What Is Condition Monitoring? Benefits, Techniques, and Industry Applications
When you buy a car, you don’t just drive it off the lot and use it forever without worry. You need to take it in for routine maintenance and inspections. Your HVAC system is the same. Asset condition monitoring is the process you follow to make sure the system is still working at its optimum level.
Key Benefits of Condition Monitoring
You owe it to yourself to perform routine condition monitoring on your HVAC and other critical systems.
Reduce Unplanned Downtime
People expect your HVAC system and other machinery to function properly. Unplanned downtime costs businesses in the U.S. about $103,000 per hour. Asset condition monitoring helps you identify minor problems before they escalate and saves you from having to take down the whole system for a long time.
Extend Equipment Lifespan
Like a car, your critical assets benefit from predictive maintenance. Regularly inspecting your assets helps you detect problems early so you can fix them for less money and keep them running longer.
Improved Operational Efficiency
Condition monitoring rings alarm bells before your assets break down. Regularly inspecting your assets can show you whether they're consuming excessive amounts of energy or showing early signs of wear and tear. When you fix these small issues early on, you improve your overall operational efficiency.
Enhanced Safety
Asset condition monitoring helps you identify potential safety hazards before they become major issues. When you find worn or damaged components early, you can fix them and reduce the safety risk.
Cost Savings Through Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance involves replacing and repairing parts at regular intervals before your critical assets break down. Using predictive maintenance instead of reactive maintenance can save you between 25% and 30% on maintenance costs.
Industrial Applications of Condition Monitoring
Condition monitoring is not limited to HVAC systems. Numerous industries use the practice to save money and keep their operations running smoothly.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing professionals use condition monitoring to assess their heavy equipment and machinery. They inspect these assets for early signs of deterioration or defects and regularly replace components before they break down.
In this industry, you might use an oil analysis to assess debris levels, for example. Higher levels of debris could indicate that a piece of equipment is starting to wear out.
Aerospace
In the aerospace sector, sensors monitor aircraft components and systems. This is a critical task that helps maintenance crews detect potential issues and fix them to keep planes in the air and passengers safe.
Maintenance workers monitor temperature, humidity, and pressure to look for faults in the equipment, helping to enhance operational efficiency.
Oil and Gas
The equipment used to extract oil and gas is highly flammable, often leading to fires and explosions. Condition monitoring is an essential part of safety in this industry. Oil and gas professionals use condition monitoring to detect wear and tear, degrading components, and impending failures before they become dangerous.
A vibration analysis is a technique in which you use vibrations to see whether equipment is misaligned or components are worn out or imbalanced. This technique is common in the oil and gas industry, alongside infrared thermography, which helps detect components that are at risk of overheating.
Power Generation
Power plants use sensors, software, and other tools to monitor generators, transformers, cables, and other essential parts of the power grid. If you’re in the power industry, you would use these tools to make sure your grid is healthy and minimize power disruptions.
Like in the oil and gas sector, those who work in the power generation field use vibration analyses to assess their infrastructure and equipment. You may also perform a network analysis to test your motor circuits and make sure they're generating electricity. You might also use an ultrasonic analysis to test for leaks, cracks, and other defects through high-frequency sound waves.
Transportation
It takes a lot to move goods and people across the globe, and the transportation sector is tasked with keeping the whole system operational. Condition monitoring in this sector involves everything from trains and railroads to bridges and infrastructure.
Those who work in this sector use sensors, cameras, and other types of equipment to assess vehicle conditions, including tire pressure, brake wear, and fluid levels. You would also look for cracks, potholes, deterioration, and other safety issues on roads and bridges. For cargo, your condition monitoring process would test temperature and relative humidity along with shock levels and anything else that could damage your loads.
The Role of IoT Technology in Condition Monitoring
Many of the industrial applications of condition monitoring involve using sensors to continuously assess equipment. IoT sensors, such as Attune's solutions, help you collect real-time data and analyze it using a simple app on your phone or computer. You can easily see how your equipment is running and quickly fix issues before they cost you a lot of time and money and potentially put your employees at risk.
Our solutions are easy to use and customizable. Schedule a demo today to learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions About Condition Monitoring
What Is Meant by Condition Monitoring?
Condition monitoring is an approach to maintenance that involves using sensors and other techniques to collect data on a machine's health and safety. Monitoring your alerts helps you take a proactive approach to maintenance rather than waiting until a system breaks down to fix it.
What Are the Principles of Condition Monitoring?
Condition monitoring is a process whose principles include:
Data collection
Data analysis
Alert generation
Maintenance planning
Continuous improvement
You routinely assess your equipment and critical assets, looking for deviations from the norm that may indicate defects or faults.
What Are the Benefits of Condition Monitoring?
Condition monitoring helps make your overall maintenance efforts more effective. You can proactively plan maintenance activities and spend less time and money on repairs. Your equipment won’t be down as long as it would be if it failed entirely. Condition monitoring also makes your employees safer because you can detect potential problems before they turn catastrophic.
