Continuous Condition Monitoring
Modern diagnostic systems ensure early failure detection and damage prevention.
One of the greatest challenges facing plant owners and machine operators involves increasing the availability of production machinery within the scope of their day-to-day work, without using additional resources for maintenance measures. To pull off this balancing act, over the past 70 years, three different maintenance strategies have been devised and pursued. This article examines the different principles, along with their suitability for use in day-to-day practice; and provides answers to the challenges involved in the efficient maintenance of sophisticated industrial machinery.
The "first generation" (1940 to 1950) of maintenance was neither strategic nor efficient, the motto being "run it until it breaks down". Machines were acquired redundantly in some cases, and switched over if one broke down. If this dual investment was not possible and a fault occurred; the corresponding production section was shut down in order for the laborious search to find the cause and for its repair to begin. The level of technical personnel required for this, the tying-up of storage capacity and capital, as well as the loss of production that had to be taken into account were accepted.
Preventive maintenance
Until the mid-1970s, the concept of "preventive" maintenance was practised. On the basis of manufacturer’s directions, error logs and personal experiences; the operational lives of machines and their components were estimated and, on this basis, calendar-based maintenance schedules were drawn up. The objective was to use components for as long as possible, in order to inspect or to replace them in good time before an expected damage occurred. The deadline for inspecting or overhauling was calculated on the basis of the said factors (manufacturer’s directions, error logs). Using this calendar or operating time-based approach, it was - at the planning level, at least - possible to roughly coordinate production and maintenance shutdown times.
To learn more about PROGNOST Systems visit www.prognost.com.