West Point Treatment Plant

Innovative Maintenance Team Improves Current
Maintenance Practices at West Point

Shortly after the completion of the $570 million secondary expansion at the King County West Point Treatment Plant, in 1995, the Maintenance section realized that they had a challenge on their hands. Literally thousands of new pieces of equipment had been added to their workload. Practically every process system was either brand new or upgraded.

To meet these challenges, the Maintenance section formed a team consisting of Lubrication Specialists, Vibration Analyst, and Mechanics. The daily work of this team is to define, implement and execute maintenance procedures that will increase machinery life, decrease equipment downtime, and prevent costly equipment failures.

The team bases its approach on technologies that have been commonly used in other industries where high performance was demanded from rotating equipment. The following is a sample of techniques used to accomplish better maintenance:

• regular inspection and analysis of the condition of the lubricant for each piece of equipment,
• regular analysis of vibration of all major pieces of equipment by using a highly sensitive measuring device used by a trained master mechanic, and
• maintaining a regular mechanical maintenance schedule for each piece of equipment which includes recording its history in a computerized database.

Examples of new maintenance procedures:

Oil Cleanliness Level Monitoring: This allows us to track particle levels in oil lubricating major components in equipment. Test results provide information that enhances the decision of what action will be taken to insure that contaminants do not effect the lubricant film protecting costly components such as bearings, gears, and shafts.

Target Cleanliness Levels: We set the oil cleanliness level at a certain point for machinery and monitor particle levels to see if an increase or decrease in particles is occurring from the initial time of oil change. Our reference is ISO code 4406.

Wear Particle Analysis: This identifies the make up of particulate that are suspended in machinery oil. The information is used to help identify the source of a specific problem and correct it prior to the component failing and causing severe damage to the equipment.

Scheduled Equipment Lubrication and Inspection: All process and support equipment is lubricated and inspected on a calendar or operating run time criteria schedule that is designed specific to machinery and its application within the system. The date and results of every inspection are logged into our shop database so that we can track the history of every piece of equipment efficiently.

This approach to maintenance in the last few years has led to significant cost savings in many aspects of maintenance for the wastewater treatment plant.

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For more information, contact Raliegh Salazar

West Point Treatment Plant Maintenance Section
1400 Utah St. W.
Seattle, WA 98199
Phone: 206-689-3900
Fax: 206-689-3906

Updated February 2, 2001.