Managing a condition

monitoring program

Get the monitoring right!

Summary
This article explores the business processes required to support condition monitoring
activities to ensure they are justified and effective. In doing so, it suggests a
systematic approach to generated information.

SKF @ptitude Exchange MB02018

5271 Viewridge Court Dr. Brian Murray
San Diego, CA 92123
United States 10 Pages
tel +1 858 496 3400 Published May, 2002
fax +1 858 496 3511 Revised
email info@aptitudexchange.com
Internet http://www.aptitudexchange.com

Managing a condition monitoring program

Table of contents

1. Introduction ........................................................................... 3
2. The Condition Monitoring Toolkit............................................ 4
3. Failure Characteristics............................................................ 4
4. Targeting Effort ...................................................................... 5
4.1. Targeting Condition Monitoring Effort ..................................................... 6
4.2. Setting Watch Keeping and Condition Monitoring Strategy ........................ 6
5. The CBM Business Process ..................................................... 8
6. CBM System............................................................................ 9
7. Conclusion.............................................................................. 9

Managing a condition monitoring program 2013 SKF Group 2 (10)


1. Introduction
In the wealth of available literature on the
subject of Predictive Maintenance / Condition
Monitoring, little emphasis is placed on
management and planning issues
surrounding such a program.
The terms Condition Based Maintenance
(CBM) and Condition Monitoring are not
synonymous.
Condition Monitoring can be considered to
comprise a series of tools aimed at allowing
us to learn about the condition of plant and
equipment. Within that toolbox a
considerable variety of techniques are
available. These range from a number of
objective technologies (vibration analysis) to
more subjective measures (visual inspection
by technicians and operators). However, as
the name suggests, these are all monitoring
techniques.
In order to practice Condition Based
Maintenance additional business processes
need to be put into place. These processes
act on the knowledge gained from Condition
Monitoring activities to ensure:
Appropriate corrective measures are
undertaken
Managing a condition monitoring program
Unnecessary maintenance activities are
eliminated
Thus, CBM and Condition Monitoring are not
the same. Condition Monitoring is essentially
a group of activities involving the collection
and interpretation of data to form a view on
the condition of plant and equipment.
Condition Based Maintenance, on the other
hand, is an approach to asset management,
encapsulated in a maintenance philosophy.
This distinction is important for several
reasons. Many organizations practice
condition monitoring without fully
implementing a CBM strategy. This often
means that potential benefits are not fully
realized, and optimum return on expenditure
of capital and effort is not achieved.
Furthermore, if condition monitoring is relied
upon to ensure asset integrity, an
appropriate business process (i.e. CBM)
must surround the activities to protect the
organization from exposure to unplanned
losses. In this respect, the principle concerns
are not related to equipment or software,
but rather about who does what in the
organization and why.
The term Condition Based Monitoring is
also sometimes heard. This is arguably
corruption of the two terms previously
referred to, and hence has no real meaning!
These are the issues explored in this paper.
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2. The Condition Monitoring
Toolkit
The condition monitoring toolkit is outlined
above. These are just some of the tools
available to support condition-monitoring
activities.
Vibration monitoring is well established as
one mean of ensuring the integrity of
rotating equipment. When properly
implemented its effectiveness is well proven
by field experience.
Similarly, Lube Oil Analysis found its place in
almost all North Sea operations, both as a
means of verifying the suitability of the
lubricant for further service, and as a means
of detecting the early signs of failure
through the presence of debris or
contaminants in the lube oil.
A variety of special techniques for verifying
the health of electrical machines exist. They
include:
Thermography
Partial Discharge Testing
Study of Distinctive HF Electrical Signals
(indicate loss of insulation integrity)
Performance monitoring is widely practiced
on pumps, turbines, and compressors to
Managing a condition monitoring program
detect wear or fouling that can reduce
machine integrity and process efficiency.
This data may also be used for early
detection of various machinery problems.
For example:
On water injection pumps, a loss of
head/flow performance is often the
precursor to thrust bearing failure.
On aero-derivative turbines fouling of
the compressor can significantly shorten
the turbines life as a result of elevated
firing temperatures.
Arguably, one of the most effective means of
undertaking condition monitoring is the
implementation of routine operator and
