Maintworld Magazine 3/2021

3/2021 www.maintworld.com 

maintenance & asset management 

Siri for industry 

is on its way 

p 14 

KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL RELIABILITY IMPLEMENTATION PG 6 9 BUYING TIPS FOR ACOUSTIC IMAGING CAMERAS PG 20 COMPETENCE AND SKILLS IN THE ERA OF INDUSTRY 4.0 PG 48

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EDITORIAL 

We Live in 

Challenging Times 

THE AFTERMATH OF THE COVID-19 pandemic 

makes it abundantly clear that we are living in 

a VUCA-world*. It is a definite sign of an era 

where change is happening faster and faster. 

This rapid change also translates to the 

world of manufacturing. Not only are there 

logistic challenges for the transportation of 

goods, but interruptions in the supply chain are 

also becoming commonplace, like we saw in the 

chip shortage in the manufacturing industries. 

This is a clear sign of rapidly-changing business 

circumstances. 

There is a strong drive towards more flexibility, 

faster product innovations and increasingly 

smaller production batches. In other words, there is an increasing need for 

quickly-adjustable and adaptable production assets. At the same time, manufacturing 

companies are being forced to work very cost-efficiently. The answer lies in 

digitization. 

Industry 4.0 is no longer a faraway concept for the factories of the future, but 

a fundamental pillar in staying competitive in the new normal. And guess what, 

Maintenance 4.0 proves to be a main driver for Asset Performance 4.0. 

A new step in the same direction 

Since the Nowlan and Heap report was published in 1978, we know that the majority 

of failures follow a random failure pattern. When contemplating the right 

maintenance strategy for a certain piece of equipment or function during an RCM 

exercise, we find that in many cases condition-based maintenance is the optimal 

maintenance strategy. But there is an important follow-up question in the decision 

diagram: is the condition inspection or monitoring technically and economically 

justifiable? 

In the past, that question often had to be answered negatively because of high 

investments or labour costs that were needed to set up a condition monitoring 

program. Today the industrial internet of things (IIoT), affordable sensors, AI algorithms 

and predictive analytics offer unseen possibilities. Now it is technically 

and economically justifiable to implement condition-based maintenance in many 

more cases. In other words, the fundamental principles of maintenance continue 

to apply, but the decision criteria have changed dramatically. Maintenance 4.0 is 

a non-fundamental evolution that currently fundamentally changes how maintenance 

is conducted. 

Have faith 

In recent years many organizations have made “a leap of faith” by investing in 

reliability, maintenance, and asset management in order to achieve optimal cost 

performance and asset uptime. Today again, it requires a fundamental belief in the 

added value of digitization in maintenance, whilst keeping the good practices from 

the past, to be competitive in the new normal. In current times of drastic change, 

asset and maintenance managers need once again to be a true leader to inspire 

their organization, to adopt best in class practices in asset performance 4.0. 

I am convinced that you will find interesting thoughts and inspiration in this 

Maintworld Magazine. 

Wim Vancauwenberghe 

Maintenance Evangelist 

Member of EFNMS ESHEC (European Health Safety and Environment Committee) 

4 maintworld 3/2021 

20 

Even 

through a pandemic, 

leading tech companies 

continue to transform their 

solutions for the greater 

good of reliability.

IN THIS ISSUE 3/2021 

36 

The 

deficiency in technical 

skills is being exacerbated by 

both the impact of COVID-19 

and the pressure digital 

transformation. 

= 

40 

According 

to the International 

Energy Agency (IEA), electricity 

demand will increase by up to 

more than 60 percent in the 

current decade, depending on 

the region. 

6 

10 

14 

18 

20 

One of the Keys to a Successful 

Reliability Implementation 

Easily Improve Your Operational 

Efficiency 

"Siri for industry is on its way" 

Facts and figures about Asset 

Management in Dutch chemical industry 

9 BUYING TIPS FOR Acoustic Imaging 

Cameras 

23 SMPR 

24 

26 

28 

30 

STEAM TRAP TESTING: Reduce Energy 

Costs and Increase Process Stability 

with Ultrasonic Testing Equipment 

How Water Kills BEARINGS 

The Way you Install your Rotating 

Machinery is the Way it Will Perform! 

A look at five common trouble areas 

that derail reliability 

36 

40 

The ABCs of Leadership: 

For times of uncertainty and change 

Higher energy efficiency – 

an imperative from the current 

sustainability megatrend 

42 

Reliability is About Two Things! 

48 

Competence and Skills in the Era 

of Industry 4.0 

Issued by Promaint (Finnish Maintenance Society), Messuaukio 1, 00520 Helsinki, Finland tel. +358 29 007 4570 Publisher Omnipress Oy, 

Väritehtaankatu 8, 4. kerros, 01300 Vantaa, tel. +358 20 6100, www.omnipress.fi Editor-in-chief Nina Garlo-Melkas tel. +358 50 36 46 491, 

nina.garlo@media.fi, Advertisements Kai Portman, Sales Director, tel. +358 358 44 763 2573, ads@maintworld.com Layout Menu Meedia, 

www.menuk.ee Subscriptions and Change of Address members toimisto@kunnossapito.fi, non-members tilaajapalvelu@media.fi 

Printed by Reusner, www.reusner.ee Frequency 4 issues per year, ISSN L 1798-7024, ISSN 1798-7024 (print), ISSN 1799-8670 (online). 

3/2021 maintworld 5

CASE STUDY 

One of the Keys to 

a Successful Reliability 

Implementation 

It is always encouraging 

when research “proves” 

that your long-held 

beliefs are correct. We 

asked the maintenance, 

reliability, and condition 

monitoring community 

about their reliability 

improvement program 

via a detailed survey. 

WE HAD OVER 1.000 responses from 

around the world and across a wide variety 

of industries. The goal was to determine 

what the difference was between the 

programs enjoying success and those that 

were still struggling to achieve their goals. 

The results were quite interesting. 

Are surveys perfect? 

It must be said that it can be difficult to 

get perfect data from surveys. Or to put 

it another way, it is impossible to get 

perfect data from surveys. Everyone 

is busy and if you ask too many 

JASON TRANTER, 

ARP 

Mobius Institute 

6 maintworld 3/2021

CASE STUDY 

Four levels of success. 

questions people will not complete the 

survey. If the information you request is 

difficult to access, once again, people will 

not complete the survey. However, with 

1.000 responses, we felt we had good 

information to work with. 

What is reliability success? 

The first challenge was to measure 

“success” - what is the definition of a 

successful reliability program? In an ideal 

world, we would receive detailed financial 

information about production output, 

maintenance costs, asset value, and 

other key information, and we would be 

able to normalize it against industry type 

– and we would be able to measure the 

contribution that reliability improvement 

made to those results.. However, as you 

may imagine, too few people have that 

information, and even fewer are willing 

(or able) to share it. 

Instead, we chose to go with three 

metrics: maintenance cost as a percentage 

of asset value, equipment availability, 

and the percentage of reactive maintenance. 

As it turned out, the information 

we received on the first metric was either 

unreliable or too few respondents were 

able to provide that information. Instead, 

we combined the other two metrics so 

that we had four levels of success, as 

illustrated above. 

Our next challenge was to analyze the 

data and attempt to determine what the 

people in Group 1 did differently to the 

other groups. We asked questions about 

training, the techniques they use to 

develop their reliability strategy, the age 

of the program, the software and instrumentation 

they used, and many other 

factors. But what appeared to come from 

the survey was that the programs with 

the best culture achieve the best results. 

The programs with the strongest management 

support had the best culture. 

And the programs that developed the 

financial business case had the strongest 

management support. 

Our conclusion, therefore, was that 

developing a business case was one of the 

root causes of program success. 

Do surveys and correlation 

prove anything? 

Stepping back for a second, it is fair to say 

that it can be challenging to distinguish 

between causation and correlation. 

As I like to point out, global warming is 

statistically correlated with the number 

of pirates in the world. As the number 

of pirates has steadily decreased, the 

temperature of the globe has steadily 

increased, as illustrated on the next page. 

There is a mathematical correlation. 

But I think most people would agree that 

the size of the population of pirates has 

had little to do with global warming. 

And thus, it is the same with the 

author’s interpretation of the survey results. 

Can I say, categorically, that it was 

the existence of the business case that 

resulted in achieving the support of senior 

management? I expected that to be 

the case, therefore I may be guilty of 

confirmation bias. But a close examination 

of the data showed that 95% of the organizations 

that have a business case also had 

strong senior management support. 

It is also true that there may be 

other reasons why an organization had 

a culture that supported the concept of 

reliability improvement. But we did find 

that 96% of the organizations that either 

had strong or moderate senior management 

support had the right culture. 

And finally, it is also difficult to prove, 

without a doubt, that the nature of the 

culture influenced the success achieved 

by the reliability improvement program. 

But approximately 90 percent of the 

organizations in Group 1 reported: 

• Everyone understands the benefits 

[86%] 

• Everyone is encouraged to provide 

suggestions for improvement [90%] 

• Everyone understands the mission 

[95%] 

• Everyone is actively engaged [90%] 

As mentioned earlier, we examined other 

factors, mostly technical, but none of them 

achieved the high percentages listed above. 

As the owner of an international training 

organization, I was disappointed to learn 

that the level of training and certification 

did not strongly correlate with program 

success. Fifty percent of Group 1 and 2 said 

they had strong training, skills, and certification 

while another 40 percent said they 

had “somewhat strong” training, skills, and 

certification. 


CASE STUDY 

Why is it so? 

In the author’s opinion, and in the 

author’s experience, no amount of 

technical expertise and investment 

in instrumentation and software will 

guarantee a successful program. Yes, 

the program will be enhanced if the 

expertise, instrumentation, and software 

exist, but the technical people will 

always be hamstrung by the people who 

make decisions that ultimately lead to 

premature failure. 

Those decisions include: 

• Making design, engineering, and 

purchasing selections that reduce 

the upfront cost but ultimately 

lead to reduced reliability and 

maintainability (and thus increased 

lifecycle costs). 

• Storing spares and materials in a 

way that results in degradation 

of those items (due to vibration, 

humidity, heat, and dust). 

• Installing and repairing equipment 

without the appropriate tools, 

skills, procedures, and standards 

thus leading to premature failure 

and rework (when the mistakes are 

made again). 

• Placing the equipment under 

undue stress and strain when 

starting, operating, and shutting 

down the equipment. 

• Failing to care for the equipment 

by allowing it (and the lubricants, 

filters, etc.) to get dirty and stay 

dirty. 

• Failing to heed the advice of condition 

monitoring and reliability professionals 

to respond to pending 

failures and eliminate root causes. 

And the list goes on… 

No amount of technical skill, tools, and 

technology can overcome apathy, poor 

motivation, and lack of appreciation for 

the benefits of improved reliability. 

