Analysis of Equipment Failure in a Production Line of a Coal Fly Ash Plant

Abstract

Most manufacturers are striving to manage and improve their operations at the perspective of manufacturing costs. Equipment failures and breakdowns should be kept at minimal as possible, thus to increase availability of equipment within a production line. A coal fly ash processing plant experienced continuous equipment breakdowns or failures which resulted in loss of production time. Data was collected on a 31 days period to identify types of failures or breakdown and their frequency of occurrences, and time spent by maintenance personnel to rectify the failures. Cause and effect diagrams were used in order to assess the causes that lead to overall effect of failures. It was identified that pipe conveyor belt failure was as a result of torn metallic structures, belt not fitting fully on idlers, deformed idlers and belt was unfolding at any point on the station while running. Furthermore, pipeline leakages were also identified as contributing factors to failures. Pareto chart was used to analyse the failures and it was identified that 80% of the pipe conveyor belt failure are caused by belt not fitting fully on idlers, torn metallic structure and deformed idlers, meanwhile 20% are caused as a result of belt unfolding at any point while running. Meanwhile in the case of pipeline leakages, 80% of pipeline leakages caused by high coal fly ash operating flow rate and coal fly ash being corrosive which resulted with pipeline being torn, while 20% of the leaks were due to improper sealing on divetor valve. It was concluded that incorrect maintenance procedures lead to the overall continuous failures at the plant and recommendations were made which mainly emphasised the implementation of maintenance program.