ALFIL MILLERS LIMITED

JULY 2019
MONTHLY OPERATIONS &
MAINTENANCE REPORT
 Monthly Report of Operations and Maintenance
For Alfil millers for both mill A and B and motor vehicles For
the Month of July 2019

AUGUST 9TH, 2019

GENERAL MANAGER

ALFIL MILLERS LTD

Dear Sir:

The maintenance team is pleased to present the attached Monthly report. Included is a detailed
report of operation and maintenance of both Mill A, Mill B and motor vehicle for the month of
July. The maintenance team welcomes any comments or questions on this report.

Sincerely,

Maintenance team
Executive Summary
The month of July ran well and it was very productive. As the work of maintenance team is to keep both
mill A and B machinery and equipment available and reliable to their effective capacity throughout the
entire life span, the maintenance together with production team carried out a number of good
maintenance practices last month to maintain this. Unlike the previous months, mill B experienced a
number of breakdowns though due to excellent team work between the production and maintenance
teams, production stand stills and consequential costs due to these breakdowns were insignificant.

Maintenance for the last month (July) has been centered on mill B, since it experienced a number of
break downs such as Apex separator, filter for second cleaning, dampener which still not yet okay, two
electric motors one in mill A and other in mill B, two scouring machines one which was very severe,
breakdown of stainless steel magnetic casings, wheat grain pipes that are deteriorating so fast due to
wear and tear and others, as will be illustrated in this report. Both Production and maintenance teams
carried out corrective maintenance since some of the breakdowns like the one on Apex separator and
stainless steel magnetic housings came as a result of manufacturer‘s original machine design failed to
work efficiently.

There was also reactive maintenance done after scourer broke down to prevent production stand still as
the scourer was being repaired. There was general greasing of the mill B as well. The maintenance team
last month during the course of carrying out corrective maintenance ensured that production
equipments needed for this type of maintenance such as vacuum valves needed for aspiration system
and dead boxes were fabricated at the company’s workshop with the available material and expertise
instead of outsourcing. By using the company’s available small resources for such tremendous work
strikes a balance between the effectiveness of maintenance work and overall maintenance cost. The
maintenance team is proud to keep the mill equipments and machines with high effectiveness and long
life span at a minimum cost.
The table below illustrates preventive maintenance at mill A and B respectively carried out in July

Activities done Brief explanation of work done

General greasing This month started with general greasing of the entire mill. This is done every after 3
of mill B months and is intended to prolong the life span of these bearings and other mill
equipments which could malfunction as the result of the opposite. Grease was first
measured precisely and accurately so as to give the exact quantity of grease to each
bearing depending on its size. In total, all over 380 bearings in mill B were greased
last month and the process is still ongoing up to end of August.
Cleaning of This is done on a weekly basis i.e., cleaning inside all the pressure fans ensured
pressure fans & removal of dust that’s gets clogged on fan impellers during production and this
air filters for reduces the vibration of the fans to a bearable level that could not damage the
blowers for A & electric motor bearings so fast. Excessive vibrations from these fans also cause loose
B connections in electrical wirings and bolted joints in machines and equipments,
finally working under a vibrating environment threaten the workers’ safety and
health as it may cause vibration syndrome. On the other hand, cleaning of air filters
increases the effectiveness of air blowers and filters.
Cleaning of This is also done weekly to remove any stacked residue that settles at the bottom of
dampener the dampener. This residue when not removed decays and is a threat to food safety
since it can become a bleeding area for biological food safety hazards.
Daily inspection The maintenance team does daily inspection during the operation of both mills to
of mill A and B ensure that any signal to a break down is rectified before it intensifies. This ensured
that either mills run smoothly during production period thus reducing down time
and its resulting losses to the company.
Removing of The maintenance has tried and still trying to eliminate cobwebs in both mills but still
cobwebs in mill not yet accomplished. We have faced a challenge of long heights that cannot be
B reached during cleaning and we hope the company can provide a scaffold on this
purpose.
The table below illustrates breakdown maintenance at mill A and B respectively carried out in July.

