The latest innovation in the field of predictive maintenance is so-called pro-active maintenance, which uses a variety of technologies to extend the operating lives of machines and to virtually eliminate reactive maintenance. The major part of a pro-active program is root cause failure analysis, which is the determination of the mechanisms and causes of machine faults. The fundamental causes of machine failures can thus be corrected, and the failure mechanisms can be gradually engineered out of each machinery installation.
It has been known for a long time that imbalance and misalignment are the root causes of the majority of machine faults. Both of these conditions place undue forces on bearings, shortening their service life. Rather than continually replacing worn bearings in an offending machine, a far better policy is to perform precision balance and alignment on the machine, and then to verify the results by careful vibration signature analysis.
SymphonyAI Industrial provides products, software & services for Predictive Maintenance including vibration analysis instruments, wireless vibration monitoring, asset performance management and process health and optimization.