The Silent Thief

Today’s heavy equipment technology is more sensitive to contaminant. The high tech system is operating in a very less clearance or cleanliness between two or more moving components.  The less the clearance is, the higher the system performance. But in the other hand the risk for the system to be failure, is become higher to. There for high tech heavy equipment need extra care concerning this issue.

The “contaminant” are a things that does not belong in the system. Or we can say things that in abnormal amount which should not to be found in the system.

For example, in the engine lubrication system. Oil is use to lubricate between two metal surfaces. The clearance between those surfaces is very less, so only a small of particle (< 2 micron) can be trapped between the surface’s contacts. The trapped particle will abuse the oil film and reduce the film protection. If this happened in a long period, the metal to metal contact will causing overheating on the metal surfaces and may break the metal.

The hydraulic system is one of the most sensitive system to contaminants. Once the minor component contaminated whether by dust, water or metal particles, it will cause the entire hyd system failure. It means you have to spend high cost of repair.

The only effective way to reduce the impact that can be made by contaminant is to prevent the contaminant entering the system or eliminate the source.

Care the Blood !!!

Of course it is not real blood. For the “heavy” we calls it  ” OIL”.  It has the same function with blood.  By monitoring oil, we can detect the failure before it happen. It means, we can highly reduce the repair cost by monitoring the oil condition.  Here are several causes why oil is so important:

Manage your “Heavy”

The bottom-line of an Equipment Management (EM) is to make sure your  “Heavy”  can operate  in an optimum operation through its maximum  life cycle.  Every heavy equipment products and components have their expected life cycle. And it is equipment management objective which is to make sure the “heavy” meets their expected life cycle.    The next question is… how can we do  this EM?  First, having EM its not just about optimizing “heavy” performance but also about  “$” efficiency. Yes… its about reducing cost.  So first u have to make sure your EM program is combining between effective  and efficient ways together.