The Timken Company now provides a new turnkey Predictive Maintenance Program (PdM) for companies that want to maximize uptime and achieve improved performance. Using this new program, Timken will custom design, set up and mentor customers in the development of their own in-house predictive maintenance programs.
To do this, Timken can either take full responsibility for customers’ predictive maintenance programs by using its own award-winning method of managing a program’s data and delivering tangible results, or it can consult with customers on program design, start-up, training and hardware selection while customers retain responsibility for the overall process.
Timken’s Predictive Maintenance Program steps are:
Program Design – Includes high-level assessment of maintenance effectiveness, audit of existing programs and assessment of machine criticality, as well as a recommended schedule for PdM start up, hardware and training.
Program Startup – Timken will establish service-route schedules and timing, baseline readings, database setup and program alarm triggers, as well as equipment monitoring and servicing.
World-Class Training – Experienced Timken reliability professionals will provide general technology training, hardware-specific training and hands-on mentoring, as well as transition program responsibility to the customer.
Hardware Selection – Timken will suggest the latest and most appropriate technologies, recommend specific hardware solutions and lead the customer to a flexible design with either a Timken solution or an alternate solution that fits their needs.
The new program is just one aspect of Timken’s Reliability Solutions, and according to Tom Millis, manager of Timken’s Global Reliability Services, Timken associates’ knowledge of friction management gives the company a competitive edge in all of its Reliability Solutions offerings.
“Timken’s goal with this program is to help transform the culture within a plant from being reactive to proactive,” Millis said. “We can teach customers to better understand and predict the performance of manufacturing equipment, helping them move from a ‘break-fix’ culture to an asset-management culture.”
A variety of industries can be served by the program, from mills to power plants, mining companies and food processors.
Timken’s reliability solutions are designed to help eliminate the guesswork from maintenance to increase customer profitability. The company’s proven solutions reduce maintenance costs, unexpected failures, repair and overhaul time and spare parts inventories. In addition to Timken’s Predictive Maintenance Turnkey Program, other offerings include hand-held devices, wireless and remote monitoring systems, condition monitoring systems, reliability consulting and Timken Reliability Services.
“Reliability best practices will reduce maintenance costs, spare parts inventory and energy consumption while improving mean time between failure and part-life cycles,” Millis said. “Ultimately, proper execution can increase capacity without an investment in capital. Increased capacity leads to increased sales and profitability. In reliability circles, this is commonly referred to as “unleashing the hidden factory.”
Posted May 20th,2008