maintainer checks. Typically, this data
provides vital condition information that
requires management and action in exactly
the same way as the most sophisticated
vibration analysis.
In the following section we look at what is
involved in planning these activities.
3. Failure Characteristics
Figure 1. Failure Characteristics: One of the Most
Fundamental Ideas in Maintenance Planning.
Machines fail in various ways. The machine
has a predictable life, so appropriate
maintenance or overhaul activities can be
planned.
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However, some machines exhibit more
random failure characteristics. For such
machines, probability of early failure is
almost the same as probability of failure
after a long life in service. This could arise
as a result of unpredictability in material
behavior, but experience suggests that
random failures are usually the result of
mal-operation, overload, or another external
factor that the machines designer could not
foresee.
Calendar or running-hours based
maintenance interventions are likely to be
ineffective for machines that exhibit random
failure characteristics. The only practical
option is to identify measurement
parameters indicative of machine
degradation, and schedule maintenance
when the machine shows signs of distress.
In other words, Maintaining on Condition is
the only approach to ensure asset integrity
when faced with random failures.
Figure 2. The Benefits of Condition Based
Maintenance.
Managing a condition monitoring program
4. Targeting Effort
Figure 3. Monitoring Frequencies.
Condition monitoring involves expenditure
on equipment to facilitate the required
measurements, and collect and record data.
Such expenditure must be justified.
A widely accepted way of setting the interval
between condition monitoring surveys is to
study at the p-f interval. In other words,
study the warning time obtained from a
clear change in the observed parameter to
the point where failure occurs. The
inspection interval is then typically set at
1/3rd of the p-f interval.
The criticality of an equipment item does not
have significance when setting the
inspection interval. It is the sensitivity of the
monitoring technique that determines (via
the p-f interval) inspection frequency. The
machines criticality then becomes a factor
when deciding whether the benefit of
condition monitoring is sufficient to justify
cost.
However, it is not uncommon to determine
the check interval according to machine
criticality. For example, a company may
decide that highly critical pumps warrant
monthly monitoring, while medium criticality
pumps are only checked every three
months. In reality this means the user
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simply hopes for the best two months out of
three, as there is no condition data!
Sometimes, monitoring tasks are scheduled
on a 12 month basis, often related to the
frequency of planned maintenance activity
replaced by condition monitoring. The value
of tasks carried out at such an extended
interval is usually questionable since they
really amount to occasional condition
assessment rather than condition
monitoring.
4.1. Targeting Condition
Monitoring Effort
Figure 4. Targeting Condition Monitoring Efforts.
Reliability Centered Maintenance has gained
some acceptance as means of selecting an
appropriate maintenance strategy.
Figure 4 shows (in a simplified form) how
analysis would proceed in terms of watch
keeping and condition monitoring activities.
The first step is to determine the
equipments plausible failure modes. If these
failure modes do not have consequence from
a safety, commercial, or environmental
perspective, the process does not proceeds.
However, if a maintenance defense is
required to mitigate the consequences of
Managing a condition monitoring program
failure, then selection proceeds by a process
of elimination from first line housekeeping
tasks (lubrication, routine servicing, etc.) to
the consideration of more objective condition
monitoring technologies. If a technically
effective monitoring task can be defined it is
likely to be the selected maintenance
strategy, subject to verifying its cost
effectiveness.
Experience dictates that a risk-based
approach offers much more, by allowing the
cost of a monitoring activity to be directly
evaluated against the risk associated with
equipment failure.
Where the failure mode is considered to be
critical, but condition monitoring is not
viable, the analysis proceeds to consider
time based
intervention, or if all else fails, the designing
out of failure mode.
4.2. Setting Watch Keeping and
Condition Monitoring
Strategy
Figure 5 illustrates several issues. If
condition monitoring is selected as
maintenance defense, it is necessary to go
further and define the monitoring
parameter. Occasionally, this is simple, such
as an overall measurement of vibration level
or temperature. More commonly, it is a
derived parameter, such as the vibration
component at 1x running speed, or the
turbine exhaust temperature corrected to
allow for load and ambient temperature.
The action limits must also be defined to
complete the process.
These ideas are illustrated in the following
case study.
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Figure 5. A Risk Based Approach to Watch Keeping and Condition Monitoring.

