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Vacation Interruptus – and the Value of Preventative Maintenance

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // Vacation Interruptus – and the Value of Preventative Maintenance

  • Preventative Maintenance
< 1 Min Read

Vacation Interruptus – and the Value of Preventative Maintenance

I have always been fascinated with industrial automation. In fact, I started off my university career as an Industrial Engineering major. Eventually, I changed course and earned an Electrical and Computer Engineering degree.

What continues to interest me – albeit only as a fan – is the way that true experts can derive huge benefits through seemingly small changes operational processes. These folks work continuously to figure out how to make an entire operation more efficient. Sometimes, even more importantly, how to keep it running without unplanned downtime.

When I think of unplanned downtime, I remember a personal situation from four years ago. I sometimes use this story to illustrate the value of preventative maintenance. How imperative to have a solid plan in place with a reputable service partner.

There I was – enjoying a romantic getaway with my wife in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. It was beautiful and peaceful, and a wonderful place for a hike, a mountain bike ride and long scenic drives.

Hope For the Best, Prepare for the Worst

But, while we were relaxing with a glass of wine on the deck of the log cabin where we were staying, I received a phone call. It was my 20-year-old daughter. Her car had broken down on the way home in North Carolina after visiting some friends in Charleston, SC.

Now she was driving a well-travelled Volkswagen Beetle. It had about 90,000 miles on it. While these aren’t known as the most reliable vehicles on the planet, they run pretty well if you take care of them. Consequently, I had spent countless hours educating her on maintaining her vehicle. Read: changing the oil regularly.

As it turns out, my daughter’s car had run out of oil. The engine had completely seized, stranding her on the side of the road in a small South Carolina town.

And that’s how a romantic getaway with my wife became a rescue mission that included driving for nearly nine hours and more than 450 miles.

Now, we still have not determined exactly what caused the engine oil to mysteriously vanish. But, we believe it combined poorly executed oil change (a missing plug) and an engine that routinely burnt through oil.

The moral of the story? Without the value of preventative maintenance weighed, and a routine check performed regularly by a skilled service partner, you might end up like I did – with a significant interruption to your operation due to unplanned downtime.

More Market Research

Recently, Bell and Howell commissioned a market study on how the mailing industry views the cost of operational downtime. The result?

More than 625 professionals responsible for commercial mail operations participated, reporting their issues related to downtime. Among other things, the questions assessed their primary concerns regarding downtime, as well as the number of downtime incidents faced in a year. Furthermore, participants shared how downtime negatively impacts their customer experience. Also, how they combat, or plan to combat it, with preventative maintenance and other proactive efforts.

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Designing a Successful Preventative Maintenance Program

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // DESIGNING A SUCCESSFUL PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE PROGRAM

  • Preventative Maintenance
< 1 Min Read

Designing a Successful Preventative Maintenance Program

It’s one thing to understand how preventative maintenance works and another to actually implement a successful preventative maintenance program. Additionally, it is important to know the difference between preventative maintenance and predictive maintenance, the latter being a series of dynamic inspections of machine components while the machines are operating in their normal production modes. Great preventative programs should follow these four key steps:

1. Lay down the groundwork and having the right systems in place

Designing and implementing a preventative maintenance program requires a different mindset than operating and managing a normal maintenance department. Companies must:
understand facility goals

  • set equipment performance standards
  • document preventative maintenance procedures and schedules
  • upload information to a computerized maintenance management system

2. Ensure other things don’t get in the way

Companies often delay or stall their preventative maintenance program for a variety of reasons. But the primary reason is because a profit motive was not included. Companies should instead:

  • incorporate a way to benchmark and track the savings their program generates

3. Roll out the service program

Companies that fail quickest simply hand over preventative maintenance implementation to their maintenance staff without the proper training and oversight. Instead, they should:

  • focus their objectives
  • create preventative maintenance tasks correctly the first time around
  • train their team
  • oversee all the implementations
  • ensure a management system is in place to sustain the program’s success

4. Understand why breakdowns occur, then weigh preventative maintenance activities correctly

Preventative maintenance tasks must be documented to address the root causes of breakdowns in order to positively impact productivity. Comparatively, companies should:

  • have a good work order system in place
  • use a computerized maintenance management system to measure the program effectiveness

If a company’s in-house experts can initiate and manage a successful program, then great. But if not, it is imperative to find a qualified organization to get and keep the ball rolling.

