A Brief Discussion on Equipment Management

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Equipment management is essential for the production of chemical enterprises. In the production process, its main task is to provide the enterprise with high-quality process and technical equipment, thereby ensuring that production activities take place on an optimal material and technical foundation, and guaranteeing safe, efficient, stable, and continuous production. If equipment management is neglected, some devices will operate while faulty, resulting in leaks or abnormal noises; this not only prevents these devices from delivering their full performance but also reduces the overall utilization rate of the equipment. To ensure production, equipment managers need to improve their level of equipment management. It is necessary to innovate the approach to equipment management. This article shares some experiences from several aspects, including the concept of comprehensive equipment management, predictive equipment maintenance, equipment inspection, equipment systems, and human resources. 　　01. All employees should be involved in equipment management. The ones responsible for operating and maintaining equipment are the frontline workers; only when those who use the equipment treat it well, caring for it as if it were their own children, can the equipment function without problems or with fewer problems. Currently, some companies rely on equipment technicians for device management, but the capabilities of a single technician are clearly limited. The skill levels of the workers in the workshops vary greatly; some of them prefer to do as little work as possible, avoiding tasks that require more effort, and feel that equipment maintenance has nothing to do with them. As a result, equipment technicians end up doing a lot of hard work with little tangible outcome. The equipment still breaks down frequently. To reverse this current state of management, it is necessary to delegate equipment management responsibilities from the enterprise’s equipment supervisors down to the workshops and teams, and further to the operators in the production workshops, thereby turning equipment management into a task that involves everyone. Equipment managers must establish detailed equipment management systems and specific measures. It also fulfills a practical role in supervision and management, ensuring that responsibilities are implemented at each level. Only by institutionalizing the requirement that operators or users be the primary responsible parties for equipment maintenance, and by encouraging everyone who uses the equipment to take on the responsibility for its daily upkeep, can the current poor management practice of emphasizing use over maintenance be effectively changed. Secondly, it is necessary to clarify the responsibilities of the grassroots production workshops, maintenance departments, and equipment management departments, so as to fully leverage the role of each level in equipment management. 　　02. Equipment maintenance should focus on predictive maintenance, with planned maintenance serving as a supplement. It is essential to maintain the healthy operation of equipment; operating it while it is faulty not only shortens its lifespan but also leads to increased production costs and reduced efficiency. To ensure the proper operation of equipment, it is necessary to transform planned or reactive maintenance into predictive maintenance for that equipment. Although this process is challenging to implement, it can be achieved if we take proactive action. Most companies these days determine maintenance schedules based on the operating time of the equipment, or they wait until the equipment starts to malfunction before carrying out repairs. This not only delays production but also increases the degree of damage to the equipment. To this end, we need to strengthen routine inspections of equipment and online fault diagnosis to anticipate potential problems with the equipment in advance. Schedule inspections and maintenance in advance to ensure the accuracy and effective utilization of the equipment. Specific measures require frontline operators to conduct regular inspections, identify problems promptly, and take action to address them right away. Equipment managers in the workshop should conduct regular random inspections of the operation of workshop equipment, analyze and summarize the operational parameters of key equipment on a monthly basis, identify any issues, and propose suggestions for predictive maintenance of the equipment. At the level of enterprise equipment management, random inspections of the operation status of equipment in use should be carried out from time to time, based on the information provided by the equipment operators in the workshops, as well as advanced equipment diagnostic instruments. To provide further reference for the predictive maintenance of equipment. 　　03. Equipment maintenance should involve bold decisions based on the equipment’s operating conditions. Chemical plants typically carry out a comprehensive maintenance check of their equipment once a year. The maintenance tasks are prepared by the grassroots workshops; when formulating maintenance plans, these workshops tend to opt for more tasks rather than fewer. In order to ensure that the equipment functions without problems or with as few problems as possible throughout the year, maintenance costs are often ignored; or there is concern that if the equipment is not maintained and problems arise, the workshop will bear some responsibility. As a result, all the maintenance tasks that come to mind are listed without proper discussion or analysis. This will inevitably increase the costs associated with maintenance for enterprises, resulting in significant waste of human, material, and financial resources. To this end, the maintenance plans submitted by the grassroots level must be examined and evaluated one by one by the management department. The basis for such evaluation lies in the operation status of the equipment over a certain period, as well as the experience of the maintenance staff; together with the structural characteristics of the equipment and its role within the process unit, these factors are used to analyze and assess the feasibility of carrying out maintenance work. After analyzing and evaluating each maintenance item, decisions should be made boldly and decisively to discard them. Furthermore, chemical companies often face cost pressures and sales challenges, which leads to planned shutdowns of their facilities. For these units that operate intermittently, it is even more necessary to adjust the approach to maintenance; sometimes no major overhauls of the units are carried out, and instead, a batch of equipment issues is addressed each time the unit stops operating. We need to align the device shutdown time with the equipment maintenance period as much as possible, using the downtime between production runs to address any equipment issues that arise before the shutdown. Such maintenance eliminates potential hazards in the equipment without delaying production as a result of equipment repairs. Most importantly, it helps businesses save funds to the greatest extent possible and reduces production costs. 　　04. The equipment management system should focus on practical results rather than mere formality. The enterprise’s equipment management departments must fully leverage their functions of management, supervision, evaluation, and service in order to further enhance equipment management. To manage equipment properly, it is first necessary to establish comprehensive equipment management systems, and then to implement those systems. No focus on superficial forms, no need to go through procedures. There are many equipment management systems, which mainly include equipment hygiene, equipment lubrication, spare parts management, outsourced machining, and inspection and maintenance operations management. The management department should focus its efforts on establishing systems, implementing them, and conducting inspections and evaluations. After being formulated, the equipment policies must have extensive input from all employees, so that each policy is practical and feasible; there should be no formality for its sake. Policies that look good on paper but are difficult to implement are useless. Most companies do not pay attention to management in their daily operations; when inspections are conducted, they only go through the motions to meet the requirements. This undoubtedly adds complicated work to the employees, with no tangible result from their efforts. 　　05. It is necessary to unlock the potential of talents and provide platforms for college students to develop. By putting people first and respecting science, we can offer college students broad opportunities for growth. Currently, the proportion of college students in companies is quite high, and businesses should tap into this potential in human resources. Companies regularly create opportunities for college students to address the technical challenges that arise with certain equipment, as well as the problems that occur during its normal operation; the technical departments also involve college students in dealing with these issues. College students are encouraged to actively participate in minor improvements to equipment and to submit reasonable suggestions. College students are encouraged to write papers and technical summaries. Improve the benefits for college students. This effectively boosts the motivation and enthusiasm of more technical professionals at work. 　　To achieve high-level equipment management, equipment managers must continuously learn advanced scientific and technological knowledge as well as new approaches to equipment management. By making use of current electronic information technology and network technology, they should acquire extensive knowledge about equipment, explore new concepts in equipment management, and actively adopt modern models for equipment management