Condition monitoring benefits for cement manufacturing

Condition monitoring (CM) has been an integral part of the maintenance process at the Holcim (US) Inc. Devil's Slide Cement Plant since 2002. The use of CM at the plant has been successful at increasing the availability of plant equipment by enabling the maintenance staff to predict failures and take the proactive steps necessary to avert catastrophic failures. The CM program at Devil's Slide has two major constituents, those being vibration analysis and lubrication analysis. The combined use of these two components in CM has increased the run time on the plant equipment because small problems are fixed fairly easily before they turn into big problems. This paper discusses how to incorporate CM for use by plant maintenance personnel. Some of the most important aspects of CM are how to configure the system for data collection and measurement routines so one can be assured they are obtaining viable data for analysis. It is then important to realize where alarm limits should be placed and when to take action. Training is the key part of a successful CM program. Success comes from having employees trained as experts and certified in the CM arena. Certified maintenance personnel give credence to knowing how to collect pertinent data, interpreting the data, and communicating the results of the data to those responsible for maintenance planning and execution