Instumentation • Computing • Control
Condition monitoring is insurance against unforeseen downtime
Condition monitoring systems and automatic lubrication systems for bearings can reduce the risk and costs associated with unforeseen breakdowns to critical processing.
Los sistemas de monitorización del estado y los sistemas de lubricación automática para cojinetes pueden reducir el riesgo y los costes asociados a averías imprevistas en el procesamiento crítico.
Zustandsüberwachungssysteme und automatische Schmiersysteme für Lager können die in Verbindung mit unvorhergesehenen Ausfällen stehenden Risiken und Kosten auf einen kritischen Ablauf senken.
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Fig. 1. The FAG Motion Guard Champion automatic lubrication system.
hen it comes to owning and
managing a high cost item such as a car or home, most of us
are comfortable with paying insurance premiums, to help safeguard us against unforeseen accidents or breakdowns. Te policy we take out is a type of risk management policy that invariably helps us to sleep better at night. So, as process manufacturers, surely
we too need to ensure that our high value capital goods, such as production machinery and other critical plant equipment are adequately insured against the cost of unforeseen breakdowns? In the downstream oil and gas sector, ‘lost’ production time can equate to hundreds of thousands of pounds per day – until the problem is rectified.
Although the cost of a machine component such as a bearing, pump or electric motor is very small compared to the total cost of the machinery, the cost of production downtime and any consequential losses as a result of the bearing failure, are often significant. For example, take a petrochemical processing plant. Te typical cost of
production downtime can be anything from £100 000 to £500 000 per day. Total maintenance costs for a typical oil and gas processing plant are around 10 to 15 per cent of total costs. Of course, every processing plant has a maintenance department to deal with problems like these, but often, because of time and resource constraints, the maintenance team becomes reactive, fire fighting problems around the plant as they occur, with no predictive maintenance systems, little preventive maintenance and often with no maintenance strategy at all. But there should be no excuses for this
today. Tere are numerous technology safeguards out there that, when compared to the cost of lost production, are relatively inexpensive. Using the latest condition monitoring and predictive maintenance systems, including bearing vibration monitoring, acoustic emissions monitoring and thermography to protect plant and machines, is what the more enlightened plants are doing. But many more companies need to pay heed. “Plant managers and maintenance managers need to justify any expenditure on condition monitoring systems and services, to their finance director or MD,” says Kate Hartigan, Managing Director of precision bearings and automotive components manufacturer Schaeffler (UK) Ltd. “We would suggest using a risk management approach for this. Ask the question of your finance director: ‘What will it cost the company in lost production if I lose that critical pump or motor for five hours?’ Or “What would you be prepared to pay as an insurance premium , to secure the running of the plant and toprotect it against unforeseen breakdowns?’ You may get some very positive reposnes.”
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