Automation parts supplier EU Automation has published a new guide that is a must-read for engineers wanting to deploy condition-based maintenance (CBM) to improve operating efficiencies and increase profitability.
It provides valuable insight so engineers can best implement a CBM strategy to realise its full benefits.
The handy guide helps engineers understand how CBM with real-time monitoring can offer an intelligent solution for maximising equipment uptime – protecting revenues and profits.
The guide outlines how well-maintained equipment is typically more productive, enabling maintenance teams to meet critical key performance indicators.
It describes how advances in technologies such as sensors and data analytics have seen CBM based on real-time monitoring emerge as a powerful tool in connected factories of the future, supporting engineers in their daily roles.
CBM can deliver significant benefits across manufacturing organisations. According to research by IBM, these benefits include:
- Prevention of equipment failures and downtime.
- Extension of asset lifespan.
- Improved safety through enhanced issue detection.
- Reduced maintenance costs.
- Improved maintenance efficiency.
“Knowing where to start with a CBM strategy can be a challenge, and that’s where this useful guide helps,” says Darren Halford, Managing Director at EU Automation. “The valuable report outlines the obstacles faced when establishing a CBM strategy, for example, high upfront costs, and gives the reader useful information about how to overcome them best.”
The guide explains how to structure a CBM monitoring system and gives real-life examples of how manufacturers have saved costs by deploying CBM into their operations. Readers can learn how to design a CBM network for real-time monitoring from both a hardware and software perspective, as well as understand the key considerations to take, such as choosing the right sensor technologies.
The guide also goes on to outline how engineers can visualise their data and provides handy hints and tips, for example, by ensuring that the software package selected has been used before in the engineer’s specific sector and it is compatible with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) systems operated.
Additionally, the report highlights seven steps to successful CBM, including defining the CBM project, identifying critical equipment and putting information into action.
“Catching potential problems through real-time CBM early is essential to improving factory uptime, streamlining maintenance costs and staffing activities,” continues Darren Halford, Managing Director at EU Automation. “The best starting point for CBM and real-time monitoring is to determine what items of the plant are the most critical and those that are most likely to fail, and then choose the most suitable sensors for those. Working with experienced partners like EU Automation can help engineers ensure a CBM strategy is suitable for their industrial operation and realise the full benefits.”
