Return on Investment of Condition Monitoring Systems

Article by Prognost

Perspective 1: Operational Benefits 

In terms of operational benefits, a CM system will positively affect: equipment uptime, mean time between maintenance (MTBM), component lifetime, production rates and overall operations effectiveness (OOE) of the process and plant. In particular, a CM system allows the machine to operate until scheduled shutdowns, although some values (e.g., vibrations) are less than perfect. Performance diagnostics enable process managers to save energy costs and increase asset efficiency. Early detection of leaking valves, seals, or piping saves penalties for environmental pollution.

Remote access from the system vendor allows expert support based on the customer’s systems data and avoids expensive traveling to the site(s) where the system is installed, an important element for offshore applications, such as floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) units, LNG carriers and others.

Perspective 2: Maintenance Benefits

A CM system reduces maintenance campaign costs with more targeted activities and fewer work orders. It can replace the need for preventive, offline measurements, which are often executed by costly external service companies, and reduce labor time, associated costs and mean time to repair (MTTR). Moreover, the knowledge of a failed or failing component allows targeted repairs instead of trial-and-error campaigns, with less capital commitment for spare-part inventory.

Perspective 3: Risk Avoidance

Risk is the product of two factors: consequence and probability (frequency). In the following analysis, the factor consequence is presented in monetary terms. Let’s say, for example, that a compressor fails catastrophically, with a potential consequence of US$200,000 in production loss, labor costs and spare parts. If this event occurs at a frequency of once every ten years, this represents an annual risk of US$20,000 per year, but if it occurs every two years, the annual risk is US$100,000.

Experience shows that CM pays back significantly fast, especially during the initial start-up of new machinery or after major overhauls or main process changes.

A Worthwhile Investment?

Condition monitoring can substantially reduce the cost of consequence by avoiding catastrophic failures and reducing the frequency of incidents by providing realtime and continuous diagnoses of bad actors and all relevant components….

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