Digital Re-print March | April 2013

Managing mill maintenance - Maintenance options and challenges

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FEATURE

Managing mill maintenance

by Alice Neal, associate editor, Grain and Feed Milling Technology, United Kingdom
ets be honest: maintenance is not the most glamorous topic in milling. It is rarely something that gets people excited or attracts a great deal of new inventions and technologies. However, I hear time and time again that well looked after equipment is just as important as raw materials in producing a top quality end product. There are various types of maintenance and the type used will depend on the needs and resources of each individual mill. Regardless of the maintenance options used, a comprehensive maintenance programme is integral to the smooth running of a mill. The success of all aspects of grain and feed facility operations, such as quality, safety, housekeeping and customer service, is affected by the effectiveness of a facilitys preventive maintenance programme making an appropriate programme a priority in todays highly competitive market, says David Fairfield, vice

Maintenance options and challenges

president, Feed Services, National Grain and Feed Association, United States. One of the biggest difficulties in maintenance is cost. The grain and feed industry is a highly competitive, low-margin business. Making the maintenance programme perform in the most cost-effective manner possible is an on-going challenge that every facility faces, says Fairfield.

Maintenance benefits
Broadly speaking the benefits of an effective maintenance programme can be broken down into three categories: avoiding breakdowns; efficient equipment; a safe working environment. Preventing breakdowns helps avoid costly downtime and big repair bills. Equipment that is not looked after will, over time, stop working efficiently and will produce an inferior product. And as an employer, you have a duty to ensure that the mill is a safe place to work.

Changing maintenance
Increased regulatory requirements have put

greater emphasis on the importance of performing and documenting maintenance activities. However, its not necessarily all about putting pen to paper and logging maintenance manually. There is a variety of computer software on the market which has been specifically designed to track and monitor the maintenance process. These programs can be part of automation systems designed for the whole mill or purchased as stand alone packages specifically to monitor maintenance. A package will typically include systems for equipment data and repair history, parts inventory, maintenance schedules, maintenance work scheduling and report generation. Frequently, each area within the program is interactive by design; for example when parts are used, the spare parts inventory levels are reduced and equipment repair history updated. This reduces the time required to manually update separate records and helps improve record keeping accuracy, says Fairfield.

Approaches to maintenance
David Fairfield, vice president, Feed Services, National Grain and Feed Association, United States explains the key maintenance options.

Reactive maintenance
This approach follows the if it aint broke, dont fix it or run-to-failure principle. Reactive maintenance is a form of maintenance in which equipment and facilities are repaired only in response to a breakdown or a fault. This type of system has a minimal programme cost structure, but that can be offset by very significant costs associated with equipment repair and lost production.

scheduled basis. A possible disadvantage of this type of system is that the right maintenance mix is not achieved. When this occurs, a facility may in some instances experience equipment failures due to inadequate inspection and servicing. In other instances, it may be wasting maintenance dollars by spending too much time servicing and inspecting properly functioning equipment.

be too expensive when evaluated against the frequency, cost, and consequences of equipment failure.

Reliability centred maintenance

A reliability centred maintenance programme establishes a program framework that helps ensure that the proper maintenance activity is performed at the right time, and that the equipment is operated in a way that maximizes its opportunity to achieve a reliability level that is consistent with the safety, environmental, operational, and profit goals of the facility. This is achieved by addressing the basic causes of equipment and system failures and ensuring that there are facility plans in place to prevent or lessen the business impact of such failures when they occur. Establishing a reliability centred maintenance program typically involves a considerable investment in time to identify the appropriate maintenance regime for the facility. This type of programme may be best suited for large, complex operations, but once implemented can be cost-effective because targeted and appropriate activities are applied across the entire facility.
Grain

Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance - often referred to as condition monitoring - may be defined as the use of maintenance techniques to help determine the condition of in-service equipment and systems in order to predict when maintenance should be performed. The ultimate goal of predictive maintenance is to perform maintenance at a scheduled point in time when the activity may be accomplished in the most cost-effective manner and before the equipment or system loses optimum performance. Predictive maintenance techniques can be especially valuable for sophisticated equipment that is critical to a facilitys operation. However, predictive maintenance may require specialised equipment and training, which may

Preventive maintenance
A preventive maintenance programme includes procedures for inspecting, testing, and reconditioning equipment and other systems at regular intervals according to specific instructions. The goals in performing such procedures are to prevent failures in service and to prolong the life of the equipment or system. This type of system typically provides the advantage of a defined framework in which maintenance activities can take place on a
34 | march - april 2013

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FEATURE

Maintenance case study

Name: Tom Smolen Job title: Plant Manager Company: Kent Nutrition Group Country: USA

What specific areas do you consider when thing about maintenance?

What are the consequences of not planning maintenance work?

Can you give a short overview of what you do?

I manage the overall operations of a livestock feed mill. We produce all types of animal feeds in meal and pelleted forms. We are a one-shift operation, producing product five days a week.
How do you manage different types of maintenance?

All are critical to an operation. How can we do better, whether by new equipment or by changing how we utilize the existing equipment to perform better? Can we change something to improve our operation? Sanitation is critical since our end user is the consumer and they are buying the animals we manufacture for, so we need to consider the overall nature of our product and follow GMPs and HACCP fundamentals.
Most companies are concerned about keeping costs down. How can good maintenance play a part in this?

A dirty operation and one that cannot stay operational.

How do you balance schedule planned repairs and up-grades with emergencies?

Emergencies take priority but we plan our maintenance to avoid having the emergencies. Doing the inspections and lubrications keep us ahead of emergencies.
What are the biggest problems you have related to maintenance? How do you deal with them?

Maintenance is a wide variety of forms, preventative, inspection, emergency, and training. When managing an operation you need to be sure all aspects are covered. As new pieces of equipment are introduced, you need to ensure your maintenance staff are upto-date on looking after it. Downtime needs to be scheduled and planned for within the parameters of production. Everything revolves around customer service and quality. A mill needs the equipment functioning properly to deliver a quality product when the customer needs it.

It is always easier and cheaper to plan downtime on a piece of equipment, than have the equipment go down and now you need to spend excess time to either get it running and come back later to fix it, or overtime to fix it right. A well maintained plant runs smoother and stays cleaner.
How important is it to have a maintenance schedule?

Budgets. We plan our maintenance so we can follow our budget. As we follow our schedule we adjust our priorities and may have to put off some items until we can better afford to do it. That does not mean we disregard maintenance on items, we just delay some upgrades.
How much of an issue is downtime due to maintenance?

It is critical. When costs are tight, maintenance always seems to be the first thing to cut back on. But if one has a schedule to follow, then you can also plan your costs and control your budget better.

Almost non-existent.
What advice would you give to millers to ensure effective maintenance?

Just do it.

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This digital Re-print is part of the March | April 2013 edition of Grain & Feed Milling Technology magazine. Content from the magazine is available to view free-of-charge, both as a full online magazine on our website, and as an archive of individual features on the docstoc website. Please click here to view our other publications on www.docstoc.com.
March - April 2013

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In this issue:
Measures for increasing the energy efficiency of UFA feed mills in Switzerland Importance of trace minerals for nutrient stability in feed Managing mill maintenance - Maintenance
options and challenges

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