In the past, manufacturers had limited ways to deal with unplanned downtime. They either had to hope that regularly scheduled maintenance tasks such as lubrication would be enough to keep equipment in good shape, or they had to just wait until it failed and fix it as quickly as possible. Fortunately, maintenance teams have more tools at their disposal today. Through machine health monitoring, they can move beyond reactive tasks that still result in downtime and take a predictive approach that uses up-to-the-minute data about each asset’s condition to guide their activities.
Using connected IIoT sensors, machine health monitoring provides real-time updates for the status of each machine. Not only does this cut down on unplanned downtime by keeping equipment in good working order, but it also leads to other transformations throughout a manufacturer’s maintenance operations. It can result in improved technician efficiency, more effective MRO planning, and lower maintenance costs. Here are some of the basics concerning how machine health monitoring works, why it’s important, and some of the most crucial use cases for manufacturers.
How machine health monitoring works
Implementing machine monitoring in a manufacturing environment typically involves the following steps:
1. Identify critical assets
2. Install appropriate sensors
3. Establish baseline operating conditions
4. Monitor equipment data continuously
5. Detect abnormal patterns or threshold changes
6. Generate alerts
7. Diagnose likely failure causes
8. Recommend corrective actions
9. Schedule maintenance
10. Measure results and refine thresholds
With constantly refreshed information provided by the sensors, maintenance teams can spot signs of premature wear and develop a course of action for mitigating it. This can involve anything from lubricating components to replacing filters to more involved upgrades or retrofits done during planned downtime. It serves as an early warning system that catches potential issues before they can impact production.
The Reliability 360® Machine Health Monitoring solution from ATS provides 24/7 condition monitoring to support these efforts, as well as consultation, real-time alerts, prescriptive actions and optional maintenance and parts support. It provides maintenance teams with full visibility into equipment health and helps them guide their planning.
Machine health monitoring use cases by equipment type
Because the needs of equipment change depending on their type, it’s important for manufacturers to understand what kinds of monitoring data are most appropriate for each and why. See the table below for some examples:
Equipment type | Common monitoring data | Potential issues detected |
Motors | Vibration, current, temperature | Bearing wear, imbalance, overload |
Pumps | Vibration, pressure, temperature | Cavitation, seal wear, misalignment |
Fans and blowers | Vibration, speed, current | Imbalance, looseness, bearing defects |
Compressors | Vibration, temperature, pressure | Mechanical wear, overheating, lubrication issues |
Gearboxes | Vibration, oil condition, temperature | Gear wear, lubrication issues, misalignment |
Conveyors | Vibration, current, speed | Motor issues, belt problems, bearing wear |
CNC machines | Vibration, current, temperature | Spindle wear, motor issues, precision loss |
Packaging equipment | Vibration, current, torque, speed | Jams, bearing wear, torque drift, motor issues |
A machine health monitoring program delivers the most value when it’s used on assets where failure would create downtime, safety risks, quality issues, high repair costs or production bottlenecks. Here are some examples of how machine health monitoring may be used to keep critical assets running reliably.
Use case 1: Predicting equipment failure before downtime
Machine health sensors can be used to detect abnormal conditions that can indicate potential machine failures. Some of these indicators include rising vibration, increasing temperature, abnormal current draw, pressure instability, or recurring alarms. The collected machine data can be analyzed to reveal issues such as bearing degradation, misalignment, imbalance, lubrication problems and overloaded motors, giving technicians advance notice to schedule maintenance.
Use case 2: Monitoring critical production assets
Machine health monitoring systems are most valuable for critical production assets to protect schedules and reduce emergency repairs. It’s recommended that a monitoring strategy be focused first on bottleneck equipment, assets with recurring failure issues, those with long-lead replacement parts, and production-critical machines. Some examples include compressors, pumps, conveyors, robotic cells, CNC machines, and heavy rotating equipment.
Use case 3: Improving predictive maintenance programs
The real-time data provided by machine monitoring systems help teams shift from calendar-based maintenance to a condition-based stance. This cuts down on over-maintenance, unnecessary inspections, reactive repairs, and emergency part orders. At the same time, it can improve maintenance scheduling, labor planning, asset reliability, and predictive maintenance optimization.
Use case 4: Supporting maintenance teams with expert remote monitoring
Thanks to machine condition monitoring, technicians can focus on the most important issues first. The always-on nature of remote monitoring platforms also means facilities without sufficient internal reliability resources can make up for gaps in their coverage. The ATS Reliability 360® Technology Center provides access to expert advice, maintenance and data reliability specialists subject matter experts for remote troubleshooting and diagnostics, and technician resource support.
Use case 5: Reducing downtime across multiple facilities
Enterprise-level machine health monitoring gives manufacturers visibility across multiple sites. This is especially helpful for enterprise maintenance programs, standardized reliability initiatives, multi-site manufacturers and those with common equipment types can have unified asset data and scalable predictive maintenance.
Use case 6: Improving MRO and spare parts planning
Because it gives teams more time to plan for maintenance, machine health monitoring can be beneficial in improving MRO operations. This can result in fewer emergency orders, stronger critical spare planning, reduced stockouts, improved repair readiness, and less wasted inventory.
Use case 7: Improving quality and process consistency
Machine condition can have a direct effect on product quality. Monitoring means looking out for issues such as excessive vibration, temperature spikes and motor load changes that can introduce inconsistencies into production runs. This cuts down on the amount of rework, scrap and quality escapes manufacturers experience.
ATS machine health monitoring use cases and results
As a top reliability resource for the manufacturing sector, ATS has helped numerous operations transform their maintenance through machine health monitoring. The following table includes a number of examples of how we’ve helped clients achieve higher ROI:
ATS use case | Industry / Context | Result |
Heavy equipment / railcar manufacturing | Achieved 8x ROI in two months with ATS Machine Health Monitoring. | |
Metal products | Achieved 14x ROI after ATS helped avoid a downtime event using sensor technology and reliability engineering expertise. | |
Consumer packaged goods | Achieved 32x ROI in the first 90 days of R360® Machine Health Monitoring. | |
Can and glass bottle facilities | Avoided $2M in downtime losses and deployed machine monitoring globally after a successful trial. | |
100-site enterprise deployment | Avoided 1,600+ hours of downtime and generated $2.1M in avoided losses within the first six months. | |
Remote monitoring and analytics | Reduced unplanned downtime by 20% with ATS support. |
Take the next step toward better machine health monitoring
Machine health monitoring reduces downtime, improves reliability, strengthens predictive maintenance, and helps technicians focus on the most important issues first. When prioritized based on asset criticality, failure history, downtime cost, sensor fit, workforce capacity, and MRO readiness, ATS can help you plan your program so it delivers the highest ROI. If you’re ready to identify the right machine health monitoring use case for your facility, talk to us today about improving uptime, reliability and maintenance execution.
