The Importance of Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

Mike Hampton:

Good day, everybody. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to join this 15-minute live IMTS presentation. Today, we're going to be talking about preventive and predictive maintenance. I hope you find the information we talk about intriguing, educational and, most important, useful.

Mike Hampton:

This presentation is being provided by Okuma America and at Okuma America, we take our mission, vision, and values very, very seriously. Our mission statement, we don't just say it. We live it on a day-to-day basis, and we apply it to day-to-day operations. And that is, we passionately pursue a customer for life.

Mike Hampton:

You might be asking yourself, "How does that apply to this specific presentation?" Well, it's directly related to our commitment to quality. Preventive and predictive maintenance keep machine tools running, and we want to promote uptime every chance we get. We want to strive for continuous improvement. We want to drive for innovation. We want to honor our legacy, and we want to own it.

Mike Hampton:

With that said, let's get into some introductions, and then we'll move on to the good stuff, the presentation content. My name is Mike Hampton. I'm the Business Development Specialist. I have a passion for what I do, and I focus on parts and service. I'm accompanied today by Casey Croussore, who is a great resource and a Principal Engineer at Okuma America. He'll be giving us some awesome information on new technology, what's up ahead and the technology we already have and how it applies to preventive and predictive maintenance.

Mike Hampton:

Let's move into one of our two encore topics today, preventive maintenance and what exactly is it? Well, preventive maintenance, by definition, is maintenance that is regularly performed on a piece of equipment to lessen the likelihood of it failing. Nobody wants failing equipment inside a manufacturing facility. It is performed while the equipment is still working and running so that it does not break down unexpectedly.

Mike Hampton:

Some other great things about preventive maintenance, it's scheduled, it's controllable, and it's measurable. We have a saying, "what gets measured, gets done" and, for best practice reasons, we always tell our customers to please reference your operation maintenance manual. This was produced and written by the original equipment manufacturer, and it's going to point you into the right direction for your preventive maintenance needs.

Mike Hampton:

Let's take that one step further. Now we know the definition of preventive maintenance and exactly what it is, but what areas does it focus on? Well, it focuses on proper cleaning because we all know a clean machine is a happy machine. Replacing the proper wear items. Movement takes place, and items are going to wear out. That's why we have aftermarket service parts so replacing the right parts is very important during a PM. Correct lubrication. Lubrication can control temperature, which can be the enemy between moving components when friction takes place. Making sure that that's operating properly is very important. Accurate alignment. A square and level machine is going to be in optimum operation. So making sure that that machine is perfect is extremely important as well. While we're in there, let's check out the whole machine and do a full machine inspection just to make sure that it has a clean bill of health.

Mike Hampton:

Now that we know what preventive maintenance is, the areas that it focuses on, let's talk about why you should do it. Well, one of the first things I'd like to say is it's going to help you protect your asset, and it's going to make your machine tool last longer. Everybody tries to seek for longevity in their machine tools. It's also going to help you maintain your machine tools' performance, and high performance is what everybody strives for. It's going to help you prevent unknown disasters because nobody wants to see the red light on. With that said, it's going to maintain productivity. It's also going to keep your process at a stable and capable level that's going to instill quality into the parts that you're making. Last but not least, it's going to maximize your uptime.

Mike Hampton:

You might be asking yourself who can perform this service? Well, preventive maintenance can be performed either in-house or by a certified field service technician. It really depends on the ability and the capability of your in-house maintenance staff. But if you need assistance, you're in luck because Okuma America, well, first and foremost, we have the best distribution network in North America. With that said, we have over 1,000 field service certified technicians, and they're all trained to support you with your preventive maintenance needs.

Mike Hampton:

Now we know who can perform a PM, but what parts do they need to perform a proper PM? To provide you with a one-stop preventive maintenance solution, Okuma America is here to help. That's the reason why we launched the CARE Preventive Maintenance Kits into the marketplace this year. You're probably saying, what is CARE, and what is the CARE Preventive Maintenance Kit? Well, let me tell you.

Mike Hampton:

Okuma CARE has actually been around for a long time. It was born in 1993, and it's a customer service support system. It's also an acronym that stands for Constantly Available Resource Experts. What this means is if you have a customer service scenario, whether it's service parts, field service, application engineering, software, and any others that apply to Okuma CARE, we're here to provide you with a solution.

