Reliability Gang Podcast
Welcome the #Reliabilitygang Podcast! I would like to welcome you all to my reliability journey. I am passionate about reliability and I want to share as much as I can with everyone with my experiences. Stories are powerful and my aim of this outlet is to gather as many insights and experiences and share them with the world. Thanks for joining the #reliabilitygang.
Reliability Gang Podcast
RELIABLE REPAIR CENTRE - THE FUTURE OF REPAIR
Discover the transformative power of precision in motor repair and and the electromechanical industry as we journey through the launch of our new repair centre and take a revealing look at our advanced diagnostic techniques. Our visit to France offers a riveting sneak peek at Acoems innovative vibration analysis tools that promise to be game-changers in maintenance strategies. As we unpack the nuances of electrical equipment and the importance of experience in solving complex problems, we bring you tales from the front lines of reliability, straight from the engineers and technicians who live it daily.
Delve into the heart of motor maintenance with us, where we unveil the role of advanced testing equipment such as the Megger ADX tester in advanced winding testing. From the importance of routine checks to the intricacies of maintaining electrical integrity, we dissect the critical balance between mechanical precision and electrical know-how. With insights into the nitty-gritty details that make a motor tick, we celebrate the finesse required to keep critical machinery at peak performance, ensuring that our clients experience fewer interruptions and smoother operations.
Join our collaborative discourse on precision maintenance and its indelible impact on asset reliability. Learn how a culture of proactive steps and a commitment to excellence can transform the very fabric of repair shop standards. As we discuss the ripple effects of precision work, we underscore the collective efforts that go into advancing our industry, striving not just to be the largest, but the most reliable and top-notch in service quality. With a steadfast ethos of 'detect, solve, and improve', we're paving the way for a future where reliability isn't just an expectation—it's a guarantee.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the reliability game podcast. I'm here with my man, will hey, keaton buddy. Good, thank you. We are back and again this podcast. We're actually going to have a bit of a breakup within the reliability roadmap. We've been going deep guys. We've been going like concepts, culture, strategies, strategies, all the different strategies. We've been going real deep with it and there's a lot of technical kind of talk when we come to these podcasts. We need a break. We need to just chill out a little bit.
Speaker 1:So obviously, within kind of this month, we are looking the end of the month to launch the repair center. Everybody see, obviously, the pictures up online. Everyone see kind of the division. We've not really given anything away inside of our kind of units yet. So we kind of done that for a reason, because what we want to try to do is do a bit of a reveal and kind of do a bit of an event with it all as well, which kind of leads us into kind of today's discussions. We're going to talk about that. We've got an exciting week as well this week and we will. What are we?
Speaker 2:doing? This week we are taking a trip over to France. We're going to go see AcoEM. So those of you that know we use a lot of AcoEM's equipment in a lot of the detect side of maintain in helping us do our vibration analysis, and so we're taking a trip over to go see all of different equipment. Understand a bit more about MVX, Eagle and Sparrow, which are their kind of wireless continuous vibration monitoring solutions. So just have a bit of a chat with the guys, go see the facilities over in France and get a bit of training so that we can come back and deliver to the rest of the team.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's been exciting. We've wanted to do this for a while, to be fair, because obviously we use a lot of AcoEM equipment for it, especially, will said, the detect side of the business. We've kind of now set up a bit of a hub analysis hub as well, where we're trying to feed in a lot of 4.0 data alongside a lot of our monthly data. We are going for a little bit of a transition now in terms of how they get collected and we are moving towards trying to A try to find more efficient ways of collection and, b as well, try to be able to actually take more data so we can understand what it means in them times in between.
Speaker 2:We're in that data driven world now where lots of actionable data can be added together, and we need a place to be able to bring all that data in one place and have experts being able to review it.
