Companies should take a second look at the way in which they implement condition monitoring procedures, argues Phil Burge.

Condition monitoring, for predictive and preventative maintenance strategies, is widely used throughout industry, with the long term reliability of manufacturing and process systems depending on devices designed to allow plant operators to react to impending failure within the system being monitored.

In many instances, however, failure is due not to normal wear but by incorrect installation and maintenance of equipment and components. It is, for example, common for shafts to be misaligned, for rotating parts to be incorrectly balanced and for lubrication systems to be under specified for the task in hand; indeed, it is estimated that 16 per cent of all bearing failures are due to incorrect installation.

Accordingly, these problems can easily be overcome by the correct procedures and use of the appropriate equipment, such as alignment tools and automatic lubricators, during plant construction and routine maintenance. As a result, there are a number of key factors that plant engineers need to consider when planning, building and maintaining process and manufacturing plants.