On the 11th and 12th of October in Malpensa was held SIMa, the first Italian Maintenance Summit. The meeting, based on the sharing of maintenance issues on several levels, was created thanks to the authority of A.I.MAN., the Italian Association of Maintenance that since 1959 has been the national reference for all workers in the field. During the event, leading figures of small, medium and large businesses, services and infrastructures took their place on the stage, sharing their experiences and skills in order to organize their ideas in the era of the fourth industrial revolution.
The first day some Maintenance Stories were shared, tales and real cases of maintenance collected since 2005 at the initiative of TIMGlobal Media, Publisher of A.I.MAN., and Festo Consulting, a leading company in industrial training. The second day the Maintenance Forum was vibrant, thanks in particular to the contribution of the Italian Observatory for Airports Maintenance, Man.Tra, Transport Maintenance Association, and TeSeM, Observatory of Maintenance Technology and Services, School of Management of Milan’s Polytechnic.
Among the most important topics were diagnostic technologies, information and ICT systems, maintenance engineering and Full Service, which have been treated with particular attention to the consequences relative to company business. Finally, the participants had the exclusive opportunity to visit particular areas of the Malpensa airport that are normally closed to the public, such as the baggage handling facilities, the control tower, the SEA Energia power plant.
Mecoil Diagnosi Meccaniche took part in the Summit along with Ineos from Rosignano, represented by a member of the Maintenance and Predictive staff, Andrea Giannoni. In his speech, Giannoni illustrated concrete case studies in which the analysis of lubricating oil made it possible to fully utilize the plants, scheduling necessary maintenance during slow periods instead of waiting for a failure that would halt production.
Speaking of a real combination of research and business, Mecoil presented Monitoil®, an online monitoring system that answers the need of industry 4.0 to go from “spot” check-ups to continuous monitoring. A project that requires a great cultural effort and with little commercial aspects, with all the “ups and downs” that affect every new tool of refined investigation when you go from lab testing to field application. In fact, the reality of the phenomenon inside the machine in operation is very different and much more “chaotic” than the ideal one: the oil flows (or runs!) at many Km/h with very high pressures that make the myriad of particles and bubbles of water or air incomprehensible and constantly changing “objects”.
Objectivity is constantly changing and very difficult to trace back to a traditional framework; hence the great effort to standardize this approach. Does it make more sense to take a small sample from the machine to analyze every once in a while with a sort of loop made outside the primary circuit, or to insert a dedicated probe directly into the most turbulent flow, at the highest level of stress? This is an almost unexplored area, in which very little has so far been definitively ascertained, which makes the situation undoubtedly stimulating.
Our research doesn’t stop: Mecoil, in collaboration with Ineos, is already working to improve the merits and eliminate the flaws of lubricants online diagnostics.
