The Maintenance Which Is Not Routine But Is Done As And When The Need For It Arises, Is Known As Con

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The maintenance which is not routine but is done as and when the need for it arises, is known as condition based Maintenance or CBM. Sometimes during the functioning equipments show some indications of not working properly; by less than optimum functioning, maintenance has to be carried out so as to avoid a total breakdown.

During operations it is important to maintain the best working condition of the equipments. Introduction of CBM tries to maintain the optimum function of the right equipment at the required time. The aim of the CBM is to get the work done on priority by maintaining optimum resources. It uses real time data for this purpose. A constant observation of the system is required for this and it is known as condition based monitoring. This helps in determining the health of the equipment and acting only in case of necessity.

Condition based maintenance and condition based monitoring are the two faces of the same coin. In fact, monitoring helps in the maintenance task. In an ideal system, CBM allows the personnel working in the maintenance of the right things only by minimising the cost of the spare ...
... parts, reducing the system downtime and also minimising the time spent on maintenance.

Despite the indisputable usefulness of the CBM, there are certain issues that have to be considered before taking the decision of their installation. First and foremost they are expensive. Secondly, a change in the entire system will have to be brought about for the CBM to be inducted. Lastly, it is technically not that simple to produce optimum results.

Even then the importance of condition based monitoring cannot be diminished. Since the costs of the systems have increased and that of instruments and information systems have gone down, condition base maintenance has become an integral tool for the optimal functioning of a plant or factory. It is no rocket science to understand that better operations will result in lower cost of production and even lesser use of resources. Since environmental issues are becoming more and more important today, the lower use of resources will prove to be an important differentiating factor in the future.

You might argue that we can keep the equipments in optimal health by planned maintenance, but there are certain advantages of using CBM, that you have to consider. The system reliability improves, maintenance costs come down and lesser chances of human error as lesser operations for maintenance.

The latest development is the CBMi which means intelligent condition based maintenance and this is the real time condition based monitoring system used to track and assess the health or condition of critically important machines and processes. The physical parameters are measured and by the use of advanced algorithms, analysed in real time. It has a user friendly client interface and allows the user (of any type) the comfort of interacting with the data in an efficient manner. The importance of CBM can no longer be ignored.
condition based maintenance and condition based monitoring