Predictive Maintenance Programs are different than Preventive Maintenance Programs. In Preventive programs, equipment are serviced on regular basis to increase their operating lives, where as in Predictive programs the goal is to predict equipment failure before they actually happen. Predictive Maintenance Plans allow us to develop and implement equipment service plans to prevent costly down-times.
In a Predictive Program, we monitor conditions of equipment during normal operations. This allows us to identify changes early in the process and schedule repair activities in such way to minimize their impact on operations.
The key to a successful Predictive Maintenance Program is to collect and evaluate the right set of data on a regular basis. We have found the following information to be good key performance indicators for rotating equipment such as motors, pumps, gearboxes and blowers:
- Bearing temperature.
- Vibration levels.
- Motor Circuit or Current Signature Analysis.
Through monitoring the above data, one would be able to keep things running smoothly and minimize unplanned down-times.
Next, we will discuss ways to collect and analyze the key performance indicators.