In today’s market place the plant management is pushing for increased uptime of their processes and equipment, they are educating operations and maintenance workers to be the best they can be. Performing preventative, predictive maintenance, and extending run-time has placed urgency on better operations, pump rebuilds, and installations. Educating operations to understand how the equipment works, not just what it does and how to make production but to be even more productive through mechanical knowledge. Many plant upgrades are presently in place and with the advancement of one item the urgency of the next takes shape. The operator should be seen as the first troubleshooting tool that maintenance looks at. The subject of shims turns into alignment questions and that goes from straight edge to laser, and benchmark gauges, this makes the operator aware of how important it is to take that extra few minutes to do a proper alignment that keeps the equipment running longer.

The class is controlled and subjects are discussed in sequence. The class will spend much of the time on stories told by the pump parts as they are read and examined. One 3196 sleeve can and will indicate that the elastomer was chemically attacked, the discharge valve was closed, the wrong set screws were supplied, unnecessary looseness was there, what the material construction is, and much more from a carefully looked at sleeve.

Troubleshooting other failed parts include shaft/bearing failures, bearings, packing, seals, impellers, and more. Oil return discussions will open many eyes and answer questions that leave mechanics unsure at times, the explanations will create understanding for the operators that have seen leaks caused by these problems. We will take a look at reliability improvements such as coatings, expansion chambers, oil condition sight glasses, isolators, magnetic seals, tighter specifications, and more.

Lubrication is another topic that will get interesting in this class as the level, temperature, contamination, and other issues pop up. The class is full of tips and techniques and attendees always add a more, note taking is automatic. Packing will be addressed to the needs of the class especially when to adjust and not, also how much. Mechanical seal selection, types, tips, failures, installations, and operations hold the attention of the class with several different seals. The attendees to this class will be close to parts, for easy touch and better understanding. Questions are encouraged, co-workers answer most, and skills are respected. 

Documentation is extremely important and this class will look at tools to use in developing good equipment tags and how important work orders are. This documentation will help maintenance and purchasing by ordering the correct amount of parts one time. Pump rebuilds that are acceptable by most but want be by the attendees after this class ever again. Operators will feel the Net Positive Suction Head transmitted through vibration of the valve wheel as they open it.Slides of pumps, seals, packing, supports, shims, piping, drives, and much more are presented and discussed for all to be involved with. Some of these will look like what many of the attendees see too often, some are good and most are not so good. This segment of the presentation gives you a new awareness to look at equipment reliability with.