Maintenance Technology July 2015 - (Page 10)

FOR ON THE FLOOR An outlet for the views of today's maintenance & reliability professionals Capital Purchases: What Do You Want and Why Do You Need It? Rick Carter Executive Editor T he need to make high-dollar, fixed-asset capital purchases to keep production running and facilities habitable is ongoing in manufacturing. Good economy or bad, strong sales or weak, when key equipment reaches the end of its useful life, replacement or a major upgrade is often the only option. But the dollars involved and approvals needed to spend those dollars can complicate and lengthen capitalpurchase processes. One way or another, however, they usually get made, as our Maintenance Technology Reader Panelists confirm this month. Here's a look at some of the important purchases made recently within our group. Q What was the most recent capital purchase your organization made, and what was its justification? "We purchased an RFID system that we use for tracing material and tools. It assists greatly in loss prevention, and is also helpful for employees who seem to forget where they left their tools." ... Maintenance Coordinator, Mid-Atlantic "Our purchase of a new CMMS system is ongoing. We needed it because our current system consists of a couple of spreadsheets and the always reliable word-of-mouth. During my short tenure as the Maintenance Manager (I was previously the Process Engineer), I have been studying new techniques for making our equipment and team more reliable as we, along with most others, are doing more with less. The new CMMS will help schedule our workload more efficiently, assigning the correct personnel to the job, and manage our inventory better, particularly those items we use regularly. It will aid us in recording costs and tracking relevant information, such as cause of the problem, downtime involved, MTTF, MTBF, and other details." ... Maintenance Manager, South "We bought a parts washer in January for throughput improvement." ... Sr. Facilities Engineer, South Approval to make capital purchases of items such as industrial robots and other expensive equipment typically requires well-researched justification, often supported by input from maintenance. 10 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY "Our latest capital purchase was for more than $200,000, and included new automation controllers, updated instrumentation equipment, and some specialized safety guards. The major justification for it was safety. This new technology keeps our operators' body parts totally out of the way of the high-speed equipment in operation, and will improve our manufacturing consistency and product quality." ... Former Chief Maintenance Engineer, now Trainer, West JULY 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maintenance Technology July 2015

Forward Observations
Uptime
For On The Floor
News
Drive Strategy With Performance Metrics
Train, Audit Electrical Workers
Carbon-Neutral Drives Molding Company
Troubleshoot Hot Hydraulics
Lubrication Strategies
Don't Procrastinate, Innovate
Products
Marketplace
Ad Index

Maintenance Technology July 2015