Name: Shahar Fifer
Age: 36
Job Title: Reliability Implementation Leader Company: ICL Dead Sea Works (DSW)
Location: Beersheba, Israel
Length of Service: 8 years
Since 2012, Shahar Fifer has worked at the ICL Dead Sea Works (DSW) plant in Beersheba, Israel, where he started as a maintenance engineer and then served as the head of the maintenance engineering department. He is now the reliability implementation leader. Fifer’s first introduction to lubrication excellence came in 2015 during a benchmark assessment performed by Noria. Prior to this assessment, he was unaware of the influence and importance of lubrication, or just how wide and significant the world of machinery lubrication is.
Q: What types of training have you taken to reach your current position?
A: I have had training in machinery lubrication, vibration, lean tools and methods,and reliability, including maintenance assessments, planning and scheduling, preventive maintenance and root cause analysis.
Q: What professional certifications have you attained?
A: I have a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Q: Are you planning to obtain additional training or achieve higher certifications?
A: First, I need to finish my machinery lubrication training and systematic inventive thinking (SIT) training. In the future, I would like to expand my knowledge in asset management.
Q: What’s a normal workday like for you?
A: My day is quite varied. It usually starts in the morning with a standing meeting to share the weekly activities with the team. After that, there may be meetings related to implementing reliability with managers and employees, on-the-job training (OJT), process control and performance management. Above all, I leave time to plan and schedule the activities for the rest of the year.
Q: What is the amount and range of equipment you help service through lubrication/oil analysis tasks?
A: I work with four reliability engineers who are responsible for lubrication programs, including oil analysis tasks, at four different plants. In total, we are monitoring more than 1,000 assets.
Q: On what lubrication-related projects are you currently working?
A: I am currently working on a few projects. One involves combining Industry 4.0 technologies for solving lubrication/maintenance problems. Other projects relate to implementing best practices in lubrication excellence.
Q: How does your company view machinery lubrication in terms of importance and overall business strategy?
A: My company makes lubrication excellence a high priority. This is seen in the resources, people and work processes.
Q: What do you see as some of the more important trends taking place in the lubrication and oil analysis field?
A: I think the use of online monitoring and machine learning is an important trend.
Q: What has made your company decide to put more emphasis on machinery lubrication?
A: Managers understand the impact and power lubrication has on machinery and lead the efforts to improve it.
