PLANT MANAGEMENT
Plant managers are
investing in predictive maintenance solutions in a bid to reduce downtime
ASSESSING ASSET HEALTH
Dr Tom Knott explains how on- site oil analysis could give control back to industry decision-makers
condition monitoring as a predictive maintenance solutions can provide a deep insight into ongoing system health, reducing the risk of equipment damage caused by unknown contaminants in the system. Keeping an eye on the quality and integrity of your oil is nothing new to most industries that rely on lubrication, hydraulic or coolant fl uids. Almost 70% of industry respondents to a Spectro Scientifi c survey had some form of reliability monitoring programme in place. It’s safe to say that most decision-makers are aware that tracking the status of machine lubricant to enable predictive maintenance action is an essential practice. Predictive maintenance is the sweet spot
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where facility managers can make decisions based on timely data about the health of their critical machinery assets. T is is more cost-eff ective than preventative maintenance,
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hen it comes to minimising disruptive maintenance work and lowering costs, prevention is better than cure. Using oil
where oil replacements are carried out based on a routine schedule, and far more economical than reactive maintenance, when components break and shut down production until the problem is fi xed. T is predictive strategy is especially
important in those industries where replacing worn bearings or overheated components is particularly diffi cult, such as off shore power generation and remote materials processing sites. In 2023, most OCM programmes
involve sending samples to professional laboratories. Although providing the peace of mind that analysis is executed by experts, this outsourcing practice can limit businesses in a number of ways. For one, the timeframe of sending a sample to the lab and waiting for the report is usually multiple weeks. With each passing day, maintenance managers could be running out of time to intervene in the mechanical decline of a vital asset. Another issue with outsourcing the
OCM process is the rising cost. T e UK’s
industrial services have been universally infl ated by the Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain issues from China. T e necessary increase in cost constrains testing volume: if you can only test six samples per month instead of 10, the likelihood that you miss a burgeoning problem increases. T ese same geopolitical factors that are
prompting quality managers to seek more cost-eff ective alternatives to outsourcing their oil condition monitoring needs also compound the potentially ruinous costs of a reactive maintenance policy. If your machine breaks and halts business, you might be waiting weeks, not days, for a replacement part.
SOLVING THE FLUID ANALYSIS CONUNDRUM On-site fl uid analysis instruments can signifi cantly boost testing volume, improve sustainability and provide immediate results to give maintenance managers the best platform from which to make decisions and keep business running smoothly.
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