It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, what products or services you offer, how large or small your company currently is — without your machinery, your business simply wouldn’t function. Unfortunately, too many business leaders focus their budget and attention away from equipment maintenance; in fact, many business leaders don’t know the first thing about monitoring their machinery for signs of flaws or faults. As a result, equipment is more likely to break down, costing the business much more in downtime and repairs than it would in diligent, ongoing maintenance.
One of the most fundamental processes for keeping equipment in good working order is condition monitoring, often abbreviated to CM. Read on to learn more about what condition monitoring is and how you should enact it at your business.
CM Basics
Condition monitoring is a broad term for any process that regularly oversees a certain parameter of machinery condition. Typically, the goal of condition monitoring is to identify significant changes to various parameters, which tend to indicate a fault that requires repair. Types of equipment that require CM include:
- Rotating equipment, or gearboxes, reciprocating machinery and centrifugal machinery
- Static equipment, such as steam oilers, heat exchangers and piping
- Auxiliary systems, like cooling systems, fuel delivery systems and more
- Other equipment, such as compressors, pumps, electric motors, internal combustion engines, presses and more
While the specific parameters you monitor will depend largely on the type of equipment you utilize and where you are located, you almost always want to pay close attention to these issues:
- Vibration. It is most critical that machines avoid unnecessary or destructive vibrations. Equipment can fall victim to mechanical frequency, which causes them to shake and rattle apart.
- Temperature. Heat and cold have significant impact on how machinery runs. Typically, heat is a sign of failing components and should be investigated and remedied swiftly.
- Lubrication. All machines need to be sufficiently lubricated to prevent friction from reducing the equipment’s efficiency or causing harm.
- Cracks and leaks. Regular visual inspections can reveal fractures in equipment that might otherwise go undetected. Inspectors should have a documented set of guidelines to compare against what they are seeing, to ensure they aren’t ignoring a critical change in condition.
By no means are these the only conditions you need to monitor for — they are only the most common. You should meet with a condition monitoring expert to better understand what your unique equipment needs for effective preventative maintenance. Then, you can invest in only the tools or services you require to keep maintenance and repair costs low.
CM Tools and Tech
You shouldn’t be guessing how to keep your equipment safe. There are a wealth of tools and techniques available to improve the effectiveness of condition monitoring, so your machinery can continue to function into the future. Again, the tools you use will depend highly on which parameters you and your staff determine need to be monitored — but here are some interesting and worthwhile tests for most businesses:
- Accelerometry. Accelerometers are some of the most accessible vibration monitoring tools, and they are a good investment for measuring vibrations. There are various types of accelerometer, for varying detail in readings.
- Thermography. This non-destructive test helps you understand the hot and cold areas of your equipment. Thermographs generate an image of an area and use color to translate temperature. You should know your equipment’s ideal operating temperature and maintain it.
- Wear Debris Detection and Analysis (WDD/A). When machines wear, particles can make their way into lubricating oil and cause damage. WDD uses sensors to scan oil for wear particles, and WDA employs a scanning electron microscope to find even the most minute elements of wear. Both of these can help you determine when it is time to clean or change the oil or service the machinery.
The last thing your business needs is for your equipment to break down, interrupting delivery of goods and services. Yet, all machinery experiences wear and tear; it is not a matter of eliminating maintenance altogether but of monitoring and controlling that wear to prevent excessive downtime. By investing in condition monitoring, you will keep your business safe from the worst machine malfunctions, which means you can devote more of your time and effort to building your business.