Speaker 1:Exactly that kind of reveals more to come on that later on. We have got the obviously analysis subset up. We are now looking to be able to obviously feed all that into Nest, and we've got some real cool plans with a web portal kind of based AcoEM system that allows us to be able to really feed everything in. This is where it's really exciting now as well, because for a while there was something missing from the AcoEM online kind of monitoring framework, and they've just introduced it now, and, honestly, I'm excited for this. When we go there this week, it's going to be great just to learn as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Look forward to seeing you all in France this week. And back to the repair center side, though, anyway, we are actually launching at the end of this month, so there's two specific days that will be launched pretty much now and you'll probably hear the announcement before this even goes out and then two days is where what we're going to do is invite anyone to come over to see the process from the analysis hub as well. In terms of VA, we're going to have a lot of stuff to show in terms of vibration analysis and condition monitoring and precision maintenance, but more importantly and more excitingly, probably the other side, which is the repair center that allows us to actually take everyone through the way. We're now able to close that gap on the solve part and actually start to repair motors, gearboxes, pumps, anything electromechanical you know essentially is going to be able to go in there.
Speaker 2:It falls into nicely that whole, like our motto or slogan. That's on the website and, for those that haven't heard it, it's detecting the problem, which we do through the analysis hub. So we detect problems with pieces of machinery using diagnostics and data, so detecting the problem, providing the solution.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's actually doing the work.
Speaker 2:Doing it. So obviously, once we go and we've detected potentially a problem with a piece of machinery something that we were both taught during our mentors in engineering was you know, when there's a problem, guys always come to me with at least one solution, which is what our engineering managers used to tell me so never problems, always solutions.
Speaker 2:We want to ensure that we're going with at least a solution, and that might be an onsite repair or potentially even taking that asset out during planned maintenance to have it repaired by a repair facility, and it's good we have the option now because obviously before when we was onsite, we did a lot of onsite bearing changes onsite because obviously that's generally quickest and most efficient way of doing it.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean? But sometimes, if there is the time and element to be able to take that away for overhaul and you're able to as well test the mert windings, you're able to, you know, give it a good wash out, good clean out, re-varnish it, give it a real good kind of almost like a bit of a prep up. If it has to be repaired because the conditions weren't it, we've identified it from the detect side At least, in that that can be overhauled now, even in an even more precise way, from being in a workshop environment where you've got the you know right equipment and you've got the right conditions about to do so as well, you know.
Speaker 2:Yep. And the last bit, which is I think this is actually the most important which factors into all this, which is, we like to say, improve and reliability together. So in all of these kind of three aspects, the whole throughout, all of it, it's about empowering maintenance teams to, you know, do precision maintenance and understand when the pieces of equipment do potentially fail. How do we facilitate the reliability processes? But this is also where the repair centre comes in key, because when we come to improving the reliability, when we have identified that a bearing may have a defect on it and we've provided a solution in that that motor needs to, there's a shutdown period coming up in the next few months. We're going to take the motor out of service, put a spare in, but we want to send this away. The next part, what we really want to be doing, is understand, you know, why did this happen in the first place?
Speaker 1:and what sort of things can we do with it?
Speaker 2:The root cause of why we see in these things as well, and for us in the past that has been tricky, because often that motor is then sent to a repair centre that we don't have communication with. And as much as we beg and please, please, can you ask?
Speaker 1:them to. It's like a trophy. Save the bearing. Can I see the bearing?
Speaker 2:please. And sometimes, even though they have saved the bearing, there's telltale signs that are only visible during the strip down of the motor, of course, because you need to inspect the housings.
Speaker 1:You need to inspect. That's the thing, isn't it? All that kind of work and all that information, when that does get stripped is lost. There's a big part of it lost. So even if you keep the parts, okay, that identify the defects and obviously you can do root cause analysis kind of types with that as well, of course you can take that and have a look at kind of the reasons why. But you are right, well, as soon as you've, as soon as you strip that, there's a lot of information in terms of even the feel of it, feeling the shaft, feeling the movement, any backlash. Do you know what I mean? Seeing if there's any housing deflection as well, and that is all done by the engineer, technician within that workshop environment as well. So you know, this is why for us it's quite exciting because this really fulfills kind of where I've always had a passion for electrical work. You know, when I was originally back in the workshop and I was rewinding it was, it was a beautiful kind of sense of feeling when you'd actually complete that work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it just gave you this sense of pride, especially taking something that is potentially broken.
