【Cloud Maintenance Tips】Eliminate defects and reduce equipment failure rate

Equipment defect management is one of the most important parts of the entire production and operation. Relevant departments need to carry out detailed management of the occurrence, characterization, reporting, elimination arrangement, statistics, and analysis of defects to ensure the healthy operation of equipment. Production enterprises should attach great importance to the elimination of defects in production equipment. In terms of defect management of production equipment, they should adhere to scientific analysis as the basis, quantitative goals, strict assessment as the means, control every production link, actively organize various professionals to carry out equipment defect elimination work, and strive to improve the defect elimination rate.

About Equipment Defect Management

1. Purpose of equipment defect management

The purpose of equipment defect management is to understand the problems existing in the running automation system so as to eliminate the defects according to lightness, severity, slowness and urgency, improve the health level of the automation system and ensure the safe operation of the automation system. On the other hand, a comprehensive analysis of the defects and summary of their changing rules can provide a basis for equipment overhaul and upgrading of the automation system.

2. Purpose of equipment defect management

The purpose of equipment defect management is to understand the problems existing in the running automation system so as to eliminate the defects according to lightness, severity, slowness and urgency, improve the health level of the automation system and ensure the safe operation of the automation system. On the other hand, a comprehensive analysis of the defects and summary of their changing rules can provide a basis for equipment overhaul and upgrading of the automation system.

3. Classification of equipment defects

Equipment defects are generally divided into three categories according to their severity:

(1) General defects: refers to equipment conditions that do not meet the requirements of regulations, but will not affect the safe operation of the equipment in the near future.

(2) Major defects: refers to equipment that is obviously damaged or deformed, which may affect the safe operation of the equipment in the near future.

(3) Emergency defects: refers to equipment defects that directly affect the safe operation of the equipment and may cause accidents at any time and must be dealt with quickly.

4. Handling of equipment defects

Establish an equipment defect record book. The defects found by the inspectors during the inspection should be recorded in the equipment defect record book in a timely manner, stating the defect situation and proposing treatment opinions. Major and above defects should be reported to the supervisor immediately and handled according to the severity of the defect. If there are defects in the automation equipment but it does not affect the safe operation, it should be monitored more closely, and analysis and accident prediction should be made for the development of defects.

5. Deadline for elimination of equipment defects

The deadline for defect elimination is generally stipulated as follows: emergency defects should be eliminated within 24 hours; major defects should be handled within 1 month depending on their severity; general defects can be included in the quarterly or annual overhaul plan for processing or eliminated during routine maintenance work.

6. Statistical analysis of equipment defects

In addition to timely elimination of equipment defects, detailed records should be kept, and operating personnel should do a good job in equipment defect elimination management, and make detailed registration and statistics on defect types, defect elimination status, etc. The maintenance manager should organize personnel to conduct technical analysis of equipment within their scope of responsibility every Friday and study countermeasures. Technical personnel should organize defect analysis meetings for professional equipment to maximize the utilization value of defect information to ensure the scientific and formalized defect management of production equipment.

Starting from the full life cycle management of production equipment, we adopt new-generation information technology to assist in the digital transformation and upgrading of production equipment services. By using the Cloud Maintenance Factory Maintenance SaaS service applet (available on WeChat, App Store, or Baidu search for "Cloud Maintenance", you can get it and use it for free), which can realize the one-machine-one-code filing of equipment, digital record of daily inspections, paperless inspections and electronic maintenance logs to meet the needs of equipment full life cycle management.

Measures to improve the defect elimination rate

1. Improve basic conditions

Basic conditions refer to the cleaning, oiling, and tightening of equipment. Improving the basic conditions of equipment is the most important link to prevent the occurrence of failure factors.

① Cleaning: Carefully clean the dust and dirt on the equipment, involving every corner of the equipment, and carefully observe the equipment status. This can not only remove dust and dirt, but also expose potential defects such as wear, looseness, scratches, leakage, temperature, vibration, and abnormal sound of the equipment and fixtures. Cleaning is very important and can be said to be a major part of the inspection work.

② Refueling: Generally speaking, it is impossible for equipment to work properly without lubricating oil. However, in many production sites, there are situations where the refueling pipe, oil pot or oil gun is empty or covered with mud and dirt, and the refueling pipe is blocked or leaking. Such phenomena are often not taken seriously. In order for the equipment to work healthily and normally, we need to ensure that the refueling work is carried out normally.

③ Tightening: The falling off, breaking and loosening of fasteners such as bolts and nuts on the equipment will have a great impact on the failure of the equipment. For example, the assembly bolts of bearing assemblies and fixtures, the installation bolts of limit switches and chucks, the fastening bolts of couplings, the flange bolts of pipe joints, etc. Sometimes a loose bolt can cause equipment failure.

2. Focus on equipment status analysis and defect elimination quality

Treat each defect handling work sensitively and arrange it reasonably, strive to improve the quality of defect elimination work, and comply with relevant process standards and requirements for common defects such as oil leakage and heat generation, improve the process level, and eliminate the problem immediately without leaving any future troubles; for uncommon defects, while conducting special analysis, actively contact the equipment manufacturer, strengthen job technical training for personnel, improve the maintenance level and quality, and eliminate the defects comprehensively and thoroughly. In view of the limited maintenance force, we should seek the best defect solution in terms of time, force and funds, strengthen the acceptance and assessment of defect handling, avoid the recurrence of the same defect in the same equipment, and effectively improve the defect elimination rate.

3. Comply with the terms of use

In order for the equipment to function properly, a series of conditions must be met. For example, in the hydraulic system, the temperature, pressure, and oil volume of the working oil, whether there are foreign objects mixed in the working oil, and the degree of oxidation; in the electrical system and instrumentation, the temperature, humidity, dust, and vibration of the surrounding gas; in general parts, taking the limit switch as an example, its installation position and installation method, the shape of the block, and whether the strength of the collision between the limit stroke block and the block is good. It is very important to ensure that all types of equipment operate under appropriate conditions, clearly define their inherent operating, operation, and load conditions, and strictly abide by the specified conditions.

If you ignore the equipment use conditions and try to improve the equipment status, working accuracy or processing conditions, not only will the equipment fail to remain stable, but it will continue to fail. Only by following the equipment use conditions and standards and strictly enforcing them can you overcome the potential defects that cause equipment failures.

4. Improve design weaknesses

In order to eliminate faults, it is often necessary to change the material of equipment components, change their size and model, and change the equipment design. When the basic conditions are met, but the equipment life is still short, faults still occur frequently, and the maintenance costs are increasing, it is more effective to identify the weaknesses in the design and modify them.

5. Improve operation and maintenance skills

When considering countermeasures for failures, there is an abnormal phenomenon, that is, the focus is limited to the equipment, work clamps, molds, and materials processed by the equipment, while ignoring the discussion of what conditions people's skills should have. If the cause of the failure is only pursued from the structure and performance of the equipment, it is easy to limit the focus to the equipment, work clamps, molds, materials, etc. As a result, despite repeated design changes or changes in material specifications, the failures have not decreased. In actual work, there are many cases where failures are caused by low skills. It would be better if it could be clearly distinguished between operating errors and repair errors, but there are many such examples in actual production. It is believed that the wrong operation method is correct, so some failures cannot be eliminated.

To this end, equipment operators and maintenance personnel must be continuously trained so that their skills reach the required level and the elimination of equipment failures can be guaranteed.