By taking corrective action on excessively contaminated systems, equipment life and reliability can be greatly improved.

Having accurate test results is extremely vital to the success of any contamination control program.

The key to realizing the value from any successful condition monitoring program, including in service fluid analysis, is a disciplined commitment to creating a poolof information that can be trusted to provide the insights a maintenance professional can use to extend the useful life of his equipment.

Some of the benefits that can be forecasted and controlled through a reliability program include decreased repair costs, downtime cost and lubricant costs as well as increased production.

By targeting both fluid cleanliness and condition monitoring in a complete lubrication management program, failures can be reduced and equipment and productivity can be optimized.

Having an effective lubrication program promotes reliability of the system and provides advanced warning of a failure event.

Fluid Life offers a full range of turnkey solutions from comprehensive training programs, integrated data management systems, consulting to implement an efficient program design as well as ongoing program support and monitoring.

The future of fluid analysis lies in realizing its true potential.

In order to realize an increasing proportion of the benefits from fluid analysis, there needs to be greater integration with existing maintenance programs and increased use of technology such as barcoding, smartphones and cloud based computing.

By making data input easier data integrity will increase, thereby allowing condition monitoring to be used to its full potential.

“Fluid Life customers can detect problem areas before they lead to more costly failures and delays,” marketing and communications director Jolene Demyen said.

“Essentially, it allows the customer to control its equipment, not have the equipment control it.”

Published in the May 2011 Coal USA Magazine