Speaker 1:It's like, it's like a cycle in a quick like to furniture in it.
Speaker 2:When you take that bit of like I've got a broken leg and you take it and you somehow transform it back into something nice again.
Speaker 1:But do you know what is even more nice, actually? Obviously seeing the work and seeing the winding take form, and you know, and then doing it all in a very neat and precise way, which again taps into reliability, because the more care you're taking with that as fetics of it, do you know what I mean the more precise that's going to be, you know? Do you know what I mean? Even small elements make a big difference small little inputs, large outputs. But it's just when you run that up and you see it moving. After that you've completely rewound it.
Speaker 1:And it's just humming. That's the feeling, that's the beautiful feeling. So, yeah, obviously, you know, coming back to this, for me it's always been something that we've spoken about, it's always been something that we've kind of thought about, because I, you know, becoming from that world was so passionate for me, and now this is why I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:You can probably see the excitement in me for the guys that are developing within, like the detect side of maintaining the analysis. How beautiful was it.
Speaker 1:Well, when we took them right and this was the first week of January we went this and training, we stripped some gearboxes and we together, kind of we was in there and when we showed them the where from what we detected from our vibration analysis on these freak gearboxes was just absolutely beautiful for them to see.
Speaker 2:I feel like if they're like anyone that's doing condition monitoring and analysis, that doesn't. That isn't in an environment where they're able to do that and we weren't in the past like, obviously you've come from the repair workshop as well, so when you work to your previous employee that you had repairs and you were doing CM, and when I was at mine I had repairs. We used to do it in house, a lot of our stuff, but that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:You was doing it from on the perspective right, and that's something that I never had, because I never I was. Whenever we did on site work, we were contractors coming on site, whereas when you was empowered to do that, you was looking at your own maintenance you know what I mean and that was nice actually to hear about.
Speaker 1:you know even your story at British Shig and how they, how they did that, how they kept a lot of them processes within the organization. It's beautiful as well for the people that work Well it allowed us to develop massively.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's where for us as well, for our guys within the analysis hub and in that condition monitoring side of things, for them to continue to develop and improve. They need that confirmation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:I've seen there's a defect with the outrace. It's coming through the workshop and then we can go. Look guys, you were bang on, you was yeah, and do you know what, though?
Speaker 1:but that's the beautiful thing as well they can see the damage, because when you first get involved with vibration analysis, all you're seeing is numbers, metrics, graph spectrums, and they obviously mean something. After you see what they mean as a defect related issue of a mechanical, visual like perspective of what that data actually means, that's what it means. So when you start seeing that, you can start to then visualize. Well, what does that read? What does one G in the envelope at the sharp speed mean? To me in terms of damage, though, because these are the hard things to understand, because with VA, we're always going to get readings that can be high, but it's understanding what they actually mean in a mechanical value, because some readings that might for example, envelope is a great example you could get your envelope ringing off, but what is actually ringing off in that envelope? Is it in VA? Do you know what I mean? Is it a housing defect or is it a bearing defect? And depending on the amplitudes, they mean different things.
Speaker 1:High amplitude with a housing defect might not necessarily have the same severity as a bearing defect that has an extremely high peak at that outer race defect, because that means you need to act a little bit quicker. Or what type of defect is it? Caged defect, for example? Well, that doesn't mean you need such a high amplitude to justify the severity to do something about it. So this is where it's really nice to have a selection of bearings with damage. We've got the readings and as well the heights of them readings in terms of what they've reached as a reference point for the guys to really start understanding. Because if I had that from the my get go for the beginning, it would have fast tracked me like tenfold, because it's a confidence to know what to say when you're seeing these things. Without the confirmation, it's really difficult.
Speaker 2:It allows us to create the guidebook that we also have always wanted to create as well. So we start to have the content to start putting. We've got the VA data.
