CM application note

Winning the race!

A convincing CM strategy wins a lucrative service contract
By Tommy Glesnes Head of department Condition Monitoring Karsten Moholt AS

Introduction
We where contacted by the customer almost 2 years ago, and asked to have a look at their condition monitoring program. This company has been performing Condition Monitoring for more than 10 years, and they have outsourced the service to a local company. During these years they have had variable success, but they have avoided some serious breakdowns on critical machines and therefore they want to continue with Condition Monitoring, but they thought its about time to evaluate the whole Condition Monitoring program. The Condition Monitoring program for vibration is for approx. 1900 measurement points.

Now we told them about the different options for our Condition Monitoring services
1. Karsten Moholt AS perform all readings, analysis and reporting on a monthly basis. 2. Customer perform all readings and send them by eMail to Karsten Moholt AS, for analysis and reporting. We gave a lot of focus on the VIBCODE system (which they really liked), and showed them how easy it could be done. Also the benefit for having their own people doing the measurements, not only the economical part, but that the people that know the machines will also be standing at the machine once per month to look, feel, listen, smell, etc. while performing the measurements.

About the customer

The customer has a policy that they dont want to be a reference for any sub-contractors and wants to stay anonymous. The customer is the largest land based plant in Norway, and they are in some sort of mining industry. The machines that are included in the Condition Monitoring program are mainly large electric motors, gears, compressors, centrifuges, and some pumps.

NOW WE GOT THE SERVICE CONTRACT! The service contract

The customer decided that they would not use the VIBCODE system, even though this was an important issue in the beginning, but the installation job would be too expensive. We (Karsten Moholt AS) went to the plant and set up the whole configuration for all 1900 measurement points, and performed the first measuring route. We also had a three day training course for the VIBSCANNER, OMNITREND and vibration analysis. We took the whole database back to our office and analysed all the measurements. We reported around 10 new bearing failures, and a lot of unbalance and a few misalignment problems. The customer will now perform the measurements themselves on a monthly basis with the VIBSCANNER and send them to us for analysis and reporting. After three measurement routes we will adjust all alarm limits according to the machines and not according to ISO standards.

Description of the maintenance activities done before purchasing PRFTECHNIK products

As mentioned they have performed vibration measurements for more than 10 years on approx. 1900 measurement points, with instruments from CSI. There has been a local company performing most of the measurements on a monthly basis, and doing all analysis and reporting. When we sat down with the customer and analysed the Condition Monitoring program, we saw that they could have better results by including more measurement tasks. Most of the measurements where only overall velocity and FFT velocity readings. Only for a few points they had used envelope/demodulation signal, and on slow speed (40 80 RPM) machines they had bad experience. We explained them how envelope signal works and our experience with it, and we got their interest.

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Condition Monitoring application note: A convincing CM strategy wins a lucrative service contract

In the service contract we have also an important point for the customer witch says that we will at all time try to make the Condition Monitoring program easier and more cost effective. Our focus here will be to have really reliable alarm settings, and also the function for adaptive tasks. In the future the customer will only forward measurements with alarms. We have now also had several balancing jobs for the customer.

Conclusion We got the service contract in December 2005, and started the project in January 2006, so we dont have any measurable result for improvement. But only the reported bearing defects after the first measurement route will give back the money for the investment of the VIBSCANNER. Our point here is that we got the service contract because of our Condition Monitoring philosophy, and the products from PRFTECHNIK. Especially the OMNITREND software and all possibilities with it, was very important, but also the VIBCODE system, even though - in the end they didnt go for it. The next step for this customer will probably be to invest in the balancing module for the VIBSCANNER, and do the balancing jobs themselves. We also hope that in the future we will install some online systems for the most critical machines, but they first want to get the Condition Monitoring program running, for the portable measurements.

Tommy Glesnes Head of department Condition Monitoring Karsten Moholt AS

PRFTECHNIK Condition Monitoring 85737 Ismaning, Germany www.pruftechnik.com Tel: +49 (0)89/ 99616-0 Fax: +49 (0)89/ 99616-200 eMail: info@pruftechnik.com

13.03.2006

Productive maintenance technology