Context
A condition monitoring service provider based in Rochester, New York serves tens of clients located around upstate New York and Vermont. The clients span from small water treatment plants to larger power stations.
The clients have no onsite condition monitoring or vibration analysis experts, only plant personnel who regularly survey equipment condition. The plant personnel know the plant inside out and understand how all the critical machines (pumps, fans, motors) work.
To cut costs while improving quality of their service, the condition monitoring service provider has decided to offer a remote condition monitoring program including vibration analysis to all clients through the VibCloud hosted solution.
Key Benefits for Condition Monitoring Service Provider
- Provide a consistent, customizable, condition monitoring program to all clients through a centrally managed end-to-end solution.
- Save on travel costs to client sites and shift focus on providing excellent service to clients. Travel only when consulting around maintenance or a repair is requested.
- Save on IT infrastructure costs - No need to deploy software in-house or on client sites thanks to a hosted solution.
Key Benefits for Service Provider’s Clients
- No need for certified vibration analysts or vibration experts on site. Client is able to combine employee’s existing plant knowledge with provided easy to use vibration analysis tools.
- Save on hardware costs through use of own mobile devices.
- Predictable Condition Monitoring costs - Client pays condition monitoring service provider a flat fee and incurs additional costs only upon request.
| How VibCloud Helps | VibCloud Features Used |
|---|---|
| GPS coordinates are available for all machines in open areas of the remote sites, machines indoors are identified by barcodes unique per client. Both GPS coordinates and barcode numbers are recorded in VibCloud’s Asset Register. | Asset register for identification of equipment via barcodes and GPS coordinates |
| As part of each client’s pre-paid condition monitoring program, the service provider remotely schedules regular and one-off inspections of critical equipment in VibCloud. | Planning and managing inspection routes |
| The service provider not only configures how often to collect what data, but also provides schematics and detailed images with inspection instructions for each machine. | Document library for storing machine images and instructions |
| The plant personnel are equipped VibCloud mobile application installed on their personal mobile devices or rugged devices provided by the plant. The personnel use a vibration sensor attached to the mobile device to record vibration measurements, take images for visual inspections and record data such as temperature and pressure from machine gauges. | Recording of high-quality vibration measurements On-the-spot diagnosis using the VibCloud mobile application Recording non-vibration data points |
| After plant personnel complete an inspection, all data is automatically sent to the VibCloud central database and is ready for analysis by the service provider’s condition monitoring experts. The condition monitoring experts are able to immediately see an overview of all clients’ equipment condition. | A high-level view of assets in the overview dashboard |
| The condition monitoring experts perform detailed vibration analysis and asses each machine’s condition based on the data collected on-site. They record their assessment and recommendations for repair directly in VibCloud. | Assessment of equipment condition & advanced vibration analysis |
| On a weekly or monthly basis, the service provider sends high-level equipment health reports via email to each client. Upon request or when serious issues are discovered, the service provider schedules online meetings with plant supervisors to review reports and sends out detailed reports which include machine vibration spectra. | Creating and sharing reports in seconds |