Therefore, developing a culture where 

everyone is motivated (personally and 

professionally) to achieve high reliability 

and operational performance is the 

only way to achieve high reliability and 

performance. 

So, what is the key ingredient 

in culture change? 

It has always been the author’s opinion, 

as has been borne out by the survey results, 

that you must have strong leadership 

from senior management. Unless the 

leaders of the organization are saying 

SENIOR MANAGEMENT MUST BE AS VOCAL ABOUT RELIABILITY 

AS THEY ARE (OR SHOULD BE) ABOUT SAFETY. 

and doing the right things, the rest of 

the employees in the workforce will not 

change their ways. 

Senior management must be as vocal 

about reliability as they are (or should 

be) about safety. They must constantly 

repeat the mantra that “safety and 

reliability are key to success.” 

They must not simply say the right 

things, they must do the right things: 

being willing to spend a little more on 

a project to achieve reliability and 

maintainability; invest in awareness 

training, skills training, and the tools 

and technologies; standing strong when 

short-cuts are available; and “punishing” 

those who do not do what is necessary 

to achieve reliability and high performance. 

But how do you gain management 

support? 

In an ideal world, it would be possible 

to “simply” explain the “common sense” 

philosophy of reliability improvement 

and they would be convinced and thus 

do what they must do. 

But that will not work. 

Most senior management cannot 

translate between the common sense 

technical need to improve reliability 

in the financial and other benefits that 

will be achieved. Senior management 

are motivated to increase profits (or 

operate within a budget), improve customer 

satisfaction, achieve the highest 

level of safety and environmental protection, 

and to meet the requirements 

of the regulators. It is up to you to 

demonstrate how improving reliability 

will enable them to meet their goals. 

In the author’s opinion, as has 

been borne out by the survey, the best 

approach is to develop a financial 

business case using the terminology 

they use to assess all the major projects: 

internal rate of return (IRR), 

net present value (NPV), and so on. 

Do not just talk about the “saves” you 

expect to make – no one sees what 

you avoided, but they do see the net 

benefits of the failures you avoided: 

increased production output, reduced 

maintenance costs, safety improvements, 

and so on. 

In conclusion 

Ninety-five percent of the organizations 

that had developed a business case were 

in Group 1. Whether you are starting a 

new program, looking to improve the 

performance of an existing program, or 

searching for ways to sustain a successful 

program, you must develop the financial 

business case – and constantly report 

on the financial (and other) gains being 

made by the program. 


PARTNER ARTICLE 

Easily Improve Your Operational Efficiency 

Hint: Use Technology to Upgrade Your System 

The water industry has 

some tough challenges 

to overcome, and the list 

is long. The first item on 

this list of many is, of 

course, an aging infrastructure 

along with the 

related leaking pipes and 

water loss, which also 

translates into substantial 

lost revenue. 

MARY ANNE 

BALLOUZ, 

ICONICS 

OTHER CHALLENGES INCLUDE retirement 

of experts and the loss of their 

knowledge and experience and the 

difficulty in attracting capable and 

talented employees to keep facilities 

running. Moreover, there is the population 

migration from rural areas to 

urban areas resulting in a decreased 

revenue base. 

Keeping smaller utility plants efficiently 

operating is a balancing act 

between the available workforce and 

finances. However, there is light at the 

end of the tunnel as the water & wastewater 

industry adopts and implements 

available technology. The Lake Cities 

Municipal Utility Authority (LCMUA) 

is an example of how utility authorities 

can use technology to improve 

their system’s operational efficiency 

even with a lean workforce. 



LCMUA Use Case - Navigating 

the Challenges of an Aging 

Facility 

Lake Cities Municipal Utility Authority 

(http://lcmua.org) is located in Lake Dallas, 

Texas and provides superior drinking 

water, fire protection, and pressure to the 

Shady Shores, Lake Dallas, and Hickory 

Creek areas (together known as the Tri- 

Cities). It also operates according to the 

Texas Commission on Environmental 

Quality (TCEQ) standards in potable 

(drinking) water and sanitary sewer services. 

LCMUA operates 21 lift stations, 3 

elevated storage tanks, 3 ground storage 

tanks, 10 pumps on the water side (with 3 

altitude valves), and 46 sewer pumps on 

the wastewater side. 

The reality was that LCMUA had an 

aging infrastructure system that needed 

help from top to bottom. To better manage 

and maintain their facility, upgrading 

the system was one of the organization’s 

biggest priorities. In addition, a large 

portion of LCMUA’s budget at the time 

was spent on call-outs, false alarms, and 

failing equipment. For instance, the team 

had to constantly send test alarms to 

make sure the system was still functioning, 

and it was common for an operator 

to get a call once a week that alarms 

were not working. Additionally, the preexisting 

SCADA system was actually a 

combination of three competitor products, 

which ended up providing LCMUA 

personnel with three different sets of operating 

data. Besides requiring a unified 

solution for their new HMI/SCADA, the 

authority also required one that could 

handle Distributed Network Protocol 

(DNP3) communications and interface 

with existing Servelec Technologies TBox 

combined PLC/RTU hardware installed 

at every lift station, pump station, and elevated 

storage tank in their system. 

KEEPING SMALLER UTILITY 

PLANTS EFFICIENTLY OPERATING 

IS A BALANCING ACT BETWEEN 

THE AVAILABLE WORKFORCE 

AND FINANCES. 

And as with most facilities, LCMUA’s 

personnel are typically busy everyday 

working on projects such as preventative 

maintenance or making repairs, 

so they cannot monitor the operations 

at all times. Because this facility works 

with a lean workforce, they needed a 

solution that could give them 24/7 operational 

visibility and accommodate the 

often-remote workforce. The software 

solution also needed to be able to send 

alerts notifying personnel to pull their 

attention away from their daily duties 

to address larger, more serious issues. 

Consequently, to upgrade their system, 

LCMUA sought solutions to replace the 

older SCADA system, to reduce the related 

costs, and to ultimately manage 

the facility more efficiently with a lean 

workforce. To tackle their challenges 

and achieve their goals, LCMUA first 

worked with system integrator 

WHECO Controls of Fort Worth, Texas 

(www.whecocontrols.com) and then 

completed the project with system 

integrator Impact Automation and 

Controls of the Dallas/Fort Worth area 

(www.impactaac.com). 

The Solution: Using Technology 

to LCMUA’s Advantage 

WHECO Controls selected and deployed 

the following ICONICS software and 

installed its plant historian: 

• GENESIS64 web-based real-time 

HMI/SCADA suite with WebHMI 

• MobileHMI data mobility software 

suite 

• AlarmWorX64 Multimedia OPC 

alarm management software 

• ReportWorX enterprise reporting, 

charting, and analysis software 

• Hyper Historian high-speed, reliable, 

and robust plant data historian. 

By using ICONICS solutions, LCMUA 

saw immediate value. 

LCMUA on-call monitoring. 


A 


Realized Real-Time Benefits 

Through an Upgraded System 

Lake Cities Municipal Utility Authority 

immediately realized benefits through 

an upgraded system with ICONICS 

solutions. The facility obtained a new 

HMI/SCADA system that met their 

needs for quality and maintenance 

within their water and wastewater system 

without any of the issues or data 

discrepancies they had experienced with 

their previous system. With ICONICS 

GENESIS64, they achieved improved 

secure visualization of water and sewer 

levels, as well as improved monitoring 

and control of potable water and wastewater, 

elevation, PSI, intrusion pumps, 

pump monitors/controls, pump failure 

status, and temperature. Moreover, as 

many of the organization’s operators 

utilize iPads in the field, ICONICS’ 

WebHMI and MobileHMI software 

enabled LCMUA’s teams to monitor 

and control connected systems through 

“Any Glass” - a user interface that delivers 

2D and 3D real-time operational 

visualization and intelligent dashboards. 

The authority now considers their 

visualization to be “top notch”, their 

alarming to be “solid”, and their data 

mobility to have an “impressively fast 

response time”, all of which were vast 

improvements compared to their previous 

system. 

Fast forward a couple of years and 

in addition to new graphic displays and 

trends brought about through the software, 

the authority sought to further increase 

their team’s efficiency and 

collaboration with the new alarms 

and notifications provided through 

WANT YOUR OPERATION 

TO BE MORE EFFICIENT, 

SUSTAINABLE, AND 

COMPETITIVE? 

LEARN MORE ABOUT how your 

facility can benefit from available 

software. Register for ICONICS 

Connect 2021 virtual event to 

discover the latest in digital and 

automation technology and what’s 

in store for the future. Visit 

https://iconics.com/Connect2021 for 

complimentary, on-demand access. 

ICONICS CFSWorX, including voice and 

text alerts. That’s where system integrator 

Impact Automation and Controls came in, 

performing the complete system upgrade 

along with configuration and testing of 

the new CFSWorX deployment. LCMUA 

considers that the new ICONICS automation 

software has made its employees’ lives 

and work easier and better as there are 

fewer calls asking if the alarms being sent 

are real or false. Now managers can spend 

their time more wisely, managing team 

resources according to real-time data and 

thereby optimizing efficiency, improving 

response times, and reducing downtime. 

Essentially, this new technology 

allows them to be more efficient, while 

maintaining a leaner workforce. As a 

message comes in on their personnel’s 

smartphones, with their devices in their 

hands, they can quickly switch over to 

the mobile app and see what's going on, 

acknowledge alarms, send out a truck, 

or whatever they need to do to get the 

problem solved. And they can make that 

decision very quickly. They also appreciate 

having a system that allows them to 

share the workload. For example, water 

alarms are sent to the water department, 

and wastewater alarms are sent to the 

wastewater department. Rather than 

everyone getting the same alarms all 

the time, the team can decide who gets 

what alarm when, which is extremely 

important as operators are not always on 

shift. This new software also addresses 

the problems of new hires or retiring 

operators. With the improved ability 

to control and manage the facility, it is 

easier to transfer knowledge from the retiring 

personnel and attract new talent. 

Simply put, the team is better equipped 

to maintain the expertise needed to run 

the facility efficiently. 

Concluding Thoughts 

Now that Lake Cities Municipal Utility 

Authority has experienced what ICONICS 

automation software can do, they anticipate 

expanding their remote worker 

support to further increase efficiency 

with more advanced capabilities such as 

worker location, push notifications, and 

priority calling. Rather than continuing 

to maintain a disparate, obsolete 

system, LCMUA made an investment in 

technology to improve operational efficiency 

and pave a path to better serve the 

Tri-Cities areas. Other companies in the 

water and wastewater industry can take 

LCMUA’s lead to get a handle on their 

own challenges moving towards more 

sustainable and efficient operations. And 

technology is key. 