Managing a condition monitoring program 2013 SKF Group 7 (10)


4.2.1. Case Study Centrifugal Gas
Compressor
Figure 6. Planned Maintenance Routine for a
Centrifugal Gas Compressor.
Figure 6 outlines a planned maintenance
routine for six monthly inspections of a gas
compressor system. The example is typical
of current North Sea practice.
The routine seems reasonable and addresses
some plausible and critical failure modes
with technically competent tasks. It is
essentially a condition monitoring routine,
since the tasks it comprises are aimed at
gathering information about compressor
health.
However, when viewed in the context of this
discussion, other issues emerge. First, six-
monthly intervals between checks on filter
DPs, seal oil leakage rates, or general
inspection for leaks is excessive. In reality,
watch keepers on their daily rounds address
much of this. The same is true of vibration
checks since these are carried out as part of
the installations vibration monitoring
program. This is all a question of aligning
the activity frequency with the p-f interval.
However, not everything in this routine can
replace by watch keepers tasks.
The value of the PM routine is its registration
in the Maintenance Management System,
Managing a condition monitoring program
which provides a clear audit trail to show its
stats. A specialist who is competent to
decide on acceptable seal oil leakage rates
or a valid sign of high vibration carries it out.
A watch keeper needs more support in
analysis and diagnosis. Also, if critical
variables are left as numbers on a log sheet,
can we be sure that proactive decisions will
be made on time?
The introduction of Personal Digital
Assistants (PDAs) for watch keeping and first
line maintenance data addresses this issue.
Software is now available to analyze raw
data and automatically prompt operators
and supervisors toward appropriate action
when acceptable limits are exceeded.
5. The CBM Business Process
Figure 7. Business Process for CBM.
Figure 7 illustrates the business process
required to raise maintenance on condition
to the same level as planned intervention.
The collected data may include:
Vibration
Lube Oil Samples
Visual Inspection
Oil Top Up Quantities
Exceptions are identified through a process
of calculations and comparison with action
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limits. These calculations and action limits
6. CBM System
are part of the documentation strategy and
should be available for examination.

In the event of an alarm condition, a process

of analysis and diagnosis is initiated. A
competent specialist usually undertakes this
activity. However, front line technicians are
increasingly taking over this work with the
assistance of decision support software
systems.
The event is then closed out when an
appropriate corrective action is taken and Figure 8. Condition Based Maintenance Approach.
verified, and the outcome is recorded.
The elements of the CBM system as it
Condition monitoring software provides an
relates to the case study are outlined above.
audit trail through this process, in the same
way a Computerized Maintenance
Figure 9 offers a more complete overview of
Management System provides an audit trail
the whole CBM approach.
through planned maintenance events. This
means that compliance can be demonstrated
to partners and regulatory bodies, which
includes complete supporting information:

What activity was performed, and when

did it occur?
Who undertook the activity?
Why was it done (with reference to the
strategy)?
A properly implemented CBM system is
Figure 9. CBM Processes to Support Condition
also a valuable source of corporate Monitoring Activities.
learning, for example:
What fails? 7. Conclusion
How does failure occur?
Which CM techniques bring benefits? The main conclusions from this discussion
are as follows:

Condition Monitoring is an activity, which

should exist as a subset of Condition Based
Maintenance. Condition Based Maintenance
is a business process that surrounds
monitoring techniques. It ensures they are
applied in a manner appropriate to the
business goals of the enterprise. CBM
manages the information and turns
monitoring into action. The use of
sophisticated analytical techniques is a part

Managing a condition monitoring program 2013 SKF Group 9 (10)

of this process. However, a more significant
aspect is effectively using routine watch
keeping and first line maintenance
information. Scope exists on many
installations to better utilize this type of
data:

It can be used to reduce operating costs

by eliminating scheduled tasks that often
represent a duplication of routine
activities.
It ensures systems are in place to make
proactive use of this data as part of the
overall maintenance information
management process.

Managing a condition monitoring program 2013 SKF Group 10 (10)