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The Benefits of Preventative Maintenance

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // THE BENEFITS OF PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

  • Preventative Maintenance
< 1 Min Read

The Benefits of Preventative Maintenance

AUGUST 15, 2016

The benefits of preventative maintenance, if successful, rely on consistent practices designed to improve equipment performance and safety.

Preventative maintenance must rely on planned-ahead maintenance.

To understand run-to-failure maintenance, picture a light bulb. You replace it only when it fails. Then, a new bulb replaces the older one, fixing the asset.

However,  you can coordinate preventative maintenance easier than predictive maintenance, which requires planned monitoring strategies and interpretation of results.

Key Advantages of Preventative Maintenance

Planning makes the biggest impact in preventative maintenance. Unplanned, reactive maintenance carries overhead costs, easily avoided during the planning process. The cost of unplanned maintenance includes lost production, higher costs for parts and shipping, as well as time lost to responding emergencies and diagnosing faults while equipment is not working.

With preventative maintenance, equipment can shut down to coincide with breaks in the production schedule. Also, prior to shutting down, you can gather parts, supplies and personnel to minimize the time taken for a repair.

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The Value of Print and Mail Preventative Maintenance

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // MAIL PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE: WHY YOU NEED IT, AND NOW

  • Production Mail
< 1 Min Read

Mail Preventative Maintenance: Why You Need It, and Now

AUGUST 09, 2016

The goal of a successful preventative maintenance program is to establish consistent practices designed to improve equipment performance and safety. But there is also a great debate on whether a mail preventative maintenance program is worth having in place.

Many print and mail production operations are employing preventative maintenance programs, where companies can avoid larger, costly fixes down the line, according to Jim Feely, Senior Vice President of Global Services for Bell and Howell.

These include:

Cost savings

Unplanned downtime can result in idle employees, halting the production line, missed deadlines, and long-term damage to a brand.

Increased efficiency

Measuring performance and creating standards for preventative maintenance is key to a successful operation.

Decreased equipment downtime

A preventative maintenance program helps plan for scheduled downtime. As a result, equipment’s ability to keep running at peak performance levels improves.

Improved reliability

Preventative maintenance can also help a company be a more reliable business partner. Customers can count on a company to deliver products or service on time without unnecessary delays.

Conservation of assets

Lastly, cost. The cost of printing and mail equipment is not inexpensive. But the better the company cares for its equipment, the longer it will last. Preventative maintenance prolongs the life of a system resulting in reduced costs, as well as increased profits.

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Best Field Services by Leveraging Mobile Technology

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // Best Field Services by Leveraging Mobile Technology

  • Digital Transformation
< 1 Min Read

Best Field Services by Leveraging Mobile Technology

Kinvey, our mobile Backend as a Service (mBaaS) provider, recently announced it has rolled out Mobile Data Connect for SAP, a new tool that connects mobile apps to SAP backend systems.

With an industry-leading field services organization, Bell and Howell is one of the best field services companies. Also, it shines as the first in the world to implement this solution. As a result, they can provide lightning-quick field access to data-rich SAP-based enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) and customer-relationship-management (CRM) systems.

Anu Gupta, Bell and Howell’s Director of SAP Applications, said this new technology being rolled out via an iPhone app greatly enhances the speed and usage of ERP data.

“With Kinvey, we’ve been able to extend our SAP landscape for new use cases, and the performance has been unbelievable,” he said. “I went from 14-second SAP data access down to 400-millisecond mobile-friendly data access.”

IoT Shapes a Services Organization

Since 2005, our field service technicians have used mobile technology via BlackBerrys. However, these devices had limitations on searches and how much data they could display. With the new iPhone app, our technicians can view the history of a machine. They can also share information and images, scan parts, and create and view slow-motion videos. This allows us to know precisely how many hours or cycles a part has been in use. We can then replace it before it fails. It can also tell us if another technician experienced the same issue or has a required part in stock in a nearby city, not another time zone.

As advocates of the internet of things (and people, as our CEO Ramesh Ratan likes to add), we’re leveraging advances in mobile connectivity to backend systems in order to provide the best service possible to our clients. In a demonstration of full transparency, we’ll even share the data and reports compiled by our technicians.

Gupta added that this is new mobile capability is just the starting point.

“Our new mBaaS capability makes integration abstract,” he said. “It makes it easier for Bell and Howell to develop more sophisticated apps to enhance our field technicians’ capabilities.”

