Today energy saving is a dominating issue resulting in demanding maximum performance of machinery. This demand can result in cutting cost by investing in smaller machinery with lower energy consumption. This again increases the demand for surveillance since the smaller machines cannot be expected to operate flawlessly over longer periods as was previously the case with the over-dimensioned equipment.
When planning new installations it should be carefully considered whether 100% redundant systems demanding capital and space are worthwhile. Effective surveillance would make it possible to catch most of the failures in good time to avoid downtime, and investment in expensive redundant machinery can be avoided.
So the bottom line is; use surveillance technology allowing for early fault detection to avoid breakdowns.
Reduce maintenance cost
Most machinery is either maintained based on ‘run to failure’ or on time base intervals, known as ‘preventive maintenance’. The ‘run to failure’ maintenance can be risky as you are completely dependent on redundant machinery which is often worn down to the same level as the system that failed.
‘Preventive maintenance’ involves the machines being disassembled according to a time scale and in addition to normal checks the bearings and other machine parts are routinely replaced. It is however common knowledge that about 60% of all machine failures can be related to the maintenance performed.
If you want to avoid the above situations and at the same time secure a perfect operation, you need to have trustworthy information of the condition of the machinery. The method is ‘predictive maintenance’ which covers machine surveillance by means of vibration measurements, eg combined with process measurements like temperature, pressure, etc. This will give precise information of the condition of the machine in order to learn about any potential failure at an early stage, and will allow for repairs to be planned at an early time thus being explicit and proactive.
Extension of maintenance periods from one year to up to five years will not only result in significant savings on maintenance costs, but will also reduce the number of machine faults.
Vibration monitoring is very important because vibration in machinery is directly related to the internal forces taking place inside of them. Any changes in the vibration pattern may be caused by the development of a fault.
Using vibration measurements most machinery faults can be found at a very early stage and thereby, when used properly, will keep you out of trouble. But above all, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’
Machine Performance supplies a web-based concept to:
* Avoid unexpected production stoppages;
* Reduce maintenance costs;
* Prolong machine life.
In total the concept offers significant cost and time savings resulting in higher profit.
