How condition-based maintenance works
- Choose the failure modes worth monitoring on critical assets: bearing wear, misalignment, insulation breakdown, filter blockage.
- Pick the indicator that shows each one developing: vibration, temperature, current draw, differential pressure, oil analysis, an operator's visual check.
- Set thresholds for alert and action, from manufacturer data and experience.
- Monitor, continuously with sensors or periodically with handheld instruments and operator inspections.
- Act when a threshold is crossed: a planned corrective task scheduled before failure.
- Review the thresholds and the outcomes so the programme improves.
Condition-based, preventive and predictive
- Preventive maintenance works on a fixed interval regardless of condition.
- Condition-based maintenance acts when the measured condition crosses a threshold.
- Predictive maintenance adds trend analysis to forecast when the threshold will be crossed, so work can be planned further ahead.
Most programmes combine them: time-based PM for simple, cheap tasks; CBM for critical assets where the indicator is reliable.
The operator's role
Much of condition monitoring is human: the operator who notices a new noise, a warm bearing housing or a slow cycle. Autonomous maintenance checks are condition-based maintenance in its simplest form, and the abnormalities they raise should become planned work.
When CBM is worth it
- The failure mode develops gradually and gives a measurable warning.
- The asset is critical enough to justify monitoring.
- The organisation will act on the alerts; a dashboard of red indicators nobody schedules work from is no better than run-to-failure.
Common mistakes
- Monitoring everything instead of the critical failure modes.
- Thresholds set once and never revised.
- Alerts going to an inbox rather than becoming scheduled work.