Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level

Leveraging the “Visibility of your IR/T PdM Program” at the Corporate Level

Introduction

Thermography is one of, if not THE, most visible technology within your predictive maintenance program (PdM).

Reliability initiatives and successful Reliability implementations are of great interest to all industries and therefore seek to capitalize on the benefits of the Predictive Maintenance and Reliability programs within these industries. Whether you are involved in the actual data acquisition or in managing the Reliability initiative or PdM program, the intent of this presentation is to give you some ideas and methods by which you may be able to capitalize on the visible benefits of the thermography component, within your PdM program. Thermography may act as, or become a change agent within your organization. Capitalizing on the WOW factor and presenting the business benefits and maintenance values to the corporate decision-makers is where “buy in” to thermography programs begin and from where the entire organization will “buy into” a truly reliable operation of your facility driven from the top down.

We are all aware that thermographic inspections can find all variants of anomalies, anything from the visibly obvious to the very subtle issues - i.e., how a problem on a PCB may trip a 200 Megawatt Generation system. Yet more often than not, the information that a Thermographer produces travels, at most, no further than the Planning and Scheduling department followed by the crafts people who are tasked with the repair. Many times, maintenance personnel are not only pleased, but surprised, when they actually receive an infrared image attached to the work order. Why the pleasure…or surprise? It’s simply because an infrared image is one of the best ways to “see” a temperature related problem that has been located. It is the ONLY PdM technology that provides pictures along with other key data. Pictures, as we know, are worth a thousand words and help illustrate the importance of thermography and its applicable methods to ensure successful and scalable Reliability initiatives throughout your organization.

In order to fully understand the integration of thermography into a Reliability program, we must first become familiar with the other components involved in a Reliability program. Although the actual thermal image is the most critical aspect of the thermography portion of the program, this thermal image is integrated with data. Data forms the foundation for all Reliability components and how they are managed; the Enterprise Asset Management Systems and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (EAM/CMMS), and the Master Equipment List (MEL), to name but a few, all feed into the Planning and Scheduling efforts.