How to integrate machine alignment systems into the plant's technical culture

Today's machines must be optimised so that the integration of the rotating machine alignment systems in the technical culture of the plant is a vital part of daily maintenance. The machines have to be continuously aligned with a minimum of interruptions in their operation and thus achieve the highest availability.

Productive organisations have hierarchical pyramidal structures working from the most operational to the most executive level. The culture is managed on different scales and to transform the technical culture of integrating machine alignment systems and other predictive maintenance technologies within the organisation, it is advisable to start from the bottom up.

In many companies the problem of predictive maintenance culture is not at the bottom, it is at the top of the organisation. Executives are not aware of the benefits that can be achieved by implementing predictive maintenance systems and therefore do not pay enough budgetary attention to integrating machine alignment systems into the technical culture of the plant.

Many production managers and maintenance managers fail in the process of creating a predictive maintenance culture in front of financial managers and controllers because they approach it from a technical point of view and not from an economic justification. The executive does not understand the technical side, but they do understand cost savings, increased profitability or increased revenue.

The financial manager will ask why should I make an investment of €100,000 in predictive maintenance if no one has explained to me the return I can get? In the following table you can see an example that answers this question.

It is true that all companies have different cultures, but in all companies the concept of return on investment is common. To integrate machine alignment systems into the predictive maintenance culture, it is necessary to focus technically on the operational base of the company and economically on the more executive side.

The key to implementing a culture of predictive maintenance and alignment at the executive level of the organisation is to make sure that the financial managers buy into it. To begin this cultural change in executives, you must help them answer the following questions:

• What elements of the particular business or situation are impacted and is it possible to measure their impact?
• Who is responsible for changes in these impacted areas?
• How much economic impact and value can be achieved over a given period of time?
• What technical skills are needed?
• When does the investment and associated costs occur?
• When can this investment pay for itself?

One of the first things to do when integrating machine alignment systems into the technical culture of the plant is to establish the success criteria for implementing an alignment plan. The goal is to list all the criteria for when the project will be successful and how. The approach is to establish a baseline measurement of how the company's situation was prior to the implementation of the alignment, monitor the results once the alignment is implemented, calculate the improvement gap and then report on the data obtained.

Identify the specific items that both management and the maintenance manager agree should be measured once the rotating machine shaft alignment plan is implemented. It may be one or two items or even a long list, the important thing is that the results obtained can be monitored.

Establishing success criteria will help the maintenance manager in several ways when integrating machine alignment systems into the technical culture of the plant. Initially, it will help establish credibility and trust, key ingredients in creating a predictive maintenance culture. It is important to let management know that you will be monitoring results over time to ensure that the established success criteria are being met. It is advisable to measure results on a quarterly basis, although this may vary by industry sector.

What success criteria can you use?

• No. of failures before and after alignment.
• What kind of breakdowns?
• No. of staff hours spent on breakdowns.
• Amount of spare parts used in breakdowns in Euro.
• Energy consumption.
• Costs in production losses.
• Cost of Risk.
• Hours of unplanned maintenance.
• Maintenance cost per machine.
• Increase in productive hours.
• Reduced maintenance costs.

There is a great benefit in using the success criteria during the evaluation process of the equipment purchase decision and technologies for the alignment of rotating machines, It helps to determine how close we have come to the improvement objectives with the alignment. When the finance manager achieves a positive change of the organisation's current situation, measurable under his business success metrics, which is successful for him, then it will also be beneficial for the maintenance department.

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