Speaker 1:We just need the photographs to come in around that and the physical element around the repair side of it, so us being able to do all of that even on the CM side.
Speaker 1:It allows them to learn a lot about the other and obviously there are two separate, going to be two separate business models, but they're going to intertwine with each other so well Because there's going to be a lot of communication in terms of when we find things is the feedback of what is found to the technicians that allow them to be able to understand the defects, allow them to be able to grow and understand it more and they progress within their career, not just about becoming like I don't know, level three engineers. Eventually is where we all want to push them. Of course we do. We want to always push them, but more so in terms of experience, actual solid experience of seeing the defect from the creation. So the repair shop this is why you can probably see the energy right now I'm amped up for this repair center and the idea is we really want to really focus on that reliability of everything we're doing.
Speaker 2:It's important because, fundamentally, those that have listened to the reliability roadmap podcast and are understanding a little bit more. And when it comes down to installing a brand new piece of machinery or, in the reliability's eyes, a machine that has been repaired which we would consider almost as new, when we install that piece of equipment, there is a period of time where the reliability has the potential to be less.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very true, and you'll notice, on certain assets and certain clients, where that point has actually probably happened. Do you know what I mean In terms of maybe it's a small process where they can get done quite correctly, all of that?
Speaker 2:all of that, that first early stage where there's the potential for an issue to happen. All of that is that usually is a contribution of few different things. You know maintenance induced issues. So has the repair been done with precision tools or has the bearing been whacked on it? Has it been a reputable repair workshop? Are they following the relevant standards? Has it been laser aligned? All these things, has it been balanced properly? Contribute to the. There's so many opportunities there for the Swiss cheese to line up to lead to a maintenance, use failure.
Speaker 2:So because of that, that was the reason why the repair center was started to ensure that we can do everything we can possible with a reliability mindset, to ensure that we are minimizing all those potential failure opportunities. Have we made sure the bearing is stored in the right environment? Has it been done like this? Has it been done installed using precision tools, so that when it is with the customer at site whether we're going in to install it using laser alignment or they are at the repair everything's been done to ensure maximum potential life?
Speaker 1:and reliability. It's almost like defect elimination on our part. Do you know what I mean in terms of what we're doing and when that comes in and thinking about, we're almost famicom in it. We're like how could this fail and how can we put an action in for each area, and even on the testing side? I mean we recently received thank you, mega, by the way for the brand new ADX tester. Oh my God, like when I received that, I was like wow.
Speaker 1:So, this is next level test equipment, guys. I'm literally I'm going to do a full, separate video on this, a YouTube video on how it tests and everything, because you have to remember, guys, I was back in that workshop nearly seven years ago and actually longer than that.
Speaker 2:Seven years ago when I started my training.
Speaker 1:I'm getting too old man, I'm forgetting even when I started it. It was good 10 years ago. 10, 13 years ago, actually, jesus. So exactly I was in that workshop a long time ago. Technology's changed. Look at the analyzers that we've got now in terms of the as well online monitoring, very quick succession.
Speaker 2:We spoke there obviously about that first early stage and you mentioned about the ADX tester that we've got. How, as well as specifically that bit of equipment, how will that ensure that a customer that may send us a motor for repair? How does that help them?
