I want bad news fast. Why? Problems tend to compound. Rarely do they heal themselves. Instead, the worse things get, the faster they get worse. As time passes, the cost of repair and lost production can soar exponentially.

Maintenance resources need focus and preemptive timing. The longer you wait to respond to what causes failure, the more machine conditions take over control of your schedule and budget. Fix the roof while the sun is shining. It’s not just about keeping machines running but rather keeping them running at the lowest possible cost.

Condition monitoring is an essential troubleshooting tool. It provides examination skills to find the cause or source of an impending problem. When issues are caught early, you have the luxury of convenience and the option of simple remedies, usually with minimal (if any) business interruption.

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These days, reliability professionals are faced with diverse options related to technologies and methods to detect, troubleshoot and remediate problems. Figure 1 is a simple example of the available options to collect data and arrive at decisions regarding the health of machinery and machine components.

The logical starting point is always to carefully rank failure modes by both criticality and probability of occurrence. For more information on this topic, see my previous column titled “A New Look at Criticality Analysis for Machinery Lubrication.” This method is known as failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), and has been extensively documented.

The failure mode ranking sets into motion the critical-path process in reaching optimized decisions related to condition monitoring followed by the prescribed response or remedy. This response should not simply be corrective but also incorporate proactive measures to prevent or restrict recurrence. The emphasis is on optimized decisions and actions.

It’s easy to go cheap (penny wise, pound foolish), but there also can be temptation at the other extreme (a state of reliability excess), often driven by fear of the unknown. The optimum reference state is an activity of seeking balanced decisions. After all, you are not trying to maximize reliability. There is no greater source to find this balance than knowledge and education.

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