How does machine health impact costs?

The costs incurred on a machine use and repair is a function of the health of the machine and its running conditions. We start with a healthy machine - this is the ideal state of the machine and has the most cost efficient running. Let us look at the life of a machine as it moves from a healthy asset to a broken down Machine:

Efficient running costs:

As the journey of a machine starts; the machine runs efficiently at its lowest costs! A healthy machine has a healthy sound signature and makes no deviant noises. The machine runs like clockwork. Symptoms of dropping health shown during this stage are usually hard to detect by a human. The very first symptoms of deteriorating health of a machine show up as :

1: Ultrasound or infra sound : It's common to see use of ultrasound to monitor bearings based machines. We can a very early warning in the sound level and are able to grease the bearing to fix the sounds. We saved the bearing of any damage, we saved a potential breakdown so this is cost savings. Even if there is some bearing damage, the fact that we are aware and monitoring the situation lets us avoid any secondary damage.

2: Vibration : Any moving body that consists of moving parts has a potential for vibration. Be it cranes, compressors, water-pumps, turbines, motors - you name it! as the vibration pattern changes the machine throws an alert- this can be picked up to alert the maintenance staff to start a "Root cause Analysis"

A Breakdown can come at us in many ways and obviously we have many ways to combat it. If you detect the potential failure early enough (and it can be months and months before actual failure) it means that you can avoid the breakdown

Expensive running costs or inefficient running:

Health of Machine follows a dropping curve as the usage of machine continues - the next set of symptoms or issues detection include:

3: Oil analysis: It is the analysis of a lubricant's properties, composition, and contaminants. It is a routine activity used to determine the health of oil and the machinery in which it is used. Think of it as a blood test for machinery.

4: Non-Destructive testing: NDT stands for Non-Destructive Testing. It refers to an array of inspection methods that allow inspectors to evaluate and collect data about a material, system, or component without permanently altering it. In the field, NDT is often used as an umbrella term to refer to non-destructive inspection methods, inspection tools, or even the entire field of non-destructive inspections.

5: Thermal: Machines that are electronic in nature as well as mechanical in nature face threat from faults that can cause overheat of the machine- very often leading to permanent damage. it is common to see machines like motors where the coils are fused due to over heating due to being subject to long running in imperfect conditions

Inefficient, expensive, risky - these are some factors that define the Light blue area. all efforts done at this stage are potential breakdown saving mechanisms. At this stage, You can schedule an outage to do a repair. It’s not a breakdown, the machine hasn’t stopped, it’s not downtime. This is cost avoidance and the plant can save on the interrupted loss of production because of downtime costs.

Repair Cost:

The machine is broken, it produces unnecessary Noise and heat - that is, IF it is still working at all.

6: Noise: Deviant noises- like screeches, thumps etc are indicators that the machine components are broken. A failure to fix one component usually start to damage other connected components. For example, even the broken ballbearings in a rotating body can cause complete seizure of the machine.

7: Heat: breakdowns by overheating in engines and motors can very often leave the component unrepairable. engine seizure is one example, where the piston fuses to the cylinder due to lack of oil in the system.Long running with the piston as it heats up can cause it to melt and fuse.

Waiting for a breakdown will always cost more than preventive maintenance, without even accounting for the Stresses and potential business loss of a non-functioning machine. This can be avoided easily by deploying preventive mechanisms to keep machine health in check.

We at Novolytics like to focus on the preventive signals offered by the machines sound signature. The Hark Engine is capable of detecting and alerting the maintenance at the health of the machine starts to deteriorate. This helps in ensuring that the machine always stays in the Navy Blue Zone and business continues to run like clockwork!

Read more about what Novolytics does for industrial machines: Here.

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