Speaker 1:Oh, massively. So the whole idea of this electrical tester is to really test a lot of different elements within the electrical winding. We all know, in terms of looking at failure modes of how a motor can potentially fail, there's two main ones, I believe, that are quite important, and probably the most common One being electrical failure on the windings, when the integrity of the windings the other one obviously being bearing defect that will cause potentially again, though it all depends on what happened first. So obviously, if you get a bearing defect and it takes a winding, that wasn't the root cause. The root cause is the fact that bearing failed. But what we're doing when we're testing for the motor windings is to check generally that is a very huge part of that make of that motor, that winding. Do you know what I mean? And what we did to do is check the integrity of the insulation Because, remember, when we are winding a motor, we are winding a set of coils within that that is isolated, insulated from the core. So obviously, with these slots, what you've got is insulated Nomex material that insulates obviously all of that. So one test that is vital is to understand is obviously making sure there's no surge current to wear through the casing. So what the ADX does? It puts a lot of surge within the windings that allows it to be able to test up to 15 kilovolts. This thing's a beast man Like a beast.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we're dealing with a lot smaller motors in terms of what we're doing, but the idea is it can obviously test up for them larger motors as well, even on site. So we could actually now I've got a bag for it as well we could actually rock up to site and do a full motor test and do a full motor test as well and test for lots of different parameters to see the integrity and health of the actual winding itself. And I do believe that is going to become a bigger thing as we move forward in terms, especially the bigger motors as well, and especially in shutdown scenarios and situations. Okay, it may not have to be done every single month, it's not a kind of it's still a condition monitoring technique, but they're probably, you know, you could probably do it once every, you know, or twice every year. You know what I mean and that would be a great way On your critical ones Critical assets, big motors, real critical ones and you could do it in shutdowns.
Speaker 1:So you shut down as you could pick 10 motors to be able to do this test, and you've got the information there and you've got everything there as well, just to give it a bit of an understanding of where it's going to be. Because, essentially, if you do have a breakdown installation or something, it's not quite failed yet but it's potentially going to, you're going to start to see it degrade.
Speaker 1:You're going to see that again, it's a bit like a bearing defect, that defect initiation point to seeing that happen.
Speaker 1:Obviously, the more it heats up and the more over time as well vibration as well Micro vibrations into the core. This is why varnish and your motors is so important in terms of that having that real solid, you know, hardening of the actual widening itself Over time. It is going to fail. So the idea is, your condition monitoring for your wind is essentially and I don't think it's done, you know often, but this is now another thing you can do on site. But again, in terms of back to your question, in terms of the customer, when we get this device in, from one press of a button on the mega ADX, which will do a complete video of all the different features when it tests, for can do a surge test that looks, you know, puts current through the motors as well, to identify any turn to turn shorts, any face to face shorts as well, because the three phases need to be isolated, and any kind of insulation defects or, you know, within the core to earth, to the widen itself, and it does all of that within one.
Speaker 2:So we can, we're going to be able to produce a detailed report to ensure that the electrical integrity of that motor. Oh, it's even better than this, yeah even better than this, though.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's got a cloud database.
Speaker 1:So now what we do? We create the customer. So say, for example, we, you know, so ongoing customer relationship. We start building customers with our own customers. What we can do is set them up as a proper database, put all of them assets that come in from that, and all logs that within the cloud and it gives the history of them, tests, when they were done and all the figures from that test as well. So that's really great for like traceability and understanding when these things were tested and done and this is something as well we want to be able to do it to doctor for all of our customers, even new ones that come into the repair center is that we have a tab on everything that we've done with you guys, almost like a really robust CMMS system. From a site perspective, we're going to have our own QA system and to have the understanding, what's come in, what bearings were they, what winding type was it in terms of? You know, is it a six pole? Two pole, four pole? Do you know what I mean? How was it wound? And all these metrics that we can actually import and put into a database, you know, for reference as well. So that's the beautiful thing about the tester as well.
Speaker 1:It also tests winding polarity. So if something's been rewound, it's been disconnected in a way. What it does basically tests the wave difference and phase difference between each winding to make sure they're 90 degrees apart, and then, if it says it's okay, if there is any slight error in terms of you know, say, if it's been connected incorrectly, you're going to see a reverse polarity. So it tests for all of that. So, obviously, in terms of one integrity and connections as well, and it does a high pot test as well, which is almost like a surged test and it just puts a lot of current into the winding. And then basically what you're seeing is if there's any kind of turn to turn shorts as well, which, again, when I was back in my old days, we had kind of three main testers really, and this does this all in one. So with a flash tester that did so, you used to have to have three different pieces of machinery.
Speaker 2:So what we?