Acoustic Imaging Camera 


Bring Bring compressed air air leaks, leaks, fugitive emissions, 

Bring compressed air leaks, fugitive emissions, 

and and electrical discharge into into focus. focus. 

and electrical discharge into focus. 

www.sonavu.com 

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DIGITALISATION 

"Siri for industry 

is on its way" 

THOMAS 

MEERSSEMAN 

We are no longer surprised when we see 

people talking to Alexa or Siri in plain 

English. Having a digital industry assistant 

is only a matter of time. But first, we need 

a team effort to build a corpus! 

LET ME START BY SAYING THAT I WROTE THIS ARTICLE 

COMPLETELY MYSELF! REALLY? 

Well, fooling us with AI-generated articles is one of the many 

ways GPT-3 has caught our attention for the past months. A 

college student used GPT-3 to generate a blog post on what 

to do when feeling unproductive. It ended up at the top of 

Hacker News with more than 26,000 views. Only one person 

asked if it was written by AI. Earlier, another blogpost on 

why GPT-3 may be the biggest thing since bitcoin went viral, 

mainly because the author surprised his readers in the last 



NLP CAN BE CONSIDERED A BRANCH OF AI 

AND IS ALL ABOUT MAKING SENSE 

OF HUMAN LANGUAGE. 

given all other words in that text (e.g. “It is [MASK] today. 

Let’s go to the beach”). Knowing the conditional probability of 

words is the basis for a variety of downstream NLP tasks such 

as content creation, language translation, auto-completion, 

question answering and text classification. Most language 

models are pre-trained on a large dataset (such as Wikipedia) 

and afterwards fine-tuned to perform a specific NLP task on a 

smaller dataset. This process is called transfer learning. 

What is GPT-3? 

GPT-3 is the third version of the Generative Pre-trained 

Transformer models developed by OpenAI, the AI specialist 

co-founded by Elon Musk, although he is no longer onboard. 

Nevertheless, there are no major breakthroughs in terms 

of architecture, it is considered the most powerful language 

model ever. Why? Because of its size! 

The model has a stunning 175 billion parameters and was 

pre-trained on a corpus of nearly half a trillion words, mainly 

sourced from the internet. In fact, the model is so large that 

no fine-tuning at all is required. It knows so much about 

language that it can learn NLP tasks that it has never encountered 

before by just giving it a few examples. This is called 

few-shot learning. The idea of such a general model is very 

tempting because it opens the path for democratizing AI and 

making NLP accessible for everyone. 

paragraph by revealing all the text was generated by GPT-3. A 

few months ago, The Guardian generated some publicity with 

a similar experiment. 

There are a lot of other intriguing examples making GPT-3 

a real buzz in the AI community and even beyond. But why is 

it such a big deal for Natural Language Processing (NLP)? 

NLP so far… 

NLP can be considered a branch of AI and is all about making 

sense of human language. NLP originates from the 1950s 

but the last decade brought a real revolution. We went from 

vectorizing words and analyzing word similarities (e.g. “man 

is to boy” what “woman is to girl”) with word2vec in 2013 to 

the Transformer model proposed in the “Attention Is All You 

Need” paper released in 2017. Transformers leverage the use 

of attention mechanisms to gather information about the 

context of a given word and encode that information in the 

vector representing the word (e.g. I have a “date” tonight vs 

What “date” is it today?). Transformers are the basis for stateof-the-art 

language models such as BERT and GPT. 

"Attention please" 

Language models are the new kids on the block in NLP. They 

basically predict how likely one word will appear in a text, 

Let’s get practical 

The idea is tempting. Unfortunately only limited people 

have access to the beta API for GPT-3 for now, but subscribing 

to the premium version of AI Dungeon gives you a workaround 

allowing you to catch a glimpse of what the model 

really can do. 

Let us have a look and see how it could help maintenance 

professionals and operations managers in supporting their 

day-to-day job. I gave the model a little context for warming 

up and asked a question about pump failure modes. 

The text in bold is fully generated by the AI system. 

Centrifugal pumps are one of the world's most widely used 

type of pump, having an extensive range of applications, from 

food processing to water or sewage transportation. Problems 

that arise within these machines decrease the flow of the fluid 

within the pipelines, thus interrupting the production and 

transport of the fluid to its destination within the process. 

What are the most common failure modes that are found in 

centrifugal pumps in the sewage industry? 

A: The main cause for failures is a lack of lubrication. 

If there is no oil or grease on the gears, then it will not 

move smoothly and the machine may stop working altogether. 



B: The water pressure inside the pipes may be too low. 

When this happens, the pump will start leaking and 

eventually explode. 

C: There may be a problem with the bearings of the gearbox. 

If these are worn, then they will need to be replaced 

along with the oil and grease within them. 

D: A plugged or dirty filter may be restricting the flow of 

the liquid. If the filter becomes clogged, then it needs to 

be cleaned or replaced. 

E: If the operator does not have the correct maintenance 

methods, then the machine may begin to overheat and 

break down. This involves stopping the pump mechanism 

and giving it a thorough clean. 

F: Sometimes, the pump will fail due to a manufacturing 

defect. This is extremely rare and only occurs due to 

poor quality control during manufacturing. If the pump 

is functioning correctly, but is old and showing signs of 

wear, then it should be replaced. 

G: The highest risk of failure is down to operator error. 

Pumps are very heavy duty machines that can go 

through thousands of hours of operation and still take a 

long time to break down. The operator must be careful 

when working on and around the pump, keeping their 

footing firmly on the ground at all times. 

You must admit the model can somehow pass the Turing 

test and fool you enough by pretending it knows a thing or 

two about pumps. It can talk like someone who has been 

HAVING A DIGITAL INDUSTRY ASSISTANT 

IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME. 

around in the industry for years, but is this enough to become 

your digital buddy? Another round. I confronted the 

model with a slightly more specific case. Again, the bold text 

is generated by the AI. 

A Guinean mine operator is using a Wirtgen 2200 SM 

surface miner with a C27 ATAAC V12 diesel engine producing 

950 HP at 2100 RPM and a 2.2 m-long cutting drum for 

mining bauxite*. The surface miner was taken out of service 

and the turbocharger came into the repair shop with a broken 

exhaust valve. It was all red. What could be the reason of this 

failure? 

*For the curious minds: bauxite is the main ore used for 

aluminum production. 

The Wirtgen 2200 SM is a very reliable 

machine, but it has its limitations. Its main 

weakness is that it can only operate in one 

direction: up or down. 

This time it makes you laugh. I had other conversations where 

the model initially gave back a meaningful answer but ended 

up by telling a story of two men getting out of a vehicle, wearing 

overalls with their faces covered by dust masks, pointing 

their guns on an operator dismantling a pump. 

The funny thing is that GPT-3 will never tell you “I don’t 

know”. This reminds me of those guys in the bar who always 

have something to say and act as if they are experts on every 

topic. At first you are impressed, but are they so smart? 


"It is human if you don't know something" 

I ended up with the same feeling after a couple of rounds of 

AI Dungeon. First you are blown away, but then you realize 

the model will not get the pump or turbocharger fixed. Every 

random person with some brains and a search engine eventually 

can formulate an answer on the first question without 

understanding how a pump works. For the second example, it 

is clear you need to step away from design failure modes and 

have a good understanding of the operating conditions before 

you can make a thorough fault diagnosis. 

In fact, you cannot blame GPT-3 for being wrong, because 

it was trained with knowledge from books and not with any 

language that has meaning in a mining facility or a production 

floor. Reading the internet is simply not enough to understand 

how physical assets behave in the real world. 

What is in it for the industry? 

"Reading the internet is not enough. We should start 

reading the factory" 

General models are a great idea but if we really want to 

democratize the use of language models for industrial companies, 

they should start reading the factory. Therefore, we 

should build out a Common Crawl for the industry: a large 

corpus with domain-specific jargon, abbreviations, misspellings, 

synonyms and word associations that we can typically 

find in maintenance records, operator and quality logs, warranty 

claims, asset datasheets, product manuals, etc. Databases 

on a company level containing thousands or millions 

of records are not large enough to learn the true semantics 

of industrial language. The effort to build a corpus must be 

industry wide. 

A great example of a such an effort can be found in healthcare, 

where libraries with medical lexicon are used in combination 

with NLP to extract relevant clinical information 

from unstructured data found in electronic health records. 

It is a small step to apply a similar methodology to maintenance 

logs, where the most valuable information is often 

stored in free text fields, such as the symptoms and root 

causes associated with failure events or other problems, and 

the physical actions taken to repair components, machines, 

or subsystems. This data is collected for every machine over 

their entire lifespan. Structuring this human knowledge in 

meaningful features and linking it with streaming process 

data opens a new door for building prescriptive maintenance 

applications where recommendations are based on what 

works well within the particular context of a factory, and not 

on what works well in general (like we find in design failure 

mode libraries). 

The road ahead 

If we can tap into the hidden potential of all this unstructured 

information and truly understand it, then we can link the ears 

and eyes of the production floor with the hard facts and measurements 

derived from historical and streaming sensor data. 

Combining NLP with machine learning (ML) makes it possible 

to build real Human-In-The-Loop applications where 

actionable insights are gained from human language to support 

operators, technicians, and engineers in their day to day 

jobs. In addition, the knowledge they have can be used to give 

feedback – in their own words – on those prescriptions, improving 

the ML system for the next challenges that arise.


Facts and figures about 

Asset Management 

in Dutch chemical industry 

To make the Dutch (petro) chemical industry the safest in the world, is the 

ambition of the Sustainable Safety 2030 programme. That is why the sector is 

committed to guaranteeing safety, secure vitality and reliability and enforcing 

the competitiveness, even with ageing assets. Research has shown that the 

implementation of asset management is an enormous contribution. 

ASSET MANAGEMENT 

Previous investigation showed that the ageing of installations 

is not a matter of age, but of the condition of the installations. 

The good news: this condition can be influenced. – 

– Asset management enables companies to mitigate integrity 

risks, explains Mark Haarman, managing partner at 

Mainnovation. 

– It's about professional management and maintenance of 

installations in which we continuously look for the optimum 

between technical performance, costs and risks in the field of 

safety. We can monitor the condition of assets over time, so that 

we can get an idea of the remaining lifespan and of the necessary 

actions to guarantee safety, availability and reliability. 

EVOLVE TO THE NEXT LEVEL 

Introducing asset management or growing to the next maturity 

level within asset management, is not a simple task. It 

requires a structured approach. With the formulation of the 

Roadmap Asset Management, there is now a practical manual 

for the implementation of asset management. 

The roadmap originated from interviews with several industry 

leaders, who proved to be in control of their asset base. 

– Combined with our own knowledge and experience, we 

were able to map out the route to professional asset management, 

specifically for the (petro) chemical industry. It gives 

insight in the current maturity level in maintenance or asset 

management and also shows what is necessary to improve to 

be able to evolve to the next level. 

CONTENT OF THE ROADMAP 

The Roadmap Asset Management describes which processes 

must be set up if a company wants to start with asset management. 

