Podcasts

The Rooted in Reliability podcast is a weekly Maintenance and Reliability podcast covering common industry challenges and what you can learn from them. Each episode dives deeper into critical issues and explains where you can begin correcting theses maintenance flaws today. Sharing new tips and techniques to help you achieve industry best practice and shining a light on widely debated maintenance topics with special guest experts.

In the most recent episode, host James Kovacevic, of HP Reliability, interviews John Lambert, President of BENCHMARK PDM, in Toronto, Canada. John has 30+ years experience in machinery installation and condition monitoring. He has trained many people over the years on these subjects.

Below is an excerpt from James’ post:

When you are installing new machinery or involved in the machinery installation process at a facility or plant of the organization, there are certain issues. These issues are listed from top to the bottom categorized on the basis of seriousness. The top of the list is shaft alignment or rather misalignment. It is the most common issue while installing the machinery. It occurs due to lack training or of precision instruments, as well as measurement misconceptions. Most organizations think they have achieved alignment just because an instrument showed so. They don’t take the stress and heating mechanisms into account which causes misalignment between the collinear wings of the shaft.

The second issue is the measurement in the base. The machinery installation should start with the removal of stress. The best place to start doing this is by making sure the base is level and flat. You can t just use any off the shelf leveling tool for that. You need to stick to the height and level measurements from the surface. The third issue is soft-foot. Soft foot occurs when one foot of the machine is not in level with the other one which can cause distortion in the machine casing. It also affects alignment measurements when you are checking for correctness.

You can read the rest of Mr. Kovacevic’s blog post right here.