Speaker 1:did. We used a mega to take all the basically to check the resistances of each winding to make sure they're balanced, with a baker tester which is almost like a surged tester basically. So mega have bought baker, I believe don't quote me if I'm wrong for that. So obviously the baker tester does the polarity test and it does the surged test at the same time between the phases and the turn to turn. So the baker still does a majority of the tests. Then we had a flash tester where we just basically ignited the casing and just tested the integrity for a thousand volts through the case and just to check the insulation resistance through voltage as well. So then three tests were what we did and this tester does actually more tests than I believe in one press of a button. That's pretty impressive. It's very, very impressive.
Speaker 1:So anything that comes into the repair center and this is what I mean it was a big investment. Of course it was. But I understand the importance of understanding that winding is so important, that mower is so important, that winding is the heartbeat. Do you know what I mean Of that machine? Without it it doesn't work. Without it it doesn't work. So we've got to understand the integrity of the anything that comes in and understand as a standard, and if it drops below the standard we've got to be able to make it better.
Speaker 2:So we've got that ADX test now. That's going to ensure that we can make sure that any of our repairs and not just that so we're going to be able to test before and if we need to do a repair, we can then test after as well, so we can ensure that what the customer is receiving is it has a full, comprehensive report for the electrical windings. What other kit should we explain to the guys that we've got that now can support us with the mechanical side, the bearings and things like that, because that's equally as important we can do all that amazing work on the electrical winding.
Speaker 1:Of course, yeah, and you're right, it's almost like two sections, isn't it? You've got the electrical side and now you've got the mechanical side of understanding what's going on as well. And do you know what? In terms of the mechanical side, measuring devices are vital to be able to measure tolerances and make sure the house and tolerances are spot on. And again, this is where the measurement equipment and having that precision equipment is so vital and not even having a standard in terms of what gets done with that equipment and when. So obviously, when we strip them out, we've got a complete kind of standard. And what we've done, we've obviously used experience that I've used in the past in terms of I remember all that. I remember like literally in my head. I can even remember the job card in my head Because obviously I did it for so long. But what we're doing now, even from that and as great as it was, there was a lot of things that weren't on there that should have been.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:And this is a big company, you know. But regardless, things have made a change from them as a while back. But now that we're thinking as a reliability centered way, it kind of changes your mindset in terms of just repair, because you can get a good standard of repair. We know that, do you know what I mean? And it can be done. But we're not just that. We're looking at the next level, right, we're looking at precision now. So it's a bit like when you go to site and you get a rule to align your motor. It might be bang on to your eye and that might be considered your standard, but our standard is precision alignment to 0.1 of a mil. So this is the difference now in terms of that, and it's the same mindset that needs to be applied when you're looking into this repair shop. So the measurement equipment is vital.
Speaker 2:So that's for measuring the housing to ensure that it is within tolerance for the bearing and the shaft.
Speaker 1:And the shaft as well as well, so measuring shafts.
Speaker 1:For the inner race of the bearing For the inner race as well, so you might have a little bit of damage on the shaft as well, whatever. And we need to make sure that there's tolerance is set. Do you know what I mean? And they're well past before we move on to the next stage, because any problem there is going to present itself as a defect in the future. This kind of then goes through our defect elimination process of every step of the way that allows us to understand how could this be a problem in the future? Because if we're not thinking that way, we're not thinking the reliable way. And this is the thing now, like even our mindset has to shift another gear up a gear. Do you know what I mean? Because there's a lot of scenarios and cases where it'll be easier not to say there's something wrong.
Speaker 2:Because it causes problems, especially, I suppose, from an economical repair, like sometimes it may be that you know, oh, we'll just slip the bearing on and then we can charge the customer and then we can get it done, rather than actually tell them look, you're going to have to remachine the whole shaft, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the thing sometimes, and it's just having that mindset of making sure we can do it in the most reliable way possible. So, measuring equipment, obviously you know calipers, verniers and all that type of We've got a digital one as well?
Speaker 2:Haven't we let's?
Speaker 1:just do the housing we have We've got a digital one as well that allows us to do that and obviously, measuring different types of different measuring equipment. So, and obviously standards behind that. So measuring vital as well. Obviously, bearing heat is as well. We've got SKF bearing here as well. Everything is going to be, you know nicely secured.