How these processes should be set up, depends on the 

maturity level of the organization. Four levels are defined 

in the report. By indicating which criteria apply per process 

in the Checklist Asset Management (part of the report), it 

becomes clear what the current maturity level is. By continuously 

critically assessing on which topics the organization is 

not yet in control, it becomes clear where the improvement 

potential lies. This provides insight to concrete actions needed 

to further professionalize the organization step by step. 

– So with this roadmap companies can start with asset 

management in a pragmatic and structured way, or grow to the 

next level, Haarman adds. 

Asset Performance 4.0 

At Asset Performance 4.0 – to be held October 26, 27 and 

28 in Antwerp, Belgium - Mark Haarman will talk about ‘the 

facts and figures about Asset Management in Dutch chemical 

industry’. What can you do to professionalize your maintenance 

organization? Join his presentation on October 27. 


The AI 

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Find out how to combine our toolkit with 

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WWW.THEGRAIN.PRO

CONDITION MONITORING 

9 BUYING TIPS FOR 

Acoustic Imaging Cameras 

Considering an Acoustic Imaging Camera? Read My Buying Tips First. 

Each year our condition 

monitoring world 

experiences innovation 

at some level, be it great 

or small. Even through a 

pandemic, leading tech 

companies continue to 

transform their solutions 

for the greater good 

of reliability. A recent 

example is the arrival of 


technology, also known as 

ultrasonic imagers. 

ACOUSTIC IMAGING CAMERAS combine 

extremely sensitive multi-frequency sound 

sensors with digital imaging technology to 

provide ultrasound inspectors with a clear 

picture – or video – that illustrates precisely 

where an ultrasound source originates. 

By marrying our vision sense with our 

hearing sense, a more complete outcome 

is possible for certain airborne ultrasound 

inspections. 

Now, mapping the origin of a sound to 

its source through imagery is an innovative 

breakthrough, but for someone who 

has followed the ultrasound market for 

more than thirty years, I am not surprised 

by these developments. Let us not forget 

history. Ultrasound has been with us for a 

long time. The notion that sounds existed 

outside the limited range of human hearing 

was first discovered in the late 1800’s. Some 

130 years on, Pierre Currie’s research with 

piezo electrics remains as relevant today 

as it was when the first SONAR techniques 

provided ship’s captains with a solution 

for navigating deadly icebergs. Today, ultrasound 

offers improvements to our lives 

ALLAN RIENSTRA, 

SDT Ultrasound 

Solutions 

allan.rienstra@ 

sdtultrasound.com 

through medical, industrial, navigational, 

and cleaning applications. 

Acoustic imaging technology is not particularly 

new. Sound mapping techniques 

have existed for a few years now, focused 

primarily on quality control applications. 

More recently, some clever manufacturers 

pushed forward with ways to utilize the 

technology for condition monitoring applications, 

primarily for energy waste reduction 

and electrical asset reliability. 

Buyer Personas 

When new technology first hits the market, 

predictable buying patterns emerge. Manufacturers 

love the early adopters; leading 

edge consumers who are always first to own 

the latest and greatest gadgets the market 

has to offer. These mavens serve as a proving 

ground for new tech and often, their 

input helps steer the development for 2nd 

and 3rd product generations. Early adopters 

exist in sharp contrast to the “wait and 

see” crowd. 

The wait and see crowd prefers to remain 

conservatively on the sidelines. They 

want assurance the technology will live up 

to its hype before opening their own wallets. 

If it proves to be a passing trend, they 

do not want to risk their money – and ego – 

buying something that might end up sitting 

on the shelf. If the technology does take 

hold, they will still be waiting in line when 

the next release is ready, preferring that 

the early adopters do the testing for them. 

Eventually, when they do come aboard, 

their patience is rewarded by a product 

with most of the early problems ironed out. 

For both the “early adopters” and “wait 

and see” users, buying tips from a trusted 

source help relieve the stress associated 

with selecting their first ultrasound camera. 

After all, the investment is considerable 

and there may only be one chance to 



get it right. As someone who has lived his 

entire career inside the wonderful world of 

ultrasound, I am happy to share my insights 

about what you should look for in an acoustic 

imaging camera. This article identifies 

which features you should consider as 

“must haves” and which ones are fluffy bits 

of window dressing, only there to distract 

buyers from less obvious deficiencies. 

Buying Tip #1 - Do not buy 

brand for brand’s sake alone 

Innovations often 

come from the 

most unlikely 

origins, and when 

they do, they 

are honest and 

authentic; like 

the two Steve’s 

from Palo Alto who, in 1976, set out with a 

single goal to make computers personal and 

accessible to everyone. Had their mission 

been “to create the world’s first two trilliondollar 

company” or “the world’s most iconic 

brand” they would not have succeeded beyond 

the confines of their parent’s garage. 

Many of the ultrasonic imagers emerging 

today share similar humble beginnings. 

Born and nurtured by underfunded, techsavvy 

start-ups, they eventually find their 

way to market by hitching themselves to 

well established brands. Be mindful of this 

when shopping for your camera. The biggest 

brands may make the louder noise 

when it comes to trumpeting their marketing 

message; make sure the solutions they 

offer are equally capable of detecting the 

quietest noises in the loudest surroundings. 

At the end of the day, those are the ones you 

need to hear. 

Buying Tip #2 - Take a peek 

behind the curtains 

When manufacturers 

develop 

new products, 

they know they 

must compete 

for the attention 

of the 

early adopters first. Some will dress up a 

product with features and functions that 

make it standout, but do not necessarily 

add top priority value. This approach 

can confuse buyers into choosing their 

camera based on fluffy features rather 

than performance. To avoid being duped, 

continually ask yourself why you want 

an ultrasonic imager in the first place. 

For my money, the emphasis should be 

placed on sensitivity and detectability. 

An acoustic imaging camera should be 

capable of detecting multiple types of defects 

in varying conditions. Do not allow 

yourself to be distracted by less relevant 

window-dressing features. 

Buying Tip #3 - Buy an allpurpose 

camera 

Some acoustic 

imaging brands 

promote one 

camera model 

for finding 

compressed air 

leaks, and another 

for electrical assets. Really? Do we 

need two cameras to perform the same 

basic job? Steady now! 

Using ultrasound to detect partial 

discharge in electrical assets and leaks 

in compressed air/vacuum systems has 

existed in tandem for five decades. The 

jobs were always performed perfectly 

using filtered sensors tuned in the range 

of 35-40kHz. This frequency choice has 

proven optimal for detection performance 

set against the contrast of loud, 

noisy, industrial factories. It takes into 

consideration distance between source 

and sensor, directionality of signal for 

fast pinpointing, and performance in 

environments characterized by elevated 

levels of audible background noise. 

The laws of physics remain intact. The 

turbulent characteristics of these defects 

have not suddenly changed. They are as 

detectable today at 40kHz, as they were 

in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s and 

beyond. There are no new technological 

discoveries or breakthroughs that warrant 

using a higher frequency for electrical 

discharges. In fact, higher frequency 

signals have shorter wavelengths, attenuate 

faster, and travel shorter distances, 

hampering their detectability over long 

expanses. 

Buying Tip #4 - Do not forget 

to listen 

One of the first 

lessons drilled 

into every new 

ultrasound 

inspector is “always 

wear your 

headphones.” 

As an instructor, the look of amazement 

on the face of a student the first time 

she hears crystal clear ultrasound in her 

headphones is something that never 

grows old. Whether it is hunting air leaks 

in a noisy factory or scanning a substation 

for partial discharge, ultrasound 

detectors open our ears to the wonders 

of the previously unheard. Acoustic cameras 

enhance that experience by marrying 

visual and auditory senses together. 

Yet some brands do not offer this 

basic, yet critical heterodyne circuitry. 

Without the ability to hear what the 

camera detects handicaps inspectors and 

opens the door for missed finds and mistaken 

diagnoses. Be sure your ultrasonic 

camera comes equipped with the ability 

to listen to what it finds, and better yet, 

offers Bluetooth connectivity for safer, 

more convenient wireless headphones. 

Buying Tip #5 - At the end 

of the day, it must be about 

performance 

Are sensitivity 

and detectability 

mutually exclusive? 

We think 

so and with 

several cameras 

available on the 

market to choose from, the jury has 

returned with their verdict. Sensitivity 

is not equally distributed amongst all 

brands. All cameras come equipped with 

an array of sensors varying in number 

from sixty to well over one hundred. The 

number of sensors in the array is a significant 

factor, and this is definitely one 

of those cases where more is better. 

To understand sensitivity, users must 

first understand the factors affecting 

detectability. There is an entire module 

written about this subject in our level 

one ultrasound training course, but 

suffice to say, not every leak or defect is 

created equally. Take for example compressed 

air leaks. The primary factors affecting 

detectability include leak shape, 

leak size, system pressure, system volume, 

and proximity to the leak. Due to 

the natural attenuation of sound through 

its medium, the last factor – proximity 

– is inversely proportional to all others. 

This point can be summarized by saying, 

“the closer you are to the leak source, the 

better your chance of hearing it.” This 

point is more relevant for cameras with 

fewer sensors and consequently lower 

sensitivity. 

For compressed air and other gases, 

higher system pressures produce more 

turbulence at the leak site. These are 

easier to detect, especially in areas with 



elevated levels of ambient background 

noise. With pressure regulators in use 

throughout a facility, it is common to 

find higher pressures near the compressor 

room and medium and lower pressures 

distributed throughout the system. 

In side-by-side testing, some brands of 

acoustic imaging cameras – those with 

fewer sensors and therefore lower sensitivity 

thresholds – struggled to hear leaks 

at medium and low pressures. 

Some claim up to 50m (165’) detectability 

distance on their spec sheet. 

When put to the test, this span proved 

too far in anything less than perfect conditions. 

Many cameras proved ineffective 

beyond 5m (16’) for low and medium 

pressure leaks. Performance was further 

exacerbated in noisy areas of the plant. 

Some models seemed confused by excessive 

parasite noise, identifying sources 

of ultrasound that were part of normal 

plant processes, and not really leaks at 

all. The ability to listen through heterodyned 

headphones would have proven 

helpful here. 

When specifying your acoustic camera, 

be sure it can perform equally well 

for high, medium, and low pressures. 

What is written on paper does not always 

pan out to fact in the real world. Providing 

a clear, crisp image matters little if 

the camera’s sensitivity is too poor to 

reveal even the most basic leaks. 

Buying Tip #6 - Ergonomics 

and comfort matters 

The science of 

ergonomics applies 

to everything 

we do and 

use in our daily 

lives. Whether 

it is the car we 

drive, the desk 

we sit at, the workstation we stand at, 

or the instruments we use, ergonomics 

plays a role in our comfort and our 

safety. Bad ergonomic design is not 

always initially obvious. But use a system 

for an hour, a day, or even a week 

and thoughtless design elements reveal 

themselves one by one. 

