Test & Measurement

Tip of the Week: Proper Motor Maintenance

April 20, 2015

Your focus should be on the most critical motors, not necessarily the ones most prone to failures.

How do you know you’re properly allocating motor maintenance resources? And what does proper allocation really mean?

If we begin with the premise that the purpose of motor maintenance is to prevent motor failures, then proper allocation means focusing resources on solving those failure causes that are the “heaviest.” This doesn’t necessarily mean the most frequent failure cause. For example, perhaps the critical motors are all lubricated by qualified lubrication techs. These motors simply don’t fail from lubrication problems. But the “qualified” limitation doesn’t apply to the other motors, so lubrication defects are common causes of failure.

Perhaps the failure of a critical motor causes a revenue loss of $250,000 an hour, and failure of a non-critical motor has a negligible effect on revenue. Allocating more resources to motor lubrication because it’s a frequent failure cause is a misallocation of resources away from the high-revenue critical motors.

In future tips, we’ll examine ways to properly allocate motor maintenance resources.

About the Author

Mark Lamendola

Mark is an expert in maintenance management, having racked up an impressive track record during his time working in the field. He also has extensive knowledge of, and practical expertise with, the National Electrical Code (NEC). Through his consulting business, he provides articles and training materials on electrical topics, specializing in making difficult subjects easy to understand and focusing on the practical aspects of electrical work.

Prior to starting his own business, Mark served as the Technical Editor on EC&M for six years, worked three years in nuclear maintenance, six years as a contract project engineer/project manager, three years as a systems engineer, and three years in plant maintenance management.

Mark earned an AAS degree from Rock Valley College, a BSEET from Columbia Pacific University, and an MBA from Lake Erie College. He’s also completed several related certifications over the years and even was formerly licensed as a Master Electrician. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and past Chairman of the Kansas City Chapters of both the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Mark also served as the program director for, a board member of, and webmaster of, the Midwest Chapter of the 7x24 Exchange. He has also held memberships with the following organizations: NETA, NFPA, International Association of Webmasters, and Institute of Certified Professional Managers.