Predictive maintenance is a benefit, not an evil

Predictive maintenance should be seen as an integral part of plant management and, moreover, part of an all encompassing asset management function.

According to Stockport, UK-based AV Technology, predictive maintenance (PM) is far more than just a programme for identifying problems with equipment and machinery before they fail.

The company maintains it should be seen as an integral part of plant management and, moreover, part of an all encompassing asset management function.

It should certainly not be seen as a necessary or costly evil.

A well implemented PM programme engenders a 'Measure-Assess-Improve' regime within a plant, establishing the basis for improving reliability, reducing downtime, improving productivity, meeting relevant legislation and ultimately reducing costs.

The PM techniques employed are well established and include the following.

* Lubrication management.

* Vibration analysis and fault finding.

* Thermography.

* Remote visual inspection.

* Ultrasonic leak detection.

* Acoustic emission monitoring.

Used in isolation these techniques may have limited effectiveness, said AV to manufacturingtalk.com, and therefore a full plant wide PM programme should be adopted.

The PM programme uses the technologies as appropriate to provide comprehensive data from plant and machinery.

Exploiting the maximum potential of individual PM techniques is an important factor, said AV.

For example, a lubrication management programme can provide a wealth of useful information and can cover aspects including lubrication selection, change out periods and debris analysis, lubricant cleaning as well as lubricant procurement and recycling.

All industries can benefit from predictive maintenance, but in particular the fast paced food and beverage sector is rapidly realising the benefits of structured outsourced PM programmes.

In this highly competitive market, productivity and customer satisfaction are crucial: downtime or contamination through equipment failure is expensive.

* Outsourcing PM - outsourcing the predictive maintenance function via an experienced industrial consultancy such as AV Technology (AVT) has a number of clear advantages.

Firstly, companies do not have to invest in additional personnel or expensive equipment.

That however is just the start.

Outsourcing gives companies access to a broad range of experience and capabilities and the PM program should be seen as a working partnership.

Typically the consultancy sets up the PM program in collaboration with the customer and then day to day measurements can be carried out by either using suitably trained internal capacity or the outsourcing company.

AVT have extensive hands-on experience in all disciplines relating to outsourced PM.

The company recognises that gathering inspection data has traditionally been very laborious and time consuming, with engineers transferring information from clipboards to spread sheets or log books.

However the data needs to be used to its maximum potential and made available to all parties concerned.

To address these important issues AVT has adopted an integrated Asset Maintenance System known as MAINtelligence.

This powerful plant tool fully integrates asset and maintenance management, condition based maintenance, equipment and basic care inspections and intelligent diagnostic agents using one system and one database.

Mobile data collection can be effected using robust PDAs that are fully customizable and extremely versatile, together with laser bar code scanners and RFID tags.

AVT have found that automating the inspection process has proven to be the most effective method of not only maximising the data but also ensuring optimum buy in from clients, thereby strengthening the collective effort involved in reliability issues.

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