Embarking on the journey of developing a condition monitoring program? Here’s a comprehensive, seven-step guide to help you construct and implement a robust program.
Step 1: Determine which assets are the most critical to your business.
Commence by pinpointing assets that have been deemed highly critical and moderately critical. The criticality of an asset, which reflects its importance to your business operations, should be computed through a quantitative approach.
Step 2: Apply the relevant methodologies to your most critical assets
Apply methodologies like Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) or Failure Modes, Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA) on the identified assets.
Understanding the Potential-to-Failure (P-F) interval during this process is pivotal. Each failure mode discerned during the RCM or FMECA will have a unique P-F interval specific to that operation.
Step 3: Establish the best approach to monitor your assets
Identify the most suitable condition monitoring approach or blend of methods to detect the revealed failure mode. Each method will detect degradation at different points on the P-F curve, which means the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) will fluctuate.
The selected method(s) must be both technically feasible and cost-effective.
Step 4: Develop your maintenance triggers
Condition-based maintenance relies on human-formulated decision rules to specify when maintenance work should be carried out. For the selected method, parameters such as triggers, set points, alarms, and limits must be specified.
Step 5: Document the process and assign responsibilities
Outline and document the process from the point the condition-based task is performed, to where degradation is detected, to when the maintenance is planned, scheduled, and executed.
The roles and responsibilities associated with each step should be clarified and agreed upon by all key stakeholders. Also, perform a training needs analysis to identify any gaps in training related to the condition monitoring methodologies, including data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
Step 6: Put that process into practice
Now comes implementation, bringing all the previous steps together to execute the condition monitoring program.
Step 7: Evolve and improve the strategy
Often overlooked, continuous improvement is a vital step. If work management processes require alterations, make the changes after due consultation.
If unplanned failures persist, conduct a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and use those insights to evolve your condition-based maintenance strategies.
Don’t forget to celebrate and document your successes along the way. These victories serve to showcase the value of your efforts and boost morale!