Size and weight are two overriding 

factors when considering your 

ultrasonic camera. Inspectors should 

expect to carry their camera around for 

several hours, and some inspections 

require a steady hand; especially for 

overhead leaks and partial discharge at 

a distance. Here, size definitely matters 

and bigger is not better. If the camera is 

too large or too heavy to be comfortably 

used in all situations, inspectors may be 

less engaged to utilize the technology. 

They could even be in danger of suffering 

a repetitive strain type injury. 

Another issue of concern is extra 

cables. Some cameras can only power 

themselves with external batteries 

which means the operator must always 

tether herself to a heavy battery which 

slips into a pocket for carrying. Add to 

that a second wire for headphones and 

you now have a recipe for frustration 

and injury from entanglement. Make 

your inspector’s safety a top priority. 

Choose cameras with internal batteries 

and wireless, Bluetooth headphones. 

Buying Tip #7 - Battery life 

From houses 

to cars, laptops 

to cellphones, 

our daily lives 

depend heavily 

on evolving 

battery technology. 

There 

is nothing more frustrating than getting 

halfway into our day only to have 

our ambitions crippled by poor battery 

life. A reasonable amount of battery life 

from any inspection solution should at 

least get you to the midday portion of 

your workday and preferably beyond. 

That means a minimum of four hours 

from the start of the day to lunch break, 

with a fast charge option to power you 

through the afternoon. 

Today’s first-generation cameras 

boast an average battery life of 4-6 

hours on a single charge, with a battery 

boost option to provide a quick 

charge during breaktime. A combined 

autonomy of 8-12 hours is more than 

sufficient. The use of lithium-ion battery 

technologies allows for fast charging 

and zero “memory effect.” Batteries 

should be integral to the instrument, 

when possible, as tethered batteries 

detract from overall ergonomics and 

safety. 

Buying Tip #8 – Reporting 

software 

What a wonderful 

experience 

it is to 

venture into a 

noisy production 

area with 

your ultrasound camera and document 

compressed air leaks. In just a short 

while you can lay the foundation for a 

waste-free facility. But wait! Your efforts 

do not start saving the company money 

until they are fixed. For that, you need a 

quick report generating option that not 

only documents where the leaks are, but 

how much their cost saving potential 

represents. Armed with a comprehensive 

web-based report, you now have the 

artillery to provide instructions to the 

repair personnel, and to management. 

Remember, no savings, however great or 

small, should go unreported. 

Does the reporting software: 

• Allow for easy uploading of images? 

• Remember the compressor 

information? 

• Report on total cost savings 

potential? 

• Account for the inverse distance 

attenuation factors? 

• Provide a simple, tamper-free 

PDF that is sharable across digital 

platforms? 

• Work equally for both compressed 

air leaks and electrical partial 

discharge? 

Buying Tip #9 - Knowledge, 

know-how, and experience 

Perhaps the 

most overlooked 

buying 

tip is one 

rarely written 

on a product 

spec sheet. Yet 

the single most 

important discussion in any buying decision 

must include the solutions provider. 

Isn’t who you buy from as critical 

to you as the product you purchase? 

Today, the number of pure ultrasound 

companies actively engaged in innovating 

twenty-first century solutions 

are few; and only one of them offers an 

ultrasound imaging camera. The wise 

choice to partner with nearly 50 years 

of ultrasound experience, a globally positioned 

sales and support channel with 

after-sales service teams on four continents, 

and a knowledge base responsible 

for producing most of the training materials 

written about the topic of ultrasound, 

will pay welcome dividends when 

the time comes to implement and train 

your inspectors on this exciting condition 

monitoring technology. 



Why Attend the SMRP 29th 

Annual Conference? 

SMRP's 29th Annual Conference returns October 25-28, and this year, we're debuting 

a hybrid model for attendees to join from anywhere in the world with internet 

access OR in-person in St. Louis, Missouri! Register now to join fellow maintenance, 

reliability and physical asset management professionals from around the world for 

four days of education, networking and innovation at this premiere event. 

Top 5 Reasons to Attend the SMRP 29th 

Annual Conference 

1. Education: Sharpen your skills during 50 education sessions 

across six tracks and more than 25 workshops covering business 

and management, manufacturing process reliability, equipment 

reliability, organization and leadership, work management and 

emerging technology. 

2. Networking: Connect with like-minded peers during sessions, 

roundtables and in the in person and virtual exhibit hall featuring 

60+ exhibitors and fellow maintenance and reliability 

professionals. Don’t miss out on the chance to share ideas, grow 

your professional network and advance your career. 

3. Certification Hours: Earn up to 24 hours of recertification 

credits (48% of the requirement for CMRPs and CMRTs!) by 

attending workshops and track sessions. Plus, after the event, 

all attendees will receive an official certificate of attendance to 

verify your hours. 

4. Latest Trends: Gain valuable insight about emerging and 

cutting-edge technologies, innovative practices and next-level 

techniques from presenters, exhibitors and fellow attendees. 

5. Convenience: View at your own pace and from anywhere. 

During the event, sessions will be live-streamed. Then, after 

the event, all registrants will have access to session recordings. 

With nearly 100 presenters from around the world sharing 

valuable insight, 50 education sessions across six tracks 

and more than 25 engaging workshops, the 2021 SMRP Annual 

Conference will be the event of the year for the maintenance 

and reliability profession. 

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to interact 

with friends and make new connections with global maintenance, 

reliability and physical asset management professionals. 

About SMRP: The Society for Maintenance & Reliability 

Professionals (SMRP) is a nonprofit professional society 

formed by practitioners to develop and promote excellence 

in maintenance, reliability and physical asset management 

while creating leaders in the profession. SMRP provides 

unparalleled value for individual practitioners and professionals 

looking to expand their knowledge and skills and 

build more business connections with others. SMRP is the 

premier asset management resource for companies looking 

to improve their processes and procedures. Join SMRP’s 

community with thousands of worldwide members and take 

advantage of all of the membership benefits. Learn more at 

smrp.org. 



STEAM TRAP TESTING: 

Reduce Energy Costs and 

Increase Process Stability with 

Ultrasonic Testing Equipment 

© SONOTEC GmbH, Different types of steam traps 

Regular inspections of production equipment are essential in preventive 

maintenance. Early detection of damage or signs of wear leads to increased plant 

availability and also saves enormous costs. 


SONOTEC 

Is the steam trap working correctly or is it defective? 

Digital ultrasonic testing technology provides the answer. 

Energy losses are reduced and process stability is 

increased. 

Steam traps that no longer close prevent optimum heat transfer 

and thus have a significant impact on the energy efficiency, 

cost-effectiveness and process stability of a steam system. 

Blocked steam traps and thus more condensate in the steam 

system, on the other hand, lead to accelerated corrosion, affect 

process and product quality and, in the worst case, can cause 

dangerous water hammer and unplanned downtime. Regular 

steam trap inspection is therefore essential. 

HOW MUCH DOES A DEFECTIVE TRAP COST? 

Experts estimate that over 20 percent of the steam produced is 

lost due to leaking steam traps. Through just one leaking steam 

trap (thermodynamic bimetallic, DN25, system pressure 11 

bar), approx. 22 kg of steam per hour and thus approx. 190 t per 

year are lost (at 8,400 operating hours per year). With generation 

costs of 35 €/t steam, this loss adds up to approx. 6,600 € 

per year. Digital ultrasonic testing technology helps the maintenance 

engineer to detect and replace defective traps.


Before the inspection process, the type and operating 

principle of the steam traps should be known, as well as the 

system pressure and temperature. In open systems, even the 

first impression can tell a lot about the condition of the traps. 

An indication of a defect could be, for example, the absence of 

condensate at the condensate outlet. The inspector obtains a 

more precise picture with the aid of combined temperature and 

ultrasonic measurement. Depending on the design, a functioning 

trap opens and closes continuously or discontinuously and 

generates characteristic ultrasonic signals during this process. 

To record the high-frequency signals, SONOTEC has developed 

the SONAPHONE digital ultrasonic testing device with 

the SteamExpert app, the BS20 broadband ultrasonic and temperature 

sensor, and the SONAPHONE DataSuite PC software. 

The first step is to measure the temperature at the inlet and 

outlet of the steam trap. The integrated infrared temperature 

sensor in the BS20 detects the surface temperature without 

contact. The temperature can be used, for example, to determine 

whether the steam trap is at the expected operating temperature 

or whether it tends to be too cold (condensate buildup) 

or too hot (leaking) depending on the system pressure. 

With respect to the operating principle of the trap, the difference 

in temperature at the inlet and outlet is also evaluated. 

BROADBAND ULTRASONIC ANALYSIS 

However, temperature measurement alone is not sufficient for 

reliable condition assessment. To determine a leaking steam 

trap, a broadband recording of the ultrasonic signal in the frequency 

range from 20 to 100 kHz is needed. For this purpose, 

the BS20 structure-borne sound sensor is placed outside over 

the outlet opening of the steam trap. For the evaluation of the 

trap, it is important to know which type of trap is being tested. 

With the integrated trap database this is no longer a problem. 

Steam traps have different noise characteristics depending 

on type, manufacturer and point of installation location. 

Whereas testers used to have only an analogue, acoustic signal 

to evaluate the traps, today it is easier to look at the touch 

screen of the digital tester. The broadband spectrogram from 

20 to 100 kHz makes it much easier to analyse the condition. 

The SteamExpert app on the SONAPHONE accompanies 

the inspector during the entire inspection process - from the 

creation of the inspection point to temperature and ultrasonic 

testing to documentation and evaluation. The evaluation can 

be done on site or afterwards on the PC with the SONAPHONE 

DataSuite software. For the PC software, the SteamExpert 

module has been available since 2021, which was developed explicitly 

for steam trap testing, loss estimation and reporting. 

ADVANTAGES OF THE COMPLETE SOLUTION AT A GLANCE 

• Reduction of energy costs by more than 20 percent 

• Increase process stability 

• Easy determination of all traps 

• Fast and intuitive test procedure 

• Efficient data collection 

• Integrated trending and reporting 

• Tools for steam loss determination 

SteamExpert App for 

SteamExpert App for 

SONAPHONE ® 

SONAPHONE ® 

Smart Steam Trap Testing 

Smart Steam Trap Testing 

Optimized test procedure - 

Test more steam traps per day 

Optimized test procedure - 

Test more steam traps per day 

Efficiently collect data and 

create reports directly on device 

Efficiently collect data and 

create reports directly on device 

Simple determination of trap 

type from large database 

Vorbeugende Instandhaltung 

$ 

Trending and analysis with 

DataSuite PC software 

Vorbeugende Instandhaltung 

Tool for calculating steam loss 

and energy costs 

Simple determination of trap 

type from large database 

Trending and analysis with 

DataSuite PC software


How Water Kills 

BEARINGS 

Out of all contaminants 

known to affect bearing life, 

water arguably does the 

most harm. It only takes 

a small amount to lessen 

the oil’s ability to properly 

do its job, creating friction, 

oxidation and more. 

