Lisle, Ill.-based SmartSignal has introduced a new concept in equipment maintenance dubbed, ‘threat-based maintenance’ (TBM). According to SmartSignal CTO David Bell, ‘Current maintenance methods overwhelm a shrinking pool of maintenance engineers with volumes of data and alarms. These result in surprises, unplanned outages, and excessive maintenance costs.’
TBM delivers high level analytics based on existing investments in data infrastructure including sensors, DCS, historian, vibration and oil analyses. The analytics provide earlier detection, diagnosis and proactive interruption of the probability of failure curve. This in turn frees staff from looking for needles in the haystack and allowing them to act before damage has been caused. SmartSignal-enabled TBM reduces unplanned outages, unnecessary planned maintenance, and maintenance costs. Bell claims ‘TBM creates a paradigm shift that enables a company to gain significant value from implementing proactive maintenance.’
TBM was developed from SmartSignal’s experience gained on a worldwide customer base of over 10,000 assets across the power generation, oil and gas, and aerospace verticals. More from www.smartsignal.com.
This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2009 Issue # 5.
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