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Developing a Motor Bearing Regreasing Strategy
Charles Smith, PdM Analyst, Miller Brewing Company
The first task at hand would be to convince management at the
plant that regreasing the motor bearings is a necessity. You could
do this by inviting lube reps. and motor reps. to the plant and
setting up meetings with key parties at the plant so that they
could hear the benefits of greasing these bearings.
You wouldn't want to invite lube reps. only, because management
may feel that the reps. would only be trying to "make a sale".
Motor reps. may be more "trusted" in this situation, since they
would actually have more to lose (in sales, due to failed bearings).
You should also do some research on your own, finding/creating
charts and spreadsheets from the internet and magazines to support
the idea. Once management has bought into this, you would have
to task someone (maybe yourself) with the chore of making a list
of the motors that are to be regreased. This would involve collecting
nameplate data from the motors. HP, MFR, RPM, Model #...any key
information found on the nameplate that would prove to be useful
to determine proper lubrication techniques.
Once this data is collected, contact the motor manufacturers
and request literature pertaining to lubrication of their bearings
for these motors. You would have to find out how to do it, what
type grease to use, and the frequency at which it should be regreased.
Since no one at the plant has ever regreased these bearings, it
would probably be a good idea to have a motor rep. and/or a lube
rep. to come on-site and give a seminar of sorts, demonstrating
the proper way to lubricate the various bearings.
You will also want to tag each motor for easy identification
of the grease type to use (and how much) for that motor. Lastly,
if the plant uses an automated Work Order system (most do anymore),
you should task the administrator of this system with setting
it up to kick out the work orders on the prescribed basis.
If the plant doesn't have an automated Work Order system, there
should be a tag at each motor location (or a form on a clipboard)
that the oiler/greaser should fill out so that the motor is greased
properly and timely.
See other responses
to this Readers Challenge.
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