Why Replacing Sealed Bearings based on Time is a waste of effort?

But Run to Failure is not an Option Nearly all facilities Electric Motors are dominated by Seal For Life Bearings, the shear number poses an challenge to Asset Strategies.

The default strategy often chosen is to Run to Failure and replace as quick as possible, but this causes multiple downtime events which adds up over a year to be of concern. Half an hour here, and another hour there doesn’t bode well in this reactive environment.

Some facilities utilize Vibration Analysis but due to costs of Data Collection or Wireless Sensors small motors are often left off the list.

An alternative is to replace Motor, Pump, Conveyor, Agitators, Blowers, Vibrators etc during a shutdown. As with All Shutdowns resource is limited as is Time and many scheduled replacements are achieved. So good intentions of having NEW bearings is nearly always suboptimal, with lots of Assets being missed, and therefore the Run to Failure strategy is adopted.

While the implementation of Time Based replacements is difficult to manage there is a more concerning factor in this strategy.