Deters is Working Hard to Prevent Downtime

Name: Sam Deters

Age: 33

Job Title: Engineering Maintenance Reliability and Automation (EMRA) Leader Company: Novelis Corporation

Location: Terre Haute, IN

Length of Service: 13 years

Sam Deters has spent the last 12 years helping Novelis Corporation improve their uptime, reliability and safety by continually growing his expertise through training and by working side-by-side with engineering, skilled craft and operations professionals.

Q: How long have you worked for your company and which positions have you held?

A: 12 years, Mechanical Engineer, Reliability Engineer, EMRA Leader

Q: When did you get your start in machinery lubrication and how did it happen?

A: When I became the Reliability Engineer, my first training course I attended was for MLT1 through Noria. We had some major failures due to lubrication issues that prompted us to take a deeper dive in our program.

Q: What types of training have you taken to get you to your current position?

A: Machinery Lubrication courses through Noria

Q: What professional certifications have you attained?

A: MLT2, CMRP, CRL

Q: Are you planning to obtain additional training or achieve higher certifications? If so, why and which ones?

A: I’d like to achieve the machinery lubrication engineer certification to keep expanding my knowledge in the machinery lubrication world as well as vibration analyst certifications. Many of these technologies and maintenance strategies work hand in hand together to increase our operational excellence.

Q: What’s a normal work day like for you?

A: Working with the engineers, skilled craft, and operations to develop plans for increasing uptime, making equipment more reliable, and making our equipment safer.

Q: What is the amount and range of equipment that you help service through lubrication/oil analysis tasks?

A: Large and small gearboxes, hydraulic systems, engines, transmissions

Q: What lubrication-related projects are you currently working on?

A: Automatic grease system for a coating line and high temperature grease for annealing furnace.

Q: What have been some of the biggest project successes for which you’ve played a part?

A: Our world class lube room

Q: How does your company view machinery lubrication in terms of importance and overall business strategy?

A: Machinery lubrication is a very important part of ensuring operational excellence

Q: What do you see as some of the more important trends taking place in the lubrication and oil analysis field?

A: The increased emphasis lubrication and oil analysis receives as a part of the maintenance strategy

Q: What has made your company decide to put more emphasis on machinery lubrication?

A: Root cause analysis from major equipment failures have shown that we needed more emphasis on machinery lubrication.