Delivering Effective Condition-Based Maintenance and Condition Monitoring

In the first blog of our five-part series about Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) and Condition Monitoring (CM), we explained that CBM is where a machine is maintained on condition rather than at a fixed frequency and CM is how machine condition is determined to allow CBM to be enacted. In our second blog, we introduced the key roles and their responsibilities. The third blog introduced the management controls necessary for success. One of those controls is performance measurement, which is the subject of this blog.

Performance measures provide evidence of how successful the CBM strategy is and provide input to the financial and quality controls.

Measuring the performance of a CM program is essential for the following reasons:

• Assessing the program's effectiveness in achieving its objectives. It helps determine if the program delivers the expected benefits and aligns with the organization's overall goals.
• Identifying areas for improvement, optimizing processes and enhancing the program's efficiency and effectiveness over time.
• Providing tangible evidence of the program's value and contribution to the organization. This is essential for securing ongoing support and resources from management and stakeholders.

There are many metrics that can be measured. This blog will focus on five key metrics.

The most value is derived from metrics when different categories are compared (e.g., machine type, CM technique) within a program rather than creating a single number for everything. Using equipment operating hours rather than calendar time can make some metrics more effective, as not all machinery runs continuously.

1. Unplanned Outages/Downtime
   CBM does not by itself reduce the number of failures but should allow action to be planned and controlled with fewer unexpected outages and much more reduced downtime.


2. Cost Saving
   Cost savings are about more than adding up the reductions in repair costs. Not only can it be difficult to put a cost on something that has not happened, but if CBM is used to eliminate defects, the number of events should be reduced. Cost savings from CBM are not limited to early detection but should include:
   • Cost reduction versus an alternate strategy (e.g., regular preventive maintenance interventions)
   • Reduction in production loss/deferral
   • Reduced repair costs
   • Reduced failure/incident investigation costs


3. Program Compliance
   If data collection, analysis and reporting are not performed to expectations, many benefits may be diluted. This metric may be less useful where online, automatic data collection is used.


4. Program Accuracy
   A high false positive rate may indicate unnecessary maintenance actions, while a high false negative rate suggests potential risks overlooked by the program.


5. Action Completion
   Measuring the proportion of recommended actions completed by the target date helps ensure that the CBM strategy provides benefits rather than just costs.

Benchmarking can help identify areas of good and bad performance. However, benchmarking between organizations or facilities can be difficult due to differences in definitions and this is probably best performed internally where measurements are standardized.

Any performance shortfalls should be investigated and corrected. Effective performance measurement is required to ensure a CBM strategy delivers increased equipment uptime and minimized lifecycle costs.

John Crane has a range of condition monitoring services that can enable you to have the lowest lifecycle maintenance costs for your equipment and higher uptime. Also, in close collaboration with you, we can develop a reliability-based maintenance strategy to optimize the availability of your plant and the cost of your operations. Learn more here.