Speaker 1:Induction heat. Here's that we're going to use every single time. No opportunity then to get a cocked bearing. No opportunity to get to get an impact or defect in the bearing when you knock it on as an impact that can always, you know, cause infant mortality later on down the line as well. In terms of even when it starts up, the risk then increases massively.
Speaker 2:When a motor comes in, we see this quite a bit. What are some of the things that we need to be looking for? That, then, will factor into the improved part.
Speaker 1:Into the like. Yeah, the recall analysis, yeah.
Speaker 2:We see quite a lot with like belt driven applications and like lube issues. What are some of the things that you'd probably expect to come in that everyone else can be looking out for? Yeah, because again.
Speaker 1:This is another thing that I've considered massively because we've been on site and we do a lot of work with application changes. So where they've had a motor in the past for example I'll give you a perfect example of this One of our customers we did a bearing change on site for and it was a, it was a pedipress and it was a, you know, straight, coupled Right. We obviously had a look at the name plays. When we started to take the information, we realized that there was actual roller on the drive side of the bearing. Because of this was getting a lot of chatter within our readings because basically it was skidding.
Speaker 1:Well, it was almost skidding because when, again, with a roller, the clearances are lot more to be able to take up the actual, you know the load, the radial load, but obviously when you've got a straight driven application you need finite tolerances because if you kind of get it within the middle and the good you're going to have, that shower is not going to have any any kind of preload or preload to be able to load the bearing up to where it needs to be. That's really really bad as well for the bearing in terms of skidding, because what you can't do is, when you grease that mower is engage that film just to just slip around it's just slipping about, whereas when you kind of then put a little bit of load on it, then obviously the film can be compressed.
Speaker 1:then, causing the film so what this can actually appear as is poor lubrication when there's a lot of grease in the bearing. Does that make sense? You're going to have to almost over lubricate it to kind of almost fill that film a little bit, which is never a great idea. So obviously from that application we said look, this should be a bore. What has happened is they've had a spare mower and it was obviously for a belt driven application before. They've kind of swapped it around the process. This is very common older sites you know 50 to 60 year old sites with a lot of older equipment very common where things have been used or at the time they have the budget and they've kind of swapped one over.
Speaker 2:Or even sometimes newer sites that don't really know what they're doing. Yeah, that as well.
Speaker 1:That as well, that as well. That's less common, but it happens and this is the thing as well, and the thing is right. Until you understand it, it is an easy thing to mistake. I'll tell you a short. I'll tell you a short because you need to know, you need that knowledge, you need that awareness.
Speaker 2:Industry changed as well, didn't it? Because years and years ago, you know, you called up for a motor and they were like they asked you. You know what application is this? But now they just say OK, what is it? Give me the nameplate, and they just provide it.
Speaker 1:But that's where we've got to come in here as well, and this is a perfect example, and when we do get something coming, we need to have that focus call conversation, so what?
Speaker 2:is the application? What is the?
Speaker 1:application. What is it doing, what? Rather than just repairing it, let's understand what it does. Right, we are literally dedicated to that as well. And, um, excitingly, we have got a new starter. He started this month. Um, Harry, Harry Crane when leave you guys any guesses who that could be? But, um, he started and he's very passionate about making this work and I'm very excited because he is an incredible engineer and he comes with the mechanical background that we needed.
Speaker 1:But that's, that's the thing you know. I went out to job with him the other day as a fan application and, albeit he's not been in electro mechanical, he's obviously been kind of fixing an agricultural industry. But I'll be honest, in terms of what he's been dealing with is probably far more complex than what we are and usually kind of doing as well. So on that job we had this fan. He did an amazing job. So he's going to be heading this up with me. We're going to be working very closely together and it's exciting, it's really exciting for him as well.
