X/07 - Inefficient CBM program is expensive
03 November 2010
Enhancing PdM / CBM program
Do you really know when your equipment is going to fail?
More and more maintenance organizations in the world are moving away from preventive maintenance tactics in favor of predictive maintenance. Especially for expensive components which we would normally like to utilize its "useful life" to the max before spending the money to replace it. Predictive maintenance (or also known as Condition Based Maintenance), as the name implies, is the practice of executing corrective maintenance at the right time, right JUST before the equipment fails. Thus major activities in this type of maintenance involve predicting when equipments are going to fail. This is done most of the time by a practice normally known as condition monitoring.
The most common forms of Condition Monitoring are visual inspections (low-tech) and basic oil analyses & vibration monitoring (high-tech). In this era of advanced technologies, many of us have implemented these types (and even more) of Condition Monitoring at our sites, collecting tons of "supposedly" failure indicator data. All that so we can accurately predict when and what is going to fail to disrupt our operation. However, in spite of our high tech monitoring program, can we accurately predict when our critical equipments are going to fail? Without sound knowledge of indicators relationship to failures, our practice may cost the company millions of dollars due to premature parts replacement. Certain studies have shown that as much as 50% of replacements due to PdM program were later on found to be premature with no evidence of real failure. To help organizations avoid premature replacements while at the same time also reduce the risk of breakdowns, we support our clients through the utilization of a Decision Support System called EXAKT.
EXAKT relates failure indicators (and their combinations) to failure modes, giving the equipment operator a high level of confidence that the equipment will not fail before the end of production run. EXAKT also reduces maintenance costs by optimizing the blend of preventive and predictive maintenance. Most importantly EXAKT estimates the Remaining Useful Life. To find out more about EXAKT please click here.
A Case study of EXAKT application can be also found in our Optimizing Maintenance Decisions page in our website here.