Mike Hampton:

Give me the opportunity to provide you with some more details about the CARE Preventive Maintenance Kit. Well, CARE Preventive Maintenance Kit is one part number. It's one box, it has all the necessary components to perform a bi-annual or annual robust PM, and it's specified for your machine model. No matter how many of those models you have on your floor, this one kit is going to work for all of them. And it's offered in an extremely attractive price point, which makes it that much better. We like to use the saying, spend a little and save a lot. So for your preventive maintenance parts needs turn to the CARE PM Kit.

Mike Hampton:

Let's talk about the components that are in the CARE Preventive Maintenance Kits. I like to break it up between, well, machine types. If you have a lathe, your CARE PM Kit is going to have all the common wipers, strainers, and filters necessary to perform a good PM. As you can see in this picture, this is a sample kit for an LB3000 EX lathe. For machine centers, well, slightly different. What components are in machining center kits? Well, first and foremost, and most importantly, we want to protect the heartbeat of your machine tool, which is the spindle and to do so, your PM Kit will have a through-coolant pin, the collet spring, the linear spring, the strainers, filters, and O-rings that are necessary for your PM.

Mike Hampton:

Let's talk about, well, the best part, or at least one of them. As I mentioned earlier, PMs are scheduled, which is great. It makes it extremely convenient. But you have to have the parts and Okuma America and our valued distributors, we all stock these CARE Preventive Maintenance Kits year-round. So when the schedule says it's time to do a PM, give your distributor a call because we have them in stock so that you can have the parts you need.

Mike Hampton:

What's next? We've talked about what a PM is, the areas it focuses on, who can perform a PM, the parts needed to do a PM, the CARE Preventive Maintenance Kit and how it's an easy solution when it comes time to do a PM. So let's talk about our OSP control and how this technology can support the maintenance program within your organization and some predictive maintenance technology that is in place now and also up and coming. So I'm going to pass it over to Casey Croussore, Principal Engineer at Okuma America.

Mike Hampton:

Casey, thanks for joining us today.

Casey Croussore:

Thanks, Mike. Yes, I am Casey Croussore, Principal Engineer here at Okuma for software and factory automation product, and I'm going to quickly highlight maintenance systems found on-board the OSP control and in our IoT solution called Connect Plan.

Casey Croussore:

First, we have the OSP suite Maintenance Monitor. This is available on machines with OSP P300 and P300A controls. In the Maintenance Monitor you'll find pre-programmed the preventive maintenance tasks that you would ordinarily find in the operation and maintenance manual. There's a graphic user interface, which lists them, along with their scheduled expiration times. As each maintenance task deadline gets closer, the graphic will change from blue, to yellow, to red in progression indicating that it is time to perform that maintenance task. Additionally, as a machine owner, you can insert your own maintenance tasks for operators or maintenance personnel to perform at whatever interval you decide.

Casey Croussore:

If you have Okuma's Connect Plan product, the OSP suite Maintenance Monitor scheduled maintenance items will be displayed and tracked at the shop floor level for all of your connected P300 and P300A-controlled machines. These items are tracked live by Connect Plan, and a permanent record is kept of their expiration and completion. This is true for both factory programmed tasks, as well as any that are added by the machine owner. With Connect Plan at a glance you can see if there are any machines on your shop floor that require your attention.

Casey Croussore:

As we move from scheduled maintenance into the world of predictive maintenance, we can start to talk about Okuma's implementation of artificial intelligence or AI. Everyone by now knows in a general sense what AI is. For this discussion, Okuma is applying AI algorithms in order to monitor, diagnose and predict the health of spindle bearings, ball screw bearings, and the ball screw itself. This functionality is available currently on the P300A control.

Casey Croussore:

In a future IMTS Spark event we'll take a closer, more in-depth look at this technology. For now, it's important to note that this is the path Okuma is following, to use artificial intelligence systems to detect machine problems early and to improve your productivity. Early focus is on the axes and spindle, but future iterations will incorporate more and more subsystems of the machine and because these are learning systems, the benefits of ownership will only increase over time.

Casey Croussore:

Thank you for your time. Mike and I will be monitoring the discussion, and we'll reach out to any of you that have any questions. Thank you.