Welcome to the second installment of a 2 part series that focuses on minimizing downtime by strategically managing spindle service and repair. The Hotel Program Previously, we mentioned that storage considerations can prevent certain manufacturing locations from using the Spare Spindle Program. For them, the Hotel Program, sometimes called the Stocking Program, may be ideal. …

Managing spindle service and repair — both in regards to scheduled or expected maintenance, and in surprise, unexpected maintenance — can be a surprisingly complex operation. Or a surprisingly simple one, depending on various factors and preferences. In an ideal situation, a good spindle service plan involves preventative maintenance, careful scheduling, backup spindles, storage considerations …

One topic we hear more and more about these days is reliability. Essentially, this refers to initiatives designed to keep manufacturing facilities up and running efficiently and, well, reliably. It consists of several components such as predictive maintenance, planning, scheduling, data collection and analysis, and much more. Today, we’ll review a critical component to the …

The push and pull between production teams and maintenance teams is a familiar story on shop floors across all sectors. Maintenance wants to keep machines running well, maximizing efficiency and lifespan; production wants a steady stream of finished parts going out the door. We all know who gets their way most often. Production, who tend …

No matter how built-out your in-house repair department is — how well-equipped or how well-staffed — there will be times when you need to outsource certain services, and source replacement parts. That’s a simple fact. Even union facilities, which mandate in-house repairs, need to outsource certain things they can’t do themselves, due to lack of …

For spindles that utilize through-tool coolant, rotary unions can be a common cause of failure. And yet, they are equally overlooked — few people include rotary unions on their periodic inspection routines. Rotary unions are specialty joints designed to allow connection of a stationary to a rotating piece of equipment. In spindle applications, rotary unions …

We know that small interruptions to productive work time are a hassle that nobody wants. That is why we often find that customers will ignore the alarm notifications when vibration testing is performed on their machinery. Frankly, we do understand the impulse. Why pull a machine out of service when everything seems, at face value, …

Drawbars are the type of equipment component that are easy to not think about. Until something goes wrong with it, and you’re suddenly looking at considerable repair bills and potential downtime. In spindle applications, the toolholder does exactly that, holds the tool. Ironically, toolholders themselves have to be held. That’s where drawbars come into play. …

When a spindle of yours fails, do you simply send it out for repair without getting a full understanding of why it failed? If so, sure, you’re minimizing downtime in that exact moment — but without determining the cause of the failure and fixing that as well, you’re likely dooming the spindle to fail again …

For a piece of equipment that is designed to rotate at thousands of RPMs, it may seem obvious that proper lubrication is a major factor in the health of spindles. In practice, things are a bit different. While everyone knows that improper lubrication maintenance can lead to spindle failure, it can seem like a far-off …