Asset condition monitoring connects plants to smarter maintenance

Maintenance is the key to operating your plant at peak performance. If equipment isn’t properly maintained, then consistent output isn’t possible. It’s an essential part of ensuring business continuity.

While maintenance has always been a priority for industrial environments, how teams approach their maintenance activities is changing. This transformation is influenced by many factors, including a lack of technicians to perform tasks, delays in sourcing replacement parts and rising repair costs.

The problem with traditional preventive maintenance practices

The traditional approach to maintenance doesn’t involve asset condition monitoring but instead involves servicing assets based on a fixed schedule, regardless of how well they operate.

According to a predefined date and time, the asset is taken offline and maintenance is performed, whether that means changing lubricants, checking belt tension, cleaning filters or examining and tightening connections. These schedules are typically created in line with manufacturer recommendations and industry guidelines about factors like estimated lifespans and average wear rates.

For example, every three months, a technician may spend an hour inspecting and servicing a pump. These routine checks aren’t based on whether problems have been reported with the pump’s performance, or whether some of its components are visibly worn. Instead, it’s based on an established schedule that calls for maintenance at regular intervals without regard for anything else.

Once scheduled maintenance activities are complete, the asset is put back into service and left untouched until the next scheduled maintenance activity (unless, of course, unexpected failure occurs in between).

But this maintenance approach can create operational issues:

• Parts that are in excellent condition may be replaced unnecessarily, which can increase costs and generate waste
• Downtime can interrupt production if equipment failure occurs in between scheduled maintenance checks
• Labor resources must be dedicated to continuous maintenance tasks (regardless of whether they’re necessary) instead of focusing on higher-priority issues and addressing maintenance only when necessary
• Determining ideal maintenance intervals can be a guessing game based on the limited information available to your team
• All equipment is maintained similarly, regardless of what it is or who manufactured it, and without access to data about usage patterns or environmental conditions

How your maintenance approach can benefit from asset condition monitoring

Instead of relying on rigid maintenance schedules, plants see major benefits from integrating asset condition monitoring into their maintenance practices.

Through the use of sensors, conditions like temperature, vibration, humidity and pressure are constantly monitored. When something falls outside predefined parameters, the right people are notified so action can be taken to improve equipment condition.

Instead of taking a machine offline every few months for maintenance whether it’s necessary or not, asset condition monitoring allows you to track asset performance in real-time. When issues are detected, maintenance can be performed as necessary.

Asset condition monitoring also enables plants to optimize equipment usage since machines can spend more time producing instead of idling for unnecessary scheduled maintenance. When machines run more efficiently, you experience higher levels of output, which could prevent additional equipment purchases meant to increase capacity.

To fulfill the vision of asset condition monitoring, however, data is required from all machines, regardless of their age, manufacturer, model, protocol or operating environment.

Removing barriers to asset condition monitoring adoption

Because plant assets are produced by different manufacturers and operate using different protocols, they provide their data differently.

While modern assets are often equipped with sensors and connectivity that support real-time condition monitoring, not all plant assets are configured or able to share data about performance or operational status, especially if they’ve been in operation for several years. This lack of information makes maintenance improvements difficult to implement.

But that’s where Belden and its Ecosystem partners can step in. We help you capture, move and centralize data in a standardized format so you gain full visibility into asset health, optimize maintenance strategies and ensure operational efficiency across your plant. Our complete connection solutions bridge the gap between communication protocols so old and new equipment share data seamlessly. The result: a maintenance practice built on asset condition monitoring, not fixed schedules.

Learn more about asset condition monitoring.

Related links:

• Asset condition monitoring for leading european glass product manufacturer
• Asset Performance Management Unlocks Your Machines’ Full Potential