The Future of Machinery Monitoring Technology

In spite of the growing sophistication of the maintenance of our machinery, we still have not effectively combined the scheduling of maintenance with the process and production sides of our plants. This combination of maintenance and process engineering functions is critical if we are to maintain and increase our ability to complete. We can no longer look at maintenance and process management as two separate and distinct activities.

In looking at a typical machinery application, be it a compressor, turbine or any other large rotating machine, there are several aspects of the “maintenance” problem. Often a plant finds that interest in the health of a machine is divided into two separate and distinct areas. The first is the maintenance world as we have traditionally defined it, which is the care of the mechanical and electrical characteristics of the machine to keep it operating. This is typically different from the process world, which is the production activity in which this machine takes part. In most plants production and maintenance are separate, yet both deal with the same expensive and generally very sophisticated machinery. 

The problem is, in spite of the growing sophistication of the maintenance of our machinery, we still have not effectively combined the scheduling of this activity with the process and production sides of our plants. This combination of maintenance and process engineering functions is critical if we are to maintain and increase our competitiveness. We can no longer look at maintenance and process management as two separate and distinct activities. 

Continue reading story in the attached application note.