Global Plant Engineering - October 2010 - (Page 23)

C ov er S tory Winning the race against equipment failure Predictive diagnostics changes how work gets done By Steve Tonissen SmartSignal. Veteran plant operators can attest to the race between data intelligence and equipment failure. Despite sizable investments in instrumentation, sophisticated OEM devices, sensors and software, many plants contend daily with data overload and a lack of actionable intelligence to prevent surprises. They’re fixing what is about to break, but also fixing what’s not. They’re not fixing what’s not broken, but also not fixing what is. Without adequate direction, they can’t prioritize and optimize their Lean resources, and they can’t avoid surprise equipment failures. While no technology can prevent normal equipment wear or the need for maintenance, Predictive Analytics and the latest advances in Predictive Diagnostics now are helping plants to overcome their challenges by detecting impending problems early and allowing plants to take control of their operations. Predictive Analytic technology is scalable to all critical rotating, nonrotating and process equipment, across the plant, across the fleet and across industries. possess different operating characteristics, have different maintenance histories and have been working under different ambient conditions, loads and operating contexts. Ultimately, human analysts are tasked with deciphering mounds of data for all these unique pieces of equipment to infer equipment health and condition. When it comes to plant equipment, there’s no such thing as a Predictive Analytics sets the pace History has been referred to as the science of chronicling that which never happens twice. Likewise, every piece of equipment is unique and operates unlike all others – thus the surprise factor. Even presumably identical pieces of equipment were manufactured on different days under different circumstances,

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Global Plant Engineering - October 2010

Global Plant Engineering - October 2010
Contents
Comment
Global Views
Hannover Messe Report
Asia Report
Americas Report
Winning the Race Against Equipment Failure
Take 8 Steps to Debug Process Control System
Optimize the Enterprise: Measurement, Empowerment, and Control are the Essential Ingredients
Air Apparent: Compressed Air Audits Let You Find the Leaks in Your System
The Promise of the Smart Grid: A Flexible, Dynamic Energy Management System
Europe Report

Global Plant Engineering - October 2010