Who decides when to service?

There are lots of maxims that most people would subscribe to in theory, but are unable to live up to in practice. Most service technicians working in the processing industries, for example, would agree that “preventive servicing makes sense,” even though this can scarcely be described as standard practice. In most cases, plants are serviced only when absolutely necessary. In other words, it is the malfunctioning plant and not the operator that decides when to service.
More than 85 percent of those questioned in a recent survey (www.intentia.com) agreed that preventive servicing improves not only productivity, but the performance of the enterprise as a whole. And almost two thirds were convinced that preventive servicing would give them an edge on their competitors. Despite this, most companies commit less than ten percent of their total operating costs to servicing and almost two thirds of the companies questioned apparently spend less than half their servicing budget on precautionary measures.
In reality, however, the problem of failed parts boils down to just a few items of equipment. If something is going to break down, then more likely than not it will be a pump or its motor. Nor is this surprising, when one considers just how many pumps and motors there are in an average chemical plant. Our Special that begins on page 32 of this issue of PROCESS worldwide is therefore devoted to pumps and compressors and addresses such issues as reliability and the early detection of faults. Yet even in the title story that starts on page 18, readers will be able to find out how BP in Marl, Germany, is gradually modernizing its production processes with the aid of intelligent motor management. Those in charge of this project began by collecting and analyzing all the relevant data and then developed a preventive servicing concept that would ensure that the production of styrene, ethylbenzene and cumene could not be brought to a standstill by some hidden defect.
And by the way, the respondents in the aforementioned survey had no trouble accounting for the lack of
adequate preventive servicing. Whereas in some cases the servicing budget was too meager, in others it was a lack of foresight on the part of the management or insufficient personnel that was to blame.
What is your experience of this problem? Write to me and let me know!

-Frank Jablonski-