Speaker 1:But in terms of like, getting back to our point earlier in terms of the application See again, we got in these tangents guys. I don't know how that ended up there. Back to the conversation on the application change is that, obviously, when we notified it was a rider, we said, well, we need to put a ball back in, we need to put it back right, and we've precision aligned the drive From that point. We've never received the issue of a problem of that bearing, since Because we've used either my application, we've used the knowledge that we know in terms of doing it, but not only that, we've used precision maintenance. That's the main ideal when it goes back in. So that's the reliability offering. So now that asset is going to be more reliable than it was before. That is our aim, because if we can do that on your critical assets, then the value just literally 10 folds. It's like one plus one equals five.
Speaker 2:When you do that, when you precision, the most critical ones we're there is that piece of accountability. We've talked about this before in other podcasts, about having someone why, when we go in and now we're doing a lot of implementation of reliability we are there positioning ourselves as really the facilitators, providing the training, empowering the teams to start thinking a bit differently. Same with the engineering services. Sometimes we've got customers that don't have the resources to do some of the larger jobs, but we do, and we also have the expensive pieces of equipment to allow us to do that, and that's the thing as well, like when we've bought our equipment, we've always mean you've always had the conversation Like what does this bring reliability in the future?
Speaker 2:How does this add more value to our customers, exactly?
Speaker 1:But every time we've done it, we've always spent more than we want to, but we understand the longer term goal in terms of what we're doing. Do you know what I mean? Even looking at this ADX tester, it's a lot of money, and for your first surge tester, I could imagine a lot of repair shops don't even have one of these, and they've been probably. I'm not even picking on that because it's a lot of money. Do you know what I mean? So this is what we're doing now. We are really invested. We've been maintained for the future, for reliability as well, and this is another thing as well that I can't stress that as a company, we're really putting all of our eggs in that reliability basket.
Speaker 2:It's about for us and we did it in our. So we did a presentation at the start of the year to all of the guys working for Maintain now about the business culture, and for us it's all about how do we be. It's not about being the biggest, it's not about having lots of quantities going through the repair center. It's about not being the biggest, it's about being the best and every aspect and service we provide and it's why we try and say fairly independent, although we use a lot of the equipment. That's because me and Will truly believe right now it is the best piece of equipment on the market, and that's the thing as well is about looking each division.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously we work with UB systems as well.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? Best of hands?
Speaker 1:We have hands for sensors as well. You know all of this ties into that reliability network and with you know all of the decisions that we've made have not been easy ones, because we've looked at the whole market Like we've not just teamed up with any, and that even comes into the reliability roadmap, which is, you know, looking at who you get, who your supplies and vendors are, and do they conform to your standards?
Speaker 1:100%, but we got, we got. If their standard is not there, we create it. And that's what we're trying to do in terms of saying, like you know, the thing is, I get there's eyes, so there's all these things that have been made before. But when we make this standard, the main team standard in terms of the repair, precision, maintenance stuff, we're going to understand that every single thing that we've been put into that standard actually makes a difference. So that makes sense. So you've got all of these different things, but the, you know, that mindset, which I think is ingrained in our culture now, that's our culture is going to be able to allow us to be able to, no matter what it is, whether it is finding your problems in terms of vibration analysis, whether it's doing the air leak survey, whether it's doing thermal imaging survey, whether we're actually on site changing the bearing and doing it in the most precise way possible, whether it's that we're doing a fan balance. So we want to, we want to balance that, we want to just keep going.
Speaker 1:We want to put another trim on because you know what ain't good enough. We need that standard. When we're doing that, when we're in the repair shop and we're actually putting bearings on and we're taking them off in a nice controlled precision, safe, clean environment as well, and with every single step of that repair is looking at how can we every little action is actually done in terms of making that more reliable for when it leaves, and that's the culture that we put around all detect, solve and improve. And with that, I think that's a perfect way to kind of end the podcast. Guys, thank you for listening, thank you for the updates. Keep your eyes, ears, peeled. This week All the announcements will be going out. We'd be inviting everyone over. It's been crazy, it's been hectic, but we are there, we're ready to go and we're really excited to show everyone everything. So, guys, have a great week, take care.
Speaker 2:Cut that bit out when I waved like a spaz on the camera. Better going by.
