Industrial Engineering works in front of monitoring screen in the production control center. technology concept.
At many plants around the globe, reliability strategies haven’t changed much in the last few decades. Technicians grab a documentation device—sometimes an Android or iOS device, sometimes a hardened laptop, other times, a fit-for-purpose handheld communicator—and head into the field to perform their scheduled rounds checking the health of assets and devices. This system has had staying power because, for the most part, it has worked relatively well.
However, times are changing. Plants are increasing in complexity. More and more digital devices are available in the field, and the need for more complex operations has increased the amount of automation, simultaneously expanding the number of assets reliability teams must be responsible for. In addition, many organizations are pursuing new sustainability goals, making it even more important to maintain accurate visibility into the health of all equipment in the field to help eliminate unanticipated waste, emissions, and energy use.
In his recent article in Control magazine, Emerson’s Erik Lindhjem explores how these pressures are pushing organizations to change the way they handle maintenance. Few plants these days have the roster of personnel needed to maintain this cadence of manual rounds. Erik explains,
“Many plants have been facing worker shortages. For years, the most highly skilled plant technicians have been retiring in droves, a problem that reached critical mass after the global pandemic. New workers are hard to find, and even when they are available, they typically need a lot of training, and they rarely stay in one role for the long tenures common to their predecessors. When a plant runs a lean staff, sending a person out on scheduled maintenance rounds typically comes at the expense of other work. Equipment repairs, inventory management, new projects and improvements, training, and more quickly make their way to the waitlist.”
“Many plants have been facing worker shortages. For years, the most highly skilled plant technicians have been retiring in droves, a problem that reached critical mass after the global pandemic. New workers are hard to find, and even when they are available, they typically need a lot of training, and they rarely stay in one role for the long tenures common to their predecessors.
When a plant runs a lean staff, sending a person out on scheduled maintenance rounds typically comes at the expense of other work. Equipment repairs, inventory management, new projects and improvements, training, and more quickly make their way to the waitlist.”
Automation is the answer
Today, it is easier than ever to move away from scheduled rounds and into a comprehensive continuous condition monitoring program. Sensors like the AMS Wireless Vibration Monitor and AMS Asset Monitor are affordable solutions reliability teams can install themselves, quickly unlocking 24×7 monitoring of their plant assets. Moreover, when sensors are tied into an asset management solution like AMS Device Manager and machinery health software like AMS Machine Works, teams gain expanded, intuitive visibility into the health of everything in the plant.
How is this better than scheduled rounds? Erik explains,
“A software-defined predictive maintenance strategy offers several additional benefits. Teams no longer need to worry they might miss a problem with a device simply because the technician does not have adequate experience to identify or isolate the issue. Alerts and alarms are compiled into a single, highly intuitive dashboard, and this information is provided alongside actionable advice to help technicians of any experience level begin the troubleshooting process. In addition, reliability teams eliminate the risk of missing impending failures due to time intervals between maintenance rounds.”
The right tools for the right job
Continuous condition monitoring does not eliminate the need for technicians and handheld equipment, however. On the contrary, it supports them to be more efficient and effective resources whether they are on site or off. Condition monitoring software can deliver critical asset health data to technicians wherever they may be on mobile devices, making it easier to centralize the organization’s best personnel to assist and upskill others as necessary. Technicians can also take advantage of the tools available in device management systems to perform more accurate, timely calibration activities. The systems allow technicians to schedule calibrations, and quickly and easily store and organize results for accurate auditing. Once again, this helps teams eliminate manual scheduling for critical tasks.
“Instead of running a specific calibration schedule because, “it is what we have always done,” teams can instead schedule based on trends. For example, if calibration records show a device is not drifting, perhaps it could be calibrated every 12 months instead of 6. Across hundreds or thousands of devices, that small change can save a great deal of time.”
Erik shares more ways reliability teams can streamline their operations with modern tools in the full article over at Control. Be sure to read it to gain insight into the many ways you can digitally transform your reliability program for improved efficiency and more reliable operation.
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