ADRIAN MESSER, 

CMRP, UE Systems 

adrianm@uesystems.com 

RECOGNIZING WATER-RELATED failure 

modes can help you determine the optimum 

lubricants, seals and bearings to 

protect your equipment’s oil. 

Where Is It Coming from? 

In a circulating oil system, water can 

enter in a variety of places. For instance, 

the reservoir headspace typically 

breathes into the environment. If 

a proper breather arrangement is not 

implemented or there are other breathing 

locations, humid air will condense in 

the headspace and water will drain into 

the oil. 

Pipe junctions and flanges can also 

allow ingression of water and other 

contaminants. Internal and external 

seals should be considered as well. These 

may include nearby steam joint leaks, 

leakage past seals and gland seams, heat 

exchangers, seal water zones, seals being 

washed down by high-pressure hoses, 

etc. 

Water-Related Failure Modes 

Knowing what each failure mode looks 

like and its cause can help you prolong 

bearing life by identifying a means of 

defence. 

Corrosion 

Bearings corrode when met with oxygen 

and water. Once corrosion occurs, the 

bearings begin to flake and crack over 

time. This can lead to pitting, a more irreversible 

form of damage that can cause 

machine failure. 

Oxidation 

When high temperatures meet metal 

particles and water, the antioxidants in 

the lubricant can be consumed at rapid 

rates. Oil oxidation comes with an array 

of negative consequences including 

varnish, sludge corrosion, and impaired 

oil flow. 

Hydrogen-Induced Fractures 

In theory, water is drawn to microscopic 

cracks in the surface of the bearing by 

capillary forces. The contact between 

the water and metal allows hydrogen 

particles to break free and cause an even 

deeper fracture. Furthermore, the sulphur 

found in additives, mineral oils, and 

environmental hydrogen sulphide can 

accelerate this process. 

Aeration and Foam 

Water impacts oil’s ability to handle air. 

This means when water and oil meet, 

oil films are weakened, causing excess 

heat, induced oxidation, cavitation, and 

restricted oil flow—all of which can cause 

serious harm to the bearing. The worst 

part is it doesn’t take much. Amounts as 

small as 1,000 ppm of water are enough 

to create air bubbles that prevent oil 

slingers, ring oilers, and collar oilers from 

operating efficiently. 

Oil Flow Restrictions 

Due to its polarity, water attracts impurities 

such as particles, dead additives, 

carbon fines and resin. This attraction 

results in the formation of sludge and 

emulsions, which can enter oil ways 

meant to provide lubrication to bearings. 



The blockage then causes bearing starvation, 

and as we know, a starved bearing 

rarely lives a long life. 

Additive Depletion 

There’s no sense in using quality additives 

if water contamination is going to 

rid them of all their benefits. Depending 

on the type (AW, EP, rust inhibitors, 

detergents, dispersants, etc.), water can 

either hydrolyse, agglomerate, or wash 

additives out of the oil and onto sump 

floors. If you use sulphur-phosphorous 

EP additives, water can even increase an 

oil’s acid number (AN) by breaking the 

substance into sulfuric and phosphorous 

acids. 

Preventing Contamination 

Undoubtedly, the best way to avoid these 

moisture-related problems is to prevent 

the contamination from occurring. Effort 

expended in this area can have significant effects 

on reliability and availability. 

Steam joints: Leaking steam joints are a 

major source of water contamination. Typically, 

escaping steam is blown against bearing 

housings on the back side of dryer sections. 

The resulting condensate contaminates the 

oil system. 

Seals: Most bearing housings are fitted 

with a labyrinth-type seal that allows water 

to pass through into the bearing housing. 

Flingers or stationary add-on shields improve 

the protection afforded to the bearing. 

Inspections: Check lubrication drainage 

systems for holes or openings that allow 

water or water vapor to get into the system. 

Such problems are commonly found in 

vents. Consistently check piping for holes. 

Oil/water heat exchangers: The 

purpose of these units is to cool the oil as it 

returns to the reservoir. The design of modern 

systems is usually such that the oil pressure 

is higher than the pressure of the cooling 

water so that any leaks should result in 

oil contaminating the water, rather than 

the other way around. Severe leaks of this 

kind can be a serious problem, but it’s usually 

of a different kind (e.g., environmental.) 

Monitoring for water 

contamination using 

Ultrasound technology 

Measuring and preventing water contamination 

requires an investment in time and 

resources, but in the long run, it is imperative 

to maintaining bearing health. 

In the meanwhile, what you can do to 

avoid bearing failures is monitoring them. 

And ultrasound is just the perfect technology: 

because water contamination will 

increase the bearings’ friction levels, and 

friction generates high frequency sound, 

an ultrasonic instrument will be able to indicate 

what’s going on with the bearing. 

Either by measuring dB levels and comparing 

them to a dB baseline, or by simply 

assessing the sound quality coming from 

the bearing, an ultrasonic instrument will 

inform the inspector about the condition 

of the bearing. This is particularly useful 

for facilities with water contamination 

issues – you can then easily monitor your 

bearings, observing which ones are above 

their dB baseline. Instruments such as the 

Ultraprobe 10000 or Ultraprobe 15000 

from UE Systems are recommended for 

this application. 

Solutions to monitor your bearings 

remotely are also available, via ultrasonic 

sensors connected to data processing 

devices. This can be a big-time saver, allowing 

maintenance teams to focus their 

efforts on tackling the water contamination 

issue. The OnTrak SmartLube, for 

example, is effective in reducing the time 

spent lubricating bearings – in many cases 

by 95 percent. It will provide alerts as soon 

as friction is detected, giving inspectors 

the opportunity to regrease remotely with 

the touch of a button. Having this technology 

in place allows you more time and 

energy to focus on addressing pesky water 

contamination and other areas in need of 

improvement in your plant. 



The Way you Install your 

Rotating Machinery 

is the Way it Will Perform! 

Because of my many years of experience in the field of installation 

and maintenance of rotating equipment I can say that installation is 

a fundamental thing. But why is this phase so important? 

WELL, BECAUSE THE INSTALLATION HAS 

DIRECT IMPACT ON THE MACHINERY, 

and it will determine operating conditions, 

performance, and life cycle cost. 

Basically, the way you install your rotating 

equipment is the way it will perform. 

And personally, I always ask myself 

why companies buy a million-dollar 

equipment and let unexperienced 

installers do the installation. Then, they 

spend another million dollars in condition 

monitoring watching them fail. 

Don’t get me wrong; condition 

monitoring is extremely important to 

understand what is happening to the 

machines and detect an early failure. 

But the fact is that most of the failures 

occur due to poor installation and design. 

Here, let’s focus on the installation 

phase of rotating machinery. 

What do we expect from our 

machinery? 

• Reliable operation - We expect 

our rotating equipment to deliver 

its intended purpose or service 

without failure. 

• High performance - We expect 

our equipment to perform as per 

design. 

• Long service life - If our equipment 

has been designed for 20 or 30 

years of operation, that is what we 

want to achieve. 

• Low maintenance cost - We expect 

not to spend any additional money 

after the investment has been 

made. 

ROMAN MEGELA, 

Senior Reliability 

Engineer, 

Easy-Laser AB 

Responsibilities towards the 

installation 

Communication, Procedures, and Integrity. 

These are responsibilities which are 

so important in the installation phase. Let 

me explain: 

Communication – It is a must to assure 

proper communication among the Design, 

Engineering, and Installation teams. 

We know there are constant challenges to 

keep the installation work to be on time 

and within specifications. The teams must 

have constant communication to be able 

to solve any difficulties or changes. In the 

real world not everything fits as it fits on 

the drawings. I think many of you have 

experienced this, right? 

Procedures - Installation procedures 

must be created according to design specifications 

and every member of the team 

must be familiar with them. Depending on 

which industry, the procedures will differ 

from each other. It is not the same thing to 

perform installation on the nuclear plant 

compared to pharmaceutical industry. 

There should always be a reference to 

which specific standard belong to the 

site where the installation is taking 

place. API Recommended Practices for 

Machinery Installation and Installation 

Design (API 686) are perfect foundation to 

start with. 

Integrity - Integrity is an important part 

of the installation phase and it starts with 

Safety. Everyone who participates in the 

installation must go through safety training. 

Specific trainings must be performed such 

as working in heights, confined spaces, fire 

protection or chemicals handling. Breaking 

the safety rules will put the project behind 

the schedule therefore it is very important 

to follow them. 

Always do things in the right 

order 

The installation of the rotating equipment 

must follow certain order. The order of the 

installation procedures is designed always 

to start from the base. Foundations are the 

cornerstone of the entire installation. They 

are designed to hold rotating machinery and 

transfer and dissipate stresses and dynamic 

forces produced by pulsations and processes. 

Therefore, special attention must be paid to 

the foundations. They must be flat, coplanar, 

and levelled. If we skip the order of the installation 

procedures, we will not be able to 

complete further steps and not achieve reliable 

operation of our rotating equipment. 

Finally, all the work must be properly documented 

during the process by creating digital 

reports to be able to review and compare 

the values and data. This is important for the 

references because further work will depend 

on the results. 

If you, like me think this is super important 

and interesting, let’s connect on LinkedIn, 

and we can learn more from each other! 


RELIABILITY 

Are Any of These Elements 

Holding Back Your Maintenance 

Improvement Strategy? 

A look at five common trouble areas that derail reliability 

Over the last 15 plus years, I have watched many organizations both flounder and 

succeed at maintenance and reliability improvement. I have witnessed many spend 

considerable effort without creating the return on investment that they promised 

their stakeholders. In my opinion, there are 5 very common reasons that these 

experiences demonstrated success, or failure. 

SHON ISENHOUR 

CMRP CAMA, 

Eruditio 

Sisenhour@eruditio.com 

I AM GOING TO TALK about those five, 

not as silver bullets or shortcuts to successes 

with your change initiative, but 

more so as requirements without which, 

you will be marginally successful at best. 

Out of the five, some are very obvious to 

many, but others may not be as apparent. 

While we do not have time to cover 

all the ins and outs of each, I will give a 

few reasons why each is important and 

how they help with your success. Please 

know these are not the answer to all your 

reliability and maintenance problems. 

You must implement many other foundational 

elements, but these are the ones 

that I have watched limit success the 

most over the years. So, without further 

ado here they are... 

