It’s a word that manufacturing companies don’t want to hear: downtime. To some degree, downtime is unavoidable, for instance, when equipment must be paused to allow engineers to carry out routine maintenance or install upgrades. This kind of downtime is necessary for operational efficiency, but it can be planned into the long-term maintenance schedule to minimise disruption.
However, unscheduled or unforeseen downtime can put the brakes on production almost instantly, leading to failed orders, dissatisfied customers, and lower profits. Condition monitoring can help you arrange planned downtime to fit in with your production schedule, while avoiding unscheduled downtime!
An automated condition monitoring system ensures that changes in machine performance are detected as soon as they occur. When taking sensitive measurements and analysing these against set parameters, condition monitoring is far more factual, comparable and transferable with values rather than an opinion of an old school expert making the manual checks that, whilst often accurate, is not comparable with previous checks and not easily transferable to other or new maintenance staff who may be carrying out manual checks next time.
By identifying excessive movement, condition monitoring systems can detect loose, unbalanced, and misaligned components, as well as impact vibrations caused by inadequate lubrication or gear faults. Many of these problems can escalate rapidly, causing increasing damage if undetected. By identifying issues at an early stage, condition monitoring ensures minor problems don’t become significant.
Because condition monitoring spots problems as soon as they develop, preventive maintenance can be scheduled before they escalate to a stage where they disrupt production. Planned preventative maintenance allows alternative solutions to be put into place while machinery is taken out of service, minimising delays, and maintaining productivity. As a result of effective monitoring, maintenance intervals can often be extended too, as engineers can target only the components that need adjusting, maintenance or replacing.
For more information about how Sensonics can work with you to slash unforeseen downtime in your business, get in touch by phone or email, and our experts will be delighted to assist.
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