Bell and Howell recently completed the rollout of the new app along with new iPhone 6 units. Featuring large user-friendly screens that display more data, technicians across U.S., Canada and Europe can thrive in the field. This is just the latest example of how we are using cutting-edge technology to provide our customers with improved responsiveness and better quality for the variety of systems we service.

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The Value of Aviation Preventive Maintenance

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // The Value of Aviation Preventive Maintenance

  • Preventative Maintenance
< 1 Min Read

The Value of Aviation Preventive Maintenance

Correction. Inspection. Detection.

That’s preventative maintenance in its simplest form. By employing the concepts listed above, you can minimize or avoids the disaster of equipment failure. In other words, preventing damaging outcomes.

Aviation Preventive Maintenance: How It Ties Together

Preventative maintenance often brings reliability and predictability to a fleet, and Delta Airlines is a prime example of how its diligence has helped it position itself above the average.

According to an 2014 article in Aviation Week, the airline devised a strategy of investing in older aircraft instead of buying only new ones and aggressively managed and controlled maintenance, material and repair costs via preventative maintenance.

The result?

Delta’s 740-aircraft mainline fleet logged about 120 days, two to three times a week, without a single maintenance-related cancellation. In fact, it went the entire month of October 2013 without a single domestic cancellation. All of this came while flying a fleet that averages 17 years of age, at least three years older than any notable carrier.

No major carrier profits more from investing in older aircraft than Delta Airlines.

An Aircraft’s Service Strategy

But the airline’s performance is about more than just reliable aircraft. Delta was aggressive about swapping spare planes for faltering ones to keep from canceling flights. This strategy paid off and the airline’s 2013 net profit of $2.7 billion topped all U.S. carriers.

That same year, United Airlines, deferred maintenance on its fleet in favor of easing cash flow. However, the airline quickly learned that doing so created bigger hurdles down the road. Some of the airline’s legacy widebodies, including its 23 graying Boeing 747-400s, were having reliability issues that traced back to maintenance deferrals during the carrier’s mid-2000s bankruptcy.

Determined to catch up, United altered its 2013 aircraft routings and based the 747s in San Francisco, where it has a full-service maintenance, repair and overhaul shop. While that positioned the aircraft for much-needed preventative work, it also pulled them from higher-revenue routes, such as Chicago to Tokyo, costing the airline money.

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The Value of IoT Preventive Maintenance: The Internet of Things

Posted on by bop-admin

RESOURCES // BLOG // THE VALUE OF IOT PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE: THE INTERNET OF THINGS

  • IoT
< 1 Min Read

The Value of IoT Preventive Maintenance: The Internet of Things

JULY 25, 2016

The term, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” still applies to many organizations. And yet, for many years, IoT preventive maintenance has been the gold standard across industries.

The goal of a successful preventative maintenance program is establishing consistent practices designed to improve equipment performance and safety. But there is also a great debate on whether a preventative maintenance program is worth having in place.

Do the man hours and money invested in a program outweigh the cost of emergency repairs? And what are other benefits of a successful IoT preventive maintenance program?

IoT Preventive Maintenance: What, When and Why

The definition of service is constantly evolving according to a recent study conducted by the Aberdeen Group, where the internet of things (IoT) gives service organizations the ability to sell service contracts which can execute on the future of the service, which is preventative. It does so by allowing the service to move beyond continuous monitoring, which has limited value. Instead, it can rely on automated triggers that send technicians out to a customer site the moment an asset degrades.

The internet of things (IoT) is the concept of connecting any device that has an on and off switch to the internet. These devices can be individually identified, tracked, managed and connected to various networks.

The study concluded that 53 percent of equipment for best-in-class companies “is connected” for the purpose of maintenance and service. Additionally, the IoT helps service organizations gain valuable insights into monitoring product performance for maintenance purposes. It also helps them improve the efficiency and productivity of the customer’s operation.

Taking Organizations Farther

Aly Pinder, Jr., a senior research analyst at Aberdeen, said that the real value of IoT comes from what the technology can enable and empower organizations to do.

“Ultimately, your customers don’t really care how many devices you connect to,” he said. “They want to know that you will be able to deliver better value and provide better service each and every day.”

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, who spoke at the Code Conference in June 2016, said that his company had zeroed in on one significant use for the IoT: fixing things before they break. In 2015, Cisco teamed up with FANUC, a Japanese company building industrial robots, to keep track of how often robots in factories need maintenance.

Robbins added that preventative maintenance on robots saves money by eliminating costly and unexpected downtime. And that the savings from preventative maintenance is enough to justify the investment.

