Firms miss a trick with condition monitoring

Wider use of condition monitoring (CM) tools could significantly improve efficiency in the food industry, but many firms are not benefiting because they are using the wrong tools or don't realise what's available, according to a leading supplier.

Monitoring the condition of critical pieces of equipment in order to highlight changes in performance and better predict the timing of failure, is key to preventative maintenance, whether it is conducted by people or machines.

However, a lot more education and support is needed to help food manufacturers understand the benefits of some of the available technologies, said Ian Pledger at CM specialist Schaeffler UK.

"A lot of food manufacturers know about vibration monitoring, which is great for high-speed motors, fans and pumps, but in many cases, if something is rotating slowly [less than 80rpm] or only moves through a part rotation, other techniques such as acoustic emissions analysis [which detects high frequency stress waves generated by faulty, cracked or worn components] would be more beneficial," he said.

"So you might use vibration monitoring on a pump, but acoustic analysis on a mixer, because you won't collect meaningful data from vibration monitoring."

Likewise, many engineers still believed thermal imaging was primarily something to use with electrical distribution panels, he added.

In fact, it could detect everything from an overheated motor in a series of apparently identical motors to blockages in heat exchangers.

It could even pick up damaged links in long, slow drive chains generating extra friction and heat, he claimed.