will realize significant maintenance cost reduction. Our case study details all this for you.
Call your sales engineer for more details on how we can get started at your facility.
Another opportunity for cost reduction is to reduce operating costs. When reviewing all the costs associated with operating rotating equipment the largest component is the energy required to power it. Energy generally accounts for 30-45% of the typical life cycle cost of a piece of rotating equipment. BRI, Inc. offers energy audits that can be conducted at your facility. The goal is to find equipment operating inefficiently or power sources that are inefficient. If an overall reduction in operating costs of 5-10% can be found, this represents a considerable savings for the customer. Your sales engineer can give you more details.
Success with any cost reduction initiative requires a plant commitment to the process. Typically we have found that plants will reassign an existing engineer to manage, steer and champion the reliability based, cost reduction initiatives being implemented. Taking this step can mean reducing more costs more quickly.
Predictive maintenance services include vibration analysis, thermography and ultrasound. Laser alignment is also vital since alignment and pipe strain can also lead to premature equipment failure. BRI laser alignment services can be performed at a BRI facility or in the field.
Equipment balance is another opportunity to reduce maintenance costs. Proper balance reduces vibration allowing for longer mechanical seal and bearing life. BRI offers dynamic balancing services that can be performed at one of our facilities or in the field.
Part of BRI’s package of consultative services includes advice regarding the setting and maintaining of the optimum environment for seal chambers and bearing housings. This includes the control of temperature, pressure, flush rates, proper lubrication materials and prevention of contamination. Mechanical seal and bearing failure are the two most common failure modes with pumps, so this is an important area to address.
