Page 17 - AutomationNOTEBOOK volume 41

Cover Story
Mastering Machine Maintenance
Machine builders, robot builders and system integrators offer advice for maintaining industrial machines.
In the May 2019 issue of Control Design magazine, the cover story focus was machine maintenance. The story, titled Machine design with maintenance in mind, discussed best practices for maintaining machines, with input from numerous sources including machine builders, robot builders and system integrators.Let’s start by looking at machine maintenance from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) point of view.
OEMs Know Their Machines
"Ideally operators would like to be able to load a part, push a button and have a machine pop out a perfect part every time," says Mark Horton, chief engineer, advanced process technology, at Kollmorgen in the cover story. "The machine would require no changeover, and the tooling would never wear out. Also, they
would never have to perform any maintenance. Managers want pretty much the same thing. They want to have a stable process with no unplanned downtime. This makes planning and execution much easier. Since the scenario I’ve presented almost never exists, especially in a low-volume, high-product-mix environment, much can be done to improve machine reliability and reduce its operational maintenance during the design phase."
As the cover story points out, it’s important to design and build machines that will exceed the end user’s expected product lifecycle. "The best method for achieving a long machine life is utilization of quality, proven and commercially available components within our designs and providing a thorough maintenance manual and schedule," says Dean Colwell, controls manager, assembly, welding and AGV Systems at Fori
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Mastering Machine Maintenance
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Automation in Shelby Township, Michigan. "Fori also trains the end users during the buyoff and instal- lation phase of the project. This is import- ant to ensure the maintenance sched- ule is completed on time and as expected. Completing the pre- ventive maintenance will help to keep the machine up and run- ning for its expected life (Figure 1)."
Figure 1: (courtesy of Fori Automation) Fori Automations customers achieve long machine life by following the maintenance practices imparted by Fori during the commissioning, startup and training phases.
Cover Story www.automationnotebook.com | Issue 41
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