4 Steps to Take Before Implementing Condition-based Maintenance

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers organizations exceptional opportunities to determine asset reliability. Personnel gain actionable insights from the combination of condition-based maintenance (CBM) and the IIoT’s ability to connect data, systems, and teams. Sometimes, the rush to adopt CBM causes facilities to disregard critical steps, such as the technician’s understanding of reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) fundamentals.

Apply these four steps to ensure a good start to CBM adoption.

1. Do your homework

Confirming that your preventive maintenance (PM) and RCM fundamentals are solid is crucial. Sometimes organizations adopt IIoT technology without adapting their people or reviewing processes.

Checklist

___ PM processes and routines are effective and efficient

___ Operations are documented and understood

___ Technicians can apply RCM knowledge and principles

___ Training/retraining standards are in place

Reliability experts agree that the chief problem to adopting CBM is the lack of understanding of RCM fundamentals. If you said “no” to any of the above, you might want to review RCM basics and make sure technicians can apply the fundamentals before you implement CBM.

Defining your organization’s maintenance and reliability status is also important. Your maintenance and reliability (M&R) teams should examine in detail. What they are doing? Why they are doing it? How are they getting it done? Fully defining your organization’s status ensures a good start to your connected reliability journey.

2. Include personnel affected by the change

Once you confirm technicians have the necessary skills, involve them and other key personnel in a shared asset criticality analysis. By inviting their input, they become active participants. Specifically, technicians will have an opportunity to:

• Use their RCM fundamentals effectively
• Contribute to CBM implementation and success
• Help identify, mitigate, or eliminate failure modes

3. Identify critical, semi-critical, and non-critical assets properly

Accurately identifying assets as critical, semi-critical, and non-critical can decrease unnecessary route-based maintenance. Additionally, the analysis helps determine which assets might benefit from new predictive maintenance (PdM) technology, such as remote vibration sensors which, when paired with software, enable equipment condition monitoring from a distance.

After completing an asset criticality assessment, it’s not uncommon to realize that some equipment considered critical is not. Assets perceived as critical should not automatically receive PdM. Sometimes, assets receiving the most attention are actually bad actors in disguise.

4. Follow up with additional RCM tools

Performing a failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) should follow your completed asset criticality assessment. This way, you ensure the most critical assets benefit from your maintenance reliability programs. The RCM process helps you decide whether present PM strategy meets capacity needs, and verifies equipment is properly captured and represented.

Continuing the journey with Accelix

Make better maintenance decisions using CBM. Save time and money by detecting equipment problems early and allowing actions to be taken before asset failure. When deciding to adopt CBM, you choose to move toward a more proactive approach, and ultimately prescriptive strategies.

_{Connected Reliability Glossary of Terms}

_{IIoT—industrial internet of things—interconnects billions of devices and equipment, allowing for greater system collaboration}

_{RCM—reliability-centered maintenance (practice)—used to optimize maintenance programs and maintain system functions, and to help identify, prioritize and control failure modes}

_{CBM—condition-based maintenance (process)—used to identify the rules that must be applied to manage failure modes that may cause the operational failure of a physical asset}

_{PM—preventive maintenance (strategy)—Activities completed during machine shutdown, based on schedule (time-based maintenance)}

_{PdM—Predictive maintenance (strategy)—Activities are completed while machines run during normal production/operation, as the degradation process continues, but before full impacts of a failure; maintenance based off asset condition}

_{Bad actor—equipment that repeatedly fails or exhibits problems}