Good day Alignment Blog readers! Today, I would like to introduce a new member of the VibrAlign team in the Eastern Region. Art McFadden joined our sales team in the Mid-Atlantic this year and he shares our Passion for Precision. Art has a mechanical background with many years of experience in electrostatic powder coating equipment and biomedical machines. He also served our country in the US Navy for 6 years where he was responsible for survival skills training to the Navy’s elite fighting forces. Art enjoys amateur boxing and training in the Israeli style martial art, Krav Maga. Don’t mess with ART!
Recently, Art had the opportunity to participate in some machine alignment work at a customer site during one of our onsite alignment training classes. I thought it would be appropriate to share this experience with others, as it highlights our mission to Realign America. The machine to be aligned was a large motor coupled to a gearbox. The customer reported this gearbox had experienced frequent coupling failures. In fact, the coupling on this unit was getting changed almost every week! This would seem like an ideal candidate for alignment improvement; however, there was some reluctance to make adjustments because the current coupling had been in service for 6 weeks. In the end, the decision was made to make the required moves to improve the alignment to precision tolerances.
At VibrAlign, our Realign America philosophy is about improving machinery and maintenance practice efficiencies which ultimately help drive business results for our customers. Time will tell what effect the shaft alignment improvement has for this particular machine. I would be willing to wager significant savings will be realized.
I believe the primary lesson from this scenario and so many other similar stories, is that we should always be raising the bar on expectations. In order for American industry to remain competitive in a global economy, we must constantly search for opportunities to improve efficiency and thus results. We should not accept that a coupling lasts only a week, when it could last 6 weeks, or accept 6 weeks when it could be 6 months, and so on.
I hope you will join us in demanding more than the status quo, and searching out ways to improve machinery efficiency with a passion for precision.
