September 2004Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration
Chris Hansford, the managing director of Monitran, specialists in monitoring solutions, assesses the risks that some companies are willing to take by failing to install condition monitoring equipment.
Many companies across the world have excellent maintenance policies and procedures in place, however there are a large number of companies that, unfortunately, still stick to the 'run until failure' philosophy. In the long run, this is obviously not good for the manufacturing industry and the wider economy. When things go wrong, this lack of forethought means that the company concerned can be first to pay the price in lost production and revenue - all of which could have easily been avoided with some forward thinking.
The technology to assess and monitor factory-floor hardware, in particular rotating machinery, has been around for years. However, during the past five years, the condition monitoring industry has undergone massive changes that have resulted in huge leaps forward in instrument design and specification. Yet some companies are still willing to risk huge financial penalties, extended periods of downtime and even health and safety violations by failing to adopt a proactive mentality towards condition monitoring.
Effective condition monitoring, using techniques such as vibration measurement, can be achieved at a relatively low cost, when compared to lost production and repair of failed systems. Planning ahead, with an effective predictive maintenance routine goes a long way to ensuring that production is kept constant and a steady revenue stream is safeguarded. Without such a system in place production is disrupted, budgets are blown and jobs are put on the line. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but foresight is better.
The initial investment involved in installing a vibration sensor, for example, is so minute in comparison to the potential losses accrued through unplanned or unexpected machine downtime that it seems ludicrous that any modern manufacturing facility would entertain the notion of not having such a system installed. The time to act is now, before the problems have set in.
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