• Applying leadership and change 

management practices 

• Executing from a project plan 

• Creating success by using a pilot 

area implementation strategy 

• Driving a problem-solving culture 

• Building a real planning and 

scheduling organization 

Leadership and change management are 

likely the most obvious in the group. We 

know we need to lead the organization 

through the change from reactive maintenance 

to proactive maintenance but 

either we are not comfortable with it, or 

we do not take the time to understand it. 

Many organizations want to hurry up 

and get started. They don’t take the time 

to get a clear vision and mission for the 

maintenance improvement strategy or 

identify and prioritize the risk associated 


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RELIABILITY 

with a change of this magnitude. They 

don’t look at the root cause of their past 

implementation failures. They want to 

just get started on the technical part of 

the implementation as soon as they can. 

Done right, the leadership team 

of your implementation should have 

worked multiple months or more depending 

on their focus and time availability 

to prepare before bringing the 

larger organization into the mix. They 

should be able to articulate the vision 

in their own words and know the early 

risks they will likely face so that they can 

have strategies identified for execution 

against those risks. They should model 

the behaviours they want from the organization 

(proactiveness) and not just 

be reacting to things as they happen 

within the implementation. They need 

to look like ducks: calm on the surface 

because they have prepared but under 

the water, they are kicking furiously to 

stay ahead of the teams and any issues 

they face. The implementation teams 

will look to the leaders for this and if 

they don’t see it then they will start to 

wander in the wrong directions and 

possibly get lost on their journey. Think 

of it as a long hike; if I don’t trust that 

my leaders know where we are going 

and what we might face, then I think I 

would prefer to hike back to the base 

camp where it is safe, comfortable, and 

predictable and I will not likely be eaten 

by a bear. You don’t have to know everything 

about the subject or what we will 

encounter, but you should know enough 

to have a plan, ask the right questions, 

bring the bear spray, find the right people 

to be involved, and occasionally hold 

our hands during the tricky parts of the 

hike. There is so much more to leadership 

and change management, but these 

are some of the elements that I see trip 

up the leadership team and drive the 

hiker back to camp or off a cliff during 

the journey. 

Executing from 

a project plan 

The second element is to create a plan of 

execution. It starts with understanding 

where you are and then looking at that 


RELIABILITY 

the leak, then understand why the leak is 

happening, then fix the leak, then we can 

begin to mop up the water. To provide a 

more maintenance-specific example you 

don’t need to implement operator care or 

autonomous maintenance to free up maintenance 

resources for firefighting or emergency 

reactive repairs. If that is the world 

you are living in, then in essence you are 

mopping the floor while the water floods in. 

Not only that, but you also look silly asking 

operations to be proactive when you and 

your maintenance organization are still 

fully in the reactive maintenance world. 

There is an order in which you need to 

implement the elements of reliability and 

maintenance improvement. It is not the 

same for everyone or every site. You need 

to understand your specific issues and reasons 

for the change in your organization. 

Then, understand the vision for the future 

support it. Pick a pilot area. An area where 

you can, without a doubt, be successful. If 

you are not successful in the pilot area, then 

your chances of being able to implement in 

other areas diminishes rapidly. 

The second big mistake I see here is that 

the area that is selected is too risky. The 

high-risk selections come from leadership 

teams that are trying to solve an issue in a 

problem area that might be your problem 

area for another reason. For example, “Let’s 

improve maintenance in area X because we 

need more volume or throughput.” However, 

had they really looked to ensure success 

and understand the issues, they would have 

noticed that this area is running a product 

that the equipment was not designed to run 

and has a high operational turnover so the 

equipment is being told to do things that 

it just physically cannot do by unskilled 

operators, or maybe they would find that 

WITHOUT MAINTENANCE PLANNING, YOUR RELIABILITY 

IMPROVEMENT IS DOOMED. 

vision and mission and developing the 

plan to get to the new level of performance. 

Many sites over the years have not taken 

the time to really figure out what needs to 

happen in order to get to their vision or future 

state on time. What do they do? Without 

understanding where they truly are, 

they just do things. They decide to tackle 

random improvement strategies. They get 

a list from a book or corporate that is not 

tied to the issues at the site or the goals and 

vision. I would compare this to trying to 

mop the floor dry when we have not identified 

where the leak is coming from. You 

can mop for days but the water just keeps 

coming. You need an order of execution or 

a master plan if you will. It should make it 

clear that first, we must find the source of 

state and let that help you select both the 

order and the elements that become part of 

your plan. 

Creating success 

The next area that trips many organizations 

up is that they spread themselves too 

thinly from an implementation resources 

perspective. They try to do everything 

everywhere in the organization. In most, 

if not all organizations we have limited 

people and financial resources and we have 

to build our implementation strategy with 

that in mind. You should not plan to paint 

an entire building with one three-inch 

brush and two painters painting a brick 

here and a brick there. You could, but most 

organizations do not have the patience to 

wait on the painted bricks to join up and 

generate the results they expect. If I have 

one brush and two painters then I am going 

to train those painters to be as effective 

as possible and then have them tackle one 

small section at a time, maybe a wall of 600 

bricks, so that the organization can see the 

change in that area and imagine what the 

change will look like once we paint more. 

To put this into maintenance terms, you 

don’t want to try and do every facet of reliability 

improvement in every area of the 

plant all at once. It will not connect, the 

vision gets lost, and you likely just cannot 

the leadership in that area is disengaged or 

unskilled. It would be hard to be successful 

with a maintenance improvement strategy 

if that is your pilot area. 

So, to increase your chances of success, 

pick an area that you have the resources to 

manage and can guarantee success because 

you have the unwavering support of the 

area leadership, as an example. Think not 

about your bottlenecks or trouble spots 

alone, because that is how the trap is set 

and then we fall and fail. 

Driving a problem-solving 

culture 

The next area that trips up many is based 

on the thinking that problem-solving and 

root cause analysis is something you should 

start employing after you have data in your 

enterprise asset management system, and 

you have many of the tenets of reliability 

started. This could not be further from the 

truth. You have to understand what is at 

the root of your past failures during other 

implementations or simply why you never 

implement at all. You need to know what 

has held you back. I also do not mean just 

a simple five whys or fishbone either. You 

need to understand what we call the systemic 

and latent roots. Some refer to these 

as organizational roots. What culturally has 

distracted or derailed us in the past or what 


RELIABILITY 

in this area is the real issue holding back 

performance. Without understanding these 

root causes how will you know if reliability 

will succeed in the culture of this area? 

If you don’t dive into these problem areas, 

like we mentioned in the planning section 

above, and understand the real reasons 

for underperformance then these very issues 

could be the reason your maintenance 

improvement initiative fails in the future. 

When I suggest starting early with root 

cause analysis, I am not suggesting you train 

everyone in the plant, but I do believe you 

need a few great facilitators to support you 

early on in your initiative. They will serve 

you well and lower your stress as you begin 

the change initiative. 

Building a real planning and 

scheduling organization 

And finally, without maintenance planning, 

your reliability improvement is 

doomed. That may seem like hyperbole 

maybe, but my observations suggest 

that it is not. I have seen some great 

maintenance improvement initiatives 

stall out because of this element. It is 

that important. It is the one point in the 

process where everything flows and if it 

is not effective, it reduces all the results 

associated with it. It is a challenging 

element that takes a lot of focus, desire, 

and grit to succeed. I equate it to a leg 

workout at the gym, everybody knows 

that they need to do it but very few people 

want to or enjoy doing it. Regardless, 

planning has to be done just like your 

leg day or you will be weak at your very 

foundation. 

Good planning improves 

safety, efficiency, and 

effectiveness 

So, what is good planning? It is identifying 

the work that needs to be done 

and building a job plan that improves 

safety, efficiency, and effectiveness for 

the executing party. It is building a job 

plan library where you can save, and 

reuse job plans so that more of the work 

that is executed is done with a plan and 

with precision. It is creating job kits that 

contain all the parts required to perform 

the repair. 

IMPLEMENTATION TEAMS WILL 

LOOK TO THE LEADERS FOR THIS 

AND IF THEY DON’T SEE IT THEN 

THEY WILL START TO WANDER 

IN THE WRONG DIRECTIONS. 

Why should we plan? It reduces the 

introduction of defects during maintenance 

repairs, while also reducing the 

time required to complete the work. 

This affects the amount of downtime required 

and the amount of maintenance 

craft hours required for the job. Many 

companies are struggling to find skilled 

maintenance technicians to meet the 

needs of the site. Planning can reduce 

the number of technicians required and 

provide the precision maintenance information 

they need to excel beyond their 

skill level. 

It is not as simple as just creating the job 

plan of course, you have to have the supervision 

and change management in place 

to require the use of the job plans as well. 

The supervisors must drive continuous 

improvement by getting feedback from the 

technicians to the planners to refine the job 

plans over time and of course the planners 

must be expected to edit the job plans and 

carefully store them in the job plan library 

until they can be used again. 

If this element is done correctly though 

it will be a game changer for the organization. 

The use of these planned jobs can 

reduce your cost to execute the work by five 

to seven times. That will allow you to do 

more with the resources you have allowing 

for greater success for the maintenance improvement 

strategy. 

So, has your organization embedded all 

five of these foundational pieces into your 

reliability improvement strategy? What 

are you missing? What issues can you see 

that could be connected to those missing 

elements? How can you incorporate them 

into your strategy moving forward? As you 

are thinking about making changes to your 

current strategy don’t forget element one: 

change management and the communication 

of the change to the strategy. If you 

would like to discuss your specific situation, 

do not hesitate to reach out and we can talk 

through your specific challenges and refine 

your master plan for your success with reliability 

and maintenance improvement and 

at the higher level the generation of a more 

profitable site and company. 

D 


FRED WENT TO THE GYM... 

FRED FRED WENT WENT TO THE GYM... 

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ENRIQUE 

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LEADERSHIP 

The 

s of Leadership: 

For times of uncertainty 

and change 

THOMAS J. FURNIVAL, 

Vice President, 

MARSHALL 

INSTITUTE, INC. 

Life in 2021 is starting 

to resemble the opening 

of the Charles Dickens’ 

classic novel, A Tale of 

Two Cities, “It was the 

best of times, it the worst 

of times, it was an age of 

wisdom, it was an age of 

foolishness”. 

We are experiencing a triad of rapid 

change with digital transformation, 

the skills gaps, and COVID-19. The onslaught 

of daily changes has created incredible 

amounts of anxiety, stress, and 

uncertainty, which can leave us feeling 

like it’s the “worst of times”. At the same 

time, these changes present lessons to 

learn from and great opportunity for 

those who successfully adapt, making us 

also feel like it could become the “best of 

times”. 


LEADERSHIP 

Triad of Change 

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 

A tsunami of new technology is reaching 

the shore. The amazing and sometimes 

complex technologies of cloud, mobile 

CMMS, connected sensors, robotics, machine 

learning, AR, VR, AI, digital twins, 

and more, are creating excitement and 

anxiety in equal measure. 

