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Introducing Condition Alarm Mapping (CAM)
The sheer number of infographics in the condition monitoring field is staggering; they show up on social media, and in conference presentations, whitepapers, websites and books. Infographics are effective at helping people comprehend difficult concepts that integrate an array of variables and factors. Read More
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Why Inspection 2.0 Is Your Best Strategy for Early Fault Detection
Inspection, in its most basic form, has been around forever. However, like most things in life, what you get out of an activity depends entirely on what you put in. This column is about radical reinvention of the whole concept of machine inspection. It has little to do with conventional practices of doing daily machine… Read More
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Getting Machines to the Proper State of Inspection Readiness
I have written several articles on inspection recently, as I strongly believe it is foundational to condition monitoring, machine reliability and asset management. My last Machinery Lubrication column introduced the term “Inspection 2.0” to differentiate conventional inspection practices from the intense, probing and purposeful methods needed to optimize benefits. As common as inspection activities may… Read More
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How to Measure the Effectiveness of Condition Monitoring
Condition monitoring should never be limited to a single technology or method. Instead, it should combine and integrate an optimum selection of purposeful tools and tasks. Condition monitoring can be largely technology based but can also be observation or inspection based. Read More
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How to Visually Inspect the Health and State of Oil
The well-known KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) was first coined in the 1960s and began widespread use in the U.S. Navy shortly thereafter. While it started as a design principle for engineers, it has since been applied to any activity or creative endeavor that has had the propensity to become unnecessarily complicated. Read More
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Why Proactive Maintenance is Key for a World-Class Lubrication Program
It is no surprise that those who enter the maintenance field are mechanics at heart. These are people who possess a native love for machinery and the thrill that comes from making broken things run again. Read More
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Inspection 2.0: The Cornerstone of World-Class TPM
Inspection 2.0 is rooted in some of the most fundamental and time-honored maintenance principles. One of them is total productive maintenance (TPM). Today, it’s hard to play an active role in the field of maintenance and reliability without encountering and embracing TPM. Honestly, it is delusional to think otherwise. Read More
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Interpreting Contaminant Analysis Trends into a Proactive and Predictive Maintenance Strategy
Condition monitoring can be easily performed by following a few simple principles. Among these principles include monitoring two sets of conditions. Read More
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Measure by Measure [oil analysis in machine condition monitoring]
By some estimates, condition monitoring has been around for more than a century, but it is only within the last 5-10 years (and particularly the last 2 or 3) that interest has been at fever pitch. Read More
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The 5 States of Machine Inspection 2.0
When most of us refer to inspection, we are thinking of running machines inspected routinely, say on daily rounds. Unarguably, this type of on-the-run inspection is critical to machine condition monitoring, but other types of inspections are important as well. Read More
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Oil Analysis Effectively Uncovers Hidden Problems
Oil analysis is about surfacing problems that were otherwise hidden from view. We’ve all heard the phrase “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” but an important corollary is “if it is broke, fix it fast.” The basic problem with this strategy is not knowing when something is actually broken. Read More
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Proactive Maintenance’s Unruly Cousin
Indeed it’s hard to justify spending time and money on things that aren’t yet broken when your maintenance staff is hog-tied, fixing the things that have broken. When breakdowns occur… well, you know the drill… not much else gets done until things are up and running again. Read More
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Proactive Maintenance, the Newest Buzz Word
The field of maintenance technology is going through a revolution of change. Gone are the days when a machine had a predictable service life, after which it was replaced, continuing the cycle. Read More