Cleanaway (Malaga), in Western Australia implemented the Hosemasters Predictive Maintenance Program in 1996.
Cleanaway’s objective was to put in place a predictive maintenance program that would eliminate hose assembly failure on their waste trucks during the working day and eliminate consequential oil spills as the average clean up cost of an oil spill was, at the time around $800.00.
Prior to commencing the Hosemasters Predictive Maintenance Program Cleanaway was experiencing time wasting and expensive hose assembly failure, on average 9 times every month.
By the end of the first year under the Hosemasters Predictive Maintenance Program only 5 hoses had failed. In the next year of the program only 6 hoses failed. This is a major improvement on the year prior to implementation of the Hosemasters Predictive Maintenance Program when Cleanaway had experienced in excess of a 100 hose failures. (Chart below)
As you can see, following the introduction of the Hosemasters Predictive Maintenance Program the incidence of hose failure decreased dramatically. Nevertheless, it was essential that we determined the cause of the remaining hose failures.
Program
Predictive Maintenance Program
Client
Cleanaway
Joined Since
1996
After investigation Hosemasters identified two causes of the hose failure:
1. Two of the hose failures were caused by falling debris; and
2. The remaining hose failures were linked to the same fitting in three different trucks. It was determined that operating temperatures and pressures were reducing the life expectancy of the hoses from 3 years to 18 months.
Problem Solved
The obvious solution would be to reduce the hose assembly change-out from 3 years to 18 months. However, after discussions with Cleanaway it became apparent that Hosemasters needed to find a solution that ensured a minimum change-out term of 3 years.
Hosemasters re-visited the source of the problem, which was the excess heat from the exhaust manifold. Consequently Hosemasters added a heat sleeve to the offending hoses and as a result Cleanaway now enjoys a minimum service period of 3 years from the hose assembly – protected from heat by the heat sleeve.