Cisco is currently tracking 28 million devices on its IoT network and adding a million more each month.

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The Emergence of 3D Printing – Part Two

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RESOURCES // BLOG // The Emergence of 3D Printing – Part Two

  • OEM
2 Min Read

The Emergence of 3D Printing – Part Two

Editor’s note: This blog post is part of a two-part series on the emergence of 3D printing. The first segment discusses how 3D printing for manufacturers helps businesses expedite processes by creating viable prototypes.

It would be misleading to only say 3D printing for manufacturers can expedite the process while reducing labor and materials costs.

The truth is that the industry still faces several challenges:

Market Immaturity

Some newer 3D print manufacturers lack robust operations, leading to some pretty long lead times to fulfill orders and install printers. Additionally, many manufacturers simply sell you the printer but lack the network and resources to provide maintenance and repair services for it.

Lack of Industry-wide Standardization

Some platforms from different manufacturers can talk to each other, but often they can’t. Manufacturers are very competitive, so it would be nice to see more cooperation and collaboration that eventually leads to standardization and innovation.

Just look at what Elon Musk is doing in the automotive industry. Tesla opened up its patents for free because Musk believes in expanding the market and innovation advances that causes.

Copyright Issues

Copyright infringement in the 3D space is a very complicated issue. Hobbyists have fewer restrictions when it comes to printing something for personal use. But, companies still must navigate the red tape involved in scanning and printing items.

Intellectual property expert Michael Weinberg recently wrote a white paper on the topic of copyrighting 3D scans, and distinguishes between “representational scans” made without creative intent and “expressive scans” which are meant to deviate from the original.

The recent drupa print tradeshow that attracted more than 200,000 participants to Dusseldorf, Germany, featured the theme “Touch the Future” and included the latest 3D print technology.

3D Printing Trends to Watch

As 3D printing for manufacturers expands into new territories and applications, Becoming 3D CEO Grant Sadowski notes a few trends we should monitor:

  • Established tech companies getting involved. For years the major players in 3D printing were Stratasys, EnvisionTEC, 3D Systems and EOS. Now global entities like HP are getting into the commercial market and making their presence known at tradeshows and other industry events.
  • Consolidation. Sadowski predicts that the proliferation of 3D printer manufacturers is not sustainable. Eventually, there will be only five to six viable players in the commercial 3D-printer market.
  • Production manufacturing. Cheap labor has pushed a lot of manufacturing overseas. But, 3D printing may bring a lot of it back to the United States. As more companies use 3D printers to make end products and not just prototypes, the cost of production on many products will drop. This is especially true for smaller production runs and personalized product manufacturing.
  • Diversity of materials. Beyond plastic and metal, the 3D printers of tomorrow could expand. Print skin grafts, organs, and materials with touch-sensitive or conductive properties could benefit from this production. It’s not the stuff of science fiction anymore.

Our network of expert service technicians across North America continues to grow. Bell and Howell feels honored to play a role in this dynamic world of 3D printing for manufacturers.

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The Emergence of 3D Printing – Part One

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RESOURCES // BLOG // The Emergence of 3D Printing – Part One

  • OEM
< 1 Min Read

The Emergence of 3D Printing – Part One

Editor’s note: This blog post is part of a two-part series on the emergence of 3D printing for manufacturing. The first segment discusses how 3D printing helps businesses expedite the manufacturing process by creating viable prototypes. 

Enjoying increasing popularity in the commercial and consumer markets, 3D printers have been around for longer than most people realize.

As early as 1981, Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute published his account of a functional rapid prototyping system using photopolymers. In 1986, Charles “Chuck” Hull patented the stereolithgraphy apparatus (SLA) and 3D printing became more visible in the late 1980s. Hull would go on to co-found 3D Systems Corporation, one of the largest players in the market today.

According to Becoming 3D CEO Grant Sadowski, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that 3D printing gained traction, even as it was still working out the bugs. Eventually, improvements in technology, lower price points, and the introduction of consumer models led to 3D printers we see today.

Exploring 3D Printing for Manufacturing

Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Becoming 3D consults with clients. There, they recommend models from different manufacturers that fit best for their applications. The company sells high-end products into the education market (encompassing K-12 all the way to universities) and commercial businesses. Clients thrive all over the country, ranging from Motorola and Disney to NASA, Embraer Aircraft and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

“We are 3D evangelists who want to expose the technology to more people. This lets them experience outcomes that will improve their quality of life,” Sadowski said. “We’ve seen 3D printing create everything from a dog’s broken bone for pre-surgery planning, to components of an open-wheel racecar. There are so many different applications.”

