Bangs for your buck at Birmingham fair
22 Jan 2010
London – UK maintenance and asset management show, Maintec 2010, at the NEC from 2-4 March, will see the worldwide debut of products and services designed to improve plant performance, control and reduce costs, deliver energy savings and ultimately optimise spend. easyFairs UK managing director Matt Benyon, said: “With capital spend being kept to a minimum, managers are trying to squeeze that last bit of value out of their current plant. To do this they need new products, new services and new thinking.”
The challenges of managing and reducing costs and optimising resources will be to the fore at the Maintec Summit Conference, which will be chaired by Steve Morris, deputy president of the Institute of Asset Management.
This will also focus on the proactive measures needed to ensure that increasingly expensive and sophisticated plant and machinery does not fail unexpectedly and that In the keynote address, titled “Maintenance and Asset Management - What’s the difference?”, Sean Hennessy, national committee member of The Irish Maintenance and Asset Management Society (MEETA) and board member of the European Federation of National Maintenance Societies (EFNMS), will explain how maintenance can complement broader asset management and highlight the relevance of the BSI PAS 55 standard to maintenance professionals.
Russell Page of Picme will explore ‘human factors’ - specifically how to put together good work instructions - while Bill Riseborough, reliability champion at Dow Corning, who not only heads up the continuous improvement function at Dow’s Barry site but also supports Dow Corning’s global improvement focus, will set out some of the successes of the Barry improvement programme, which has used a blend of Six Sigma and TPM.
The highly illuminating results from a programme of predictive maintenance at Wessex Water involving motor-condition monitoring devices on a range of different assets will be detailed by the company’s head of operational services, David Durkin, and the director of Artesis, Andy Bates.
There will then be case studies from, among others, OEE and Andon Signalling, Chivas Brothers and Idhammer Systems, while a mix of end-user companies, together with Martin Wager of Cogenco, will explore whether CHP is the answer for those looking for sustainable energy with a reduced environmental impact.
Meanwhile, those keen to share the ‘best practice of the best’ should check out the final Summit case study. This is being delivered by Sean Madden, manufacturing manager, and Neil Goddard, site manager, at Johnson Diversey, winner of the Best Process Plant category in the 2009 Best Factory Awards.
The 2010 event’s learnShops programme includes 30 expert-led talks spanning topics as wide ranging as: ‘The pitfalls to avoid in the thermal inspections of electrical installations’; ‘Quick & simple condition monitoring - maximising return on a minimum investment’; and ‘Bearing defect detection using vibration’ through to ‘Agile maintenance - the role of flexible software’, ‘Energy saving and heat recovery for steam users’ and ‘Understanding maintenance key
performance indicators’.
Innovations by 10
A special feature this year at the easyFairs Maintec exhibition in the NEC from 2-4 March is the Innovations Pavilion. Only products and services that have been launched to market this year, after 1 January 2010, will be showcased in the pavilion - and it will be restricted to just 10 exhibitors. Organiser easyFairs has initially announced three exhibitors for this area: Panasonic, Tempus MTAS and PCB Piezotronics.
For its part, PCB is releasing several new products, including echo wireless vibration sensors. These can “interrogate” a machine several times a day and transmit the data to an existing vibration or plant monitoring system without valuable manpower being tied up in the process.
PCB is also unveiling a range of USB Programmable Vibration Sensors. The new line of Smart Vibration Sensors allows the end-user to adjust multiple measurement parameters in situ to optimise the sensor so as to get the most out of an application.
Good vibrations
Vibration measurement systems and sensors are far more easily fitted to critical rotating equipment following the introduction of battery-powered wireless transmission systems, making retrofit installations very simple.
The brand new HS-620 Vibration Monitoring Kit from Hansford Sensors (right) contains a compact, portable, digital vibration meter operating with a hand-held probe. It is designed for maintenance technicians to monitor vibration levels on important plant machinery, helping to find potential problems and so avoid future plant failure.
There are two launches from C-Cubed. The developer of PocketVibrA, the low-cost, easy-to-use, vibration analysis system for maintenance engineers will be introducing its latest Version 10 at Maintec 2010. PocketVibrA is claimed to be a unique tool that combines machine condition analysis, thermography, balancing and parameter trending in a handheld, rugged, IP67-rated unit.
C-Cubed will also be using the show for its global launch of a vibration analyser specifically designed for the monitoring of machine lubrication.
