September 2019

12 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk September 2019 Maintenance Matters Focus on: Condition Monitoring I f you’re a maintenance manager working within an “aggressive” manufacturing environment, you will need to adopt a different approach to traditional condition monitoring methods. That’s according to David Manning-Ohren, condition monitoring manager at ERIKS UK & Ireland, who says: “In order to be effective, condition monitoring needs to allow a window of opportunity in which corrective or preventative measures can be taken. “Equipment that faces intense pressures, forces or temperatures has a sharper failure curve than equipment that doesn’t. Any issues, therefore, are likely to occur quickly and have more of an impact. “For this reason, traditional methods are unlikely to spot an issue until it’s too late, leading to the very downtime and costs that condition monitoring was supposed to prevent.” Luckily, technology exists to cope with the higher demands of an aggressive manufacturing environment. Tools that use live, real-time data acquisition to keep on top of even small machine changes as they occur, for example, are particularly effective in aggressive environments. He continues to explain: “Data acquisition is more useful than periodic portable monitoring, because it identifies alterations, such as an increase in dust, fluid, or debris, before they become issues.” Manning-Ohren advises maintenance managers in aggressive environments to do the following: 1. Define ‘aggressive’. “What’s aggressive in one context might not be in another,” he says. “Flour on a bakery floor isn’t aggressive, but flour in a bearing is.” PWE takes a look at monitoring in an aggressive manufacturing environment. Keep ahead of the curve