Sadowski said he sees similarities between the 2D print industry (where he owned a managed-print-services and copier dealership for about a decade) and 3D. The types of applications of print are expanding. As a result, he foresees major players in the market consolidating, either through acquisitions or mergers.

The Future of Full Production Manufacturing

Presently, 3D printing for manufacturing expedites business processes. It creates viable prototypes in hours and days rather than weeks and months. Additionally, 3D printing can reduce labor and materials costs in producing prototypes. Smaller companies can even rent 3D printers as a more cost-effective option, and short-run production is becoming more of a reality but still has a long way to go.

Sadowski said some companies are now considering 3D printing for manufacturing as an alternative to full production, actually printing the final products themselves (such as cell phone cases) rather than just the prototypes. With global powerhouses like HP entering this space, that concept is evolving from an interesting thought to a reality.

With vast experience in electromechanical applications and an acknowledgement of an unmet need, Bell and Howell began servicing 3D printers in 2015. We recently signed an agreement with Becoming 3D to help install and service the products it sells.

Editor’s note: Part two of this series explores some of the challenges of the current 3D print market.

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Technology As a Service: A Different Approach

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RESOURCES // BLOG // Technology As a Service: A Different Approach

  • IoT
< 1 Min Read

Technology As a Service: A Different Approach

When you hear the term “service” in the electromechanical fields, most people would envision a blue-collar professional who may be very adept at his job but has limited experience and/or education. He shows up, does the job, and departs. It’s a very reactive, task-centered approach to service. Bell and Howell has a different approach that views technology as a service business rather than an add-on. Or, the traditional service business as a commercial enterprise providing expert work for customers.

In our approach, technology enables people and people enable technology. We recognize that technology augments human capability in ways beyond simple automation or artificial intelligence. Technology can enable us to do more than we could before.

Traditional Maintenance

Think of exoskeletons that enable operators to lift heavy crates with ease. Or, picture web-connected appliances that email you when a malfunction is sensed. Beyond just fixing a machine, the difference in how we approach service lies between people and technology.

In true mechatronics, an expert technician possesses the knowledge and understanding of the machine in context. He or she knows that if this device fails, it impacts machines up and down the production line. As a result, this would negatively impact operations and productivity. At the practical level, a lot of our competitors approach to service through regularly scheduled “P.M. downtime.”

Similar to an annual physical for humans, the machine is taken offline and examined. This should take place yearly for wear and tear and preventative maintenance. Everybody believed an annual checkup was sufficient. But, for the rest of the year, that equipment is in “break/fix mode” and only addressed if it fails. Bell and Howell’s maintenance cycles occur frequently, like quarterly or even monthly. Although it may seem excessive, this approach provides more benefits because it gives more productivity.

Maintenance-Driven Technology

If you drive your car 12,000 to 15,000 miles a year, you don’t change the oil annually. You have your vehicle serviced more frequently based on usage, not the calendar. We can use data and analytics to improve service and perform “predictive failure maintenance” before you even know you might have an issue. This makes your operation more productive and reduces the cost of per-piece operation. Getting back to how people can enable technology, our technicians report back to us upon completing a visit and increase the knowledge base of the organization.

They know they don’t operate as individuals but as part of a team of more than 700 electromechanical experts throughout North America that share and transfer knowledge to one another. Our technicians have had service dispatch applications (SDAs) for a while, first through BlackBerries and soon iPhones and other smart devices. This allows our men and women in the field to use the app as an extension of themselves. Through GPS, video, barcode scanners and tags, this helps us to enable not just the “Internet of things” but the “Internet of people and technology.” It’s a unique concept that empowers the mutual exchange of information that makes both our people better through technology, and our technology better through our people.

The Future of Technology As a Service

As Bell and Howell evolves from printing and mailing to eCommerce, parcels, and beyond, this approach will help Internet-enabled connectivity across our lines of products and services. With enhanced knowledge, our technicians can now fix a wide range of products from printing and mailing equipment to 3D printers, currency counters, and much more. Neither humans nor technology can optimally solve problems on their own. It’s the interplay between human judgment and technical data that combine to enhance operations.

Machines will never replace human instinct, intuition, and interaction, and that’s one of the reasons why Bell and Howell will continue to invest in their human resources for the betterment of our company and our clients.

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