Purpose

A Good maintenance Strategy requires that a good Condition Monitoring strategy in place enhance equipment life and prevent premature equipment failure to achieve the desired operating goals. These include the desire to ensure the required plant and product availability with reduced maintenance costs.

Objective

The primary objective of Condition Monitoring is to provide reliable information about the condition of the equipment so as to plan and carry out preventive and corrective maintenance which prevents pre mature failures. Condition Monitoring tasks are typically non-intrusive. That is, they are done with the equipment online.

Condition Monitoring tasks include the use of technologies such as:

• Vibration monitoring and analysis
• Lube oil analysis
• Laser Alignment
• Electrical Thermography
• Mechanical Thermography
• Motor Current Signature Analysis
• Root Cause Failure Analysis

Proper use of these devices allows equipment anomalies to be detected prior to catastrophic failure.
Material needed for repair or replacement can be obtained and the equipment can be scheduled for remedial action.

Since maintenance is planned and scheduled based on equipment condition, this is termed as Condition Based Maintenance (CBM).

The result of CBM is less expensive repairs, shortened downtime as well as increased productivity which invariably increases profit to a range of 25 to 40% increase in revenue (Calculation Purpose only)

Studies have shown that the cost of Condition Based Maintenance is between one-fifteenth (1/15) and one-fortieth (1/40) the cost of failure based maintenance.

Condition Monitoring effort will provide the information required for operators to make proper business decisions on when to schedule maintenance.