Activities done Brief explanation of work done

Breakdown In this month we had a complete breakdown of scourer screen during the night shift,
maintenance of this caused the wheat grain passing through the screen to end up in the broken silo.
scourer for The new screen was purchased after some days and fitted properly on three different
second cleaning frames and placed back on the scourer.
Installation of Maintenance team made a reactive maintenance plan and created a by-pass from
by-pass elevator to the aspirator instead of scourer so as to continue with the normal
production as we waited for the screen to be purchased though it took some days.
Repairing of The screw conveyor between the silo for broken and hummer mill was damaged as
screw conveyor a result of over loading, it was removed and repaired and hope in future to install a
limit switch at the end point of the conveyor to prevent this from happening further
as we did for the intake conveyor June.
Filter Productions and maintenance team carried out maintenance on one filter for second
maintenance cleaning stage, filter bags were removed and cleaned, some bags were replaced by
new ones and the whole filter chamber was thoroughly cleaned.
Removing and One electric motor at the volumetric measurer on grain silo number 10 in mill B
installing 2 burned down due to overload. This overload came as result of one elevator cup
electric motors broke off and entered the silo up to the measurer which blocked and overloaded the
at both mills motor and burned down. The second electric motor was at mill A on flour elevator
and its rotor had bent at the extreme end. All were removed, separated from their
respective gearboxes, taken out for service and then fixed back properly.
Repairing of This was done by replacing two old water seals by new ones and arranging them
dampener at properly since they were fixed incorrectly prior. After an observation was made for
mill B one week, the dampener seemed okay but later broke down again with more
leakages. The fault is under observation and soon final rectification will be done.
Maintenance on The fan inside this separator failed to raise enough pressure to push all the dust to
Apex separator the filter, instead more pressure was coming back from the filter to the separator
with a lot of dust that spread in the entire mill B. The root cause of this fault was not
discovered but a final solution was made. One aspiration pipe was installed on
elevator to suck out dust from the grain before it reaches the separator though this
didn’t work as we anticipated. The final solution was to block completely the main
aspiration pipe that connects the separator fan to the filter to seal off the back
pressure and connect an auxiliary aspiration pipe from the separator fan to main
aspiration pipe of the same filter and this worked excellently.
During daily inspection of both mills especially the new mill (mill B) during production, it came to our
notice that corrective maintenance was urgently needed at particular points inside the mill to reduce on
the frequent breakdowns that have started to occur and which would multiply in the near future. This
would affect the company as damages resulting from these breakdowns will be more costly.

For instance;

 The rapid wear and tear of stainless steel magnetic housings, cast elbows and grain pipes that
are deteriorating so fast due to high speed and friction of wheat grain during processing.
 During production, elevator cups accidently break off from some belts and find their way to the
bottom of the grain silos, in here, some block the volumetric measures and since they are
connected to electric motors, the motor gets overloaded and burns down like in previous case
at mill B. Other cups get stack and make flow of grain from silos totally difficult hence
interrupting production.
 It was noticed in the last month (June) that there was need to install aspiration pipes on
different points at mill B to improve the effectiveness of the cleaning system and this has been
done efficiently though still ongoing.

The maintenance team together with productions has installed 4 aspiration pipes adding on the first we
installed in June, and this month (July) we fabricated 5 dead boxes since there not in stock using the
available material at hand on addition to the pressure valves that we fabricated for use during
installation of aspiration pipes.

Aspiration pipes installed in this month July;

 One aspiration on B1 roller hopper

 One aspiration on flow balancer
 One aspiration on apex separator
 One aspiration on bucket elevator

We also fabricated all the vacuum valves and Y-spouts that were used during installation of aspiration
pipes and 5 dead boxes that we are planning to install at various points in the mill in the coming month
of August to reduce the wear and tear grain pipes and stainless steel magnetic housings. All these
fabrications are precisely done at the company workshop with the available material.
Operations high light on motor vehicle maintenance

Repairing of fifth wheel on trailer truck UAT 739D by welding

Repairing of two V- arms for scanier truck UAM 813Y

Repairing of propeller shaft for crane truck UAL 068D

Changing engine oil, oil and diesel filters on UAW 821Y

Changing engine oil on UAQ 475B

PERSONNEL

The maintenance team includes one motor vehicle & one maintenance mechanic, one welder and two
technical helpers. The team work hand in hand to deliver precise results. The team also works hand in
hand with productions team to ensure proper mill maintenance.
APPENDIX 1

Aspiration pipe

Figure 1; aspiration pipe on top of B1 Hoper to increase the cleaning efficiency

Aspiration pipe

Figure 2; Aspiration on flow balancer

 Aspiration pipe

Figure 3; Aspiration on bucket elevator

Auxiliary aspiration pipe installed

Main pressure pipe sealed off at this

Point after failure

Figure 4; Main pressure pipe on apex separator sealed off to prevent back pressure from filter, an auxiliary aspiration pipe
installed to remove dust and bee-wings efficiently from separator to filter
APPENDIX 2

Figure 5; Dead boxes fabricated at the company workshop to be installed in mill B

Vacuum valve

Figure 6; some of the vacuum valves fabricated at the company workshop that are used on aspiration system

One of the y-spouts under

fabrications

Figure 7; Y-spouts like this one and many more are fabricated at company workshop
APPENDIX 3

Figure 8; Air filters before weekly cleaning

Figure 9; Air filters after weekly cleaning

Figure 10; inside dampener before weekly cleaning

Figure 11; some of the decayed grain removed from dampener during weekly cleaning
 Damaged area

Figure 12; one of the damaged scourer screens

New scourer screen

Figure 13; New screen being installed on scourer frame

Figure 14; damaged screw conveyor under repair

Figure 15; some of elevator buckets that break off and fall into the grain silo which eventually block the volumetric
measurers and over load the electric motor causing motor burning. This is being solved by installing dead boxes at key points
like on elevator buckets
Figure 16; filter bags filled up with dust from filter before cleaning

Figure 17; inside filter during maintenance at mill B

 Damaged stainless steel
magnetic housing

Figure 18; one of the damaged magnetic housings inside mill B, this has prompted the maintenance team to install dead
boxes to prevent this and prolong the life of these expensive stainless steel housings.

Inspection

Figure 19; inspection installed at filter pipe to enhance removal of choked bee-wings, such corrective maintenance is being
done in mill B to smoothen maintenance and production operations