Many companies are rushing to adopt 

new technologies either out of excitement 

or from fear of being ‘late to the 

game’. Regardless of the motivation, 

the rush to transform can result in ineffective 

use of the new tech, selecting 

the wrong technology for the need, and 

bringing internal frustrations and confusion 

to a boiling point. 

Although I think digital transformation 

will be slower than what others may 

predict, I am confident that industry 

will continue down this path of an everincreasing 

digital ecosystem. So, this is 

something we must come to terms with 

and learn how to appropriately select the 

right tech, offering the needed benefits, 

which supports the goals of the business. 

Alternatively, we must have the patience 

and courage to wait. Not every cut requires 

a ‘digital bandage’. 

TECHNICAL SKILLS GAP 

Although the skills gap has been talked 

about for 20 years now, it unfortunately 

remains a significant issue. Many companies 

(especially in the United States) 

are short on the skilled technical talent. 

This issue raises its ugly head each shift 

for some departments. Underskilled 

labor is contributing to unsafe work and 

working conditions, over-worked and 

overburdened skilled staff, higher turnover, 

lower quality work, lower productivity, 

greater expense for quick training 

and upskilling, and may more issues. 

WE ARE EXPERIENCING A TRIAD 

OF RAPID CHANGE. 

The deficiency in technical skills is 

being exacerbated by both the impact 

of COVID-19 and the pressure digital 

transformation is putting on the need for 

newer types of skills like programming, 

cyber security, and data science to name 

just a few. 

COVID-19 

We can’t forget the global villain, COV- 

ID-19, as much as we may try. It continues 

to hurt our health, commercial 

activity, work practices, and our feeling 

of normality. This pernicious virus has 

impacted work and job availability, work 

schedules, work locations, and more. 

Social and corporate policies are shifting 

daily, which has the feeling of being 

stopped at traffic lights on the highway. 

The constant commercial stop-start 

stutter is aggravating and seriously interrupting 

our momentum. 

Add the worry and uncertainty of 

COVID, with the challenges and frustrations 

of the skills gap and corporate 

‘arms race’ for digital transformation, we 

truly are finding ourselves in a triad of 

constant and complex change. 

How can leadership show us the 

way to better times? 

Change can be scary at the best of times. 

With the coming together of the dramatic 

change that’s taking place currently 

it can be downright terrifying. 

We are experiencing incredible levels of 

overwhelming, complex, and uncertain 

change in our lives. So, what can we do? 

THIS IS A TIME FOR REAL LEADERSHIP 

TO STEP UP. 

Real leadership is the behavior directed 

at providing service to others. I am not 

referring to those with higher ranking 

positions or titles, although I expect their 

support here too. True leadership is by 

the people for the people, and I truly believe 

that it’s our own choice to lead. 

As the world gets faster, more complex, 

and more anxious, the appropriate response 

is to slow down and to simplify. It’s 

time to go back to basics, as foundational 


LEADERSHIP 

as the ABCs. These three powerful concepts 

will help to refocus our leadership 

mindset, actions, and contribution. 

The Leadership ABCs 

AWARENESS 

Being aware of how the events and situations 

affect you and the people around 

you is an extremely important foundation 

for leadership. It’s essential to be 

aware of how you are doing in order to 

lead and support others. Being aware of 

how your team is feeling and reacting 

to events and situations is essential to 

helping them survive and grow through 

challenges. 

It’s important to be aware of our feelings 

and emotions. Psychologist Susan 

David explains, “emotions are data, not 

directives”. Just because we are feeling 

anxious doesn’t mean we have to 

become anxious for prolonged periods. 

Paying attention to our feelings gives us 

data on how we are biologically and psychologically 

reacting to situations. When 

we are aware, we choose how we move 

forward. 

Be aware of what you can control and 

can’t control. This is important for managing 

anxiety and stress. In so many cases 

all that we control is how we choose to 

respond to any given situation. 

Be aware and acknowledge the people 

and things you should be truly grateful 

for. Being able to sincerely experience 

gratitude helps to buffer us from negative 

effects of change and challenge. Do 

you express gratitude regularly for 

your health, your family, your job, your 

home, and the likely many things you 

are blessed with? If you find this notion 

cheesy, I implore you to give it a sincere 

try. It’s positively game-changing to your 

outlook and experience. 

BEHAVIOR 

Are you behaving in a way that supports 

those around you, and your shared mission? 

How are you helping others grow 

through these challenges and change? 

Now more than ever we need to be kind 

to each other. Leadership by nature is supportive. 

True leaders are understanding 

to what others are going through and supportive 

with what they’re trying to accomplish. 

True leadership is compassionate to 

other people’s struggles. Leaders show love. 

Do your best to anticipate upcoming 

changes and shifts, or at least be prepared 

for the effects of known changes. Accept 

that which you did not anticipate and adapt 

as you need to make the most out of the situation. 

Remember Napoleon Hill’s inspiring 

statement that “every adversity, every 

failure, every heartache carries with it a 

seed of an equivalent or greater benefit”. It 

is up to you to be ready to find, plant, and 

water that seed of opportunity. 

COMMUNITY 

Feeling overwhelmed in a time of great 

change and crisis is normal. We can feel 

lonely and terrified, and sometimes this can 

be debilitating. The remedy is community. 

Community built around a common 

struggle or shared mission creates sincere 

togetherness. Connection with others destroys 

fear and anxiety. Use your leadership 

awareness and behavior to build or contribute 

to a community. We need sincere 

connection focused on a common mission, 

sustained by respectful and compassionate 

communication and collaboration. 

In times of crisis, real leadership amplifies 

the importance of community and 

fosters the spirit of meaningful connection 

and togetherness. Look for ways to provide 

those around you with the community they 

need and the connection they desire. 

Put the ABCs into Practice 

Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl exemplified 

that the last of human freedoms is to 

choose our own attitude in any given set of 

circumstances. Although we may not love 

what’s happening in the world today, it is 

our choice how to think, feel, and respond 

to the uncontrollables that surround us. 

As life gets overwhelming and complex, 

leaders simplify. As life becomes uncertain, 

leaders gain awareness. As rapid change 

negatively impacts people’s feelings and 

attitudes, leaders intentionally support 

others through understanding, care, and 

compassion. As life feels disconnected and 

lonely, leaders grow community and connection. 

And as life becomes more digital, 

let’s remember the importance of being 

human. 

Awareness, Behavior, and Community 

are three ways to provide comfort, direction, 

hope, and growth to those you are 

officially and unofficially responsible for. 

The better we use our leadership ABCs, the 

greater the chance in making this the best 

of times, or at least prevent it from feeling 

like the worst of times. 


The Uptimization Experts. 

TAKE PRODUCTION 

TO NEW HEIGHTS 

MISSION CRITICAL MAINTENANCE & 

RELIABILITY SOLUTIONS 

All departments must work together to achieve the shared mission 

of the plant. Proactive maintenance and reliability is an essential 

and strategic contributor to plant performance. Let us be your 

mission control to elevate reliability and take production to new 

heights. 

Launch your mission today at 

www.marshallinstitute.com


Higher energy efficiency - 

an imperative from the current 

sustainability megatrend 

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity demand will increase 

by up to more than 60 percent in the current decade, depending on the region. 

ALEXANDER LEIS, New Business Development Manager at Klüber Lubrication 

THE REASONs for this are the electrification 

of mobility and the use of more and 

more electrical appliances such as air 

conditioners and heat pumps. Last but 

not least, the conversion of various industries 

such as the chemical or steel industry 

to new processes that want to use hydrogen 

as an energy carrier or educt also 

plays a role. After all, this is also produced 

by means of hydrolysis through the use of 

electric power. 

All these changes are leading to competition 

for electricity as a resource. 

Even with rapid expansion of generation 

capacities, the result is likely to be 

rising electricity prices and rising CO2 

emissions, since a large proportion of the 

global electricity mix is still based on fossil 

fuels. 

The latter is poison for fighting the 

climate change, the former for the profitability 

of energy-intensive companies 

such as refrigeration plant operators, 

whose operating costs are largely caused 

by their electricity consumption. 


How can both negative effects be avoided 

or at least mitigated? The answer lies in 

increasing the energy efficiency of companies 

and, consequently, of your plants. 

There are several ways to achieve this. 

One of them is the acquisition of 

new, technologically advanced equipment. 

However, not every company can 

afford capital-intensive investments. 

Another option is retrofitting, i.e. 

retrofitting existing plants. This also 

includes changing the lubricants used. 

In fact, increases in energy efficiency 

of several percent can be achieved by 

using precision-fit, high-performance 

synthetic lubricants instead of mineral 

oil-based lubricants. 

This type of upgrade is also possible 

for refrigeration systems or in the case of 

refrigeration compressors. 

How can energy savings be realized 

in refrigeration systems with the help of 

lubricants and application knowledge? 

Lubricants basically have various functions 

in a tribological system. 

In refrigeration compressors, these 

include reducing friction as well as removing 

heat from heat-stressed areas. 

In screw compressors in particular, 

the lubricant also performs a sealing 

function by closing the gap between 

the two rotors in the compression 

chamber, thus preventing the refrigerant 

from flowing back from the 

high-pressure side to the low-pressure 

side. In addition, the tendency 

to evaporate as well as the change in 

viscosity over a longer period of time 

plays a major role in the energy efficiency 

of a compressor system. 

Above all, a lubricant's tendency to 

evaporate and its resistance to aging 

determine the formation of residues 

and thus the cleanliness of a system. 

That a clean system runs more efficiently 

than a dirty one is self-explanatory. 

In short, the better a lubricant 

performs the functions listed, the 

higher is the energy efficiency of a 

refrigeration system in the end. 

The lubricants themselves differ 

significantly in the dimensions of base 

oil, additives and viscosity. Even within 

these dimensions, there are considerable 

differences in quality. In other 

words, even the same type of base oil, 

for example, hides different qualities 

that ultimately determine the performance 

of the lubricant used. 

Basically, it can be stated that synthetic 

high-performance lubricants 

are superior to mineral oil-based 

products. Nevertheless, it is important 

to select the right high-performance 

lubricant with care to avoid 

problems with seals or with compatibility 

with the previously used 

lubricant.


Proof of energy savings by 

means of measurements 

Synthetic high-performance lubricants differ 

not only in their superior performance, 

for example, compared with mineral oilbased 

products, but also in their much higher 

price. Nevertheless, their use is generally 

worthwhile not only from an environmental 

point of view but also from an economic one. 

However, an estimate of the energy and 

cost savings is not always sufficient for a 

well-founded investment decision. Especially 

not if a changeover to a high-performance 

lubricant is appropriate as a measure to 

increase energy efficiency as part of a monitoring 

audit of an ISO 50001 certification. 

Concrete proof of increased energy efficiency 

by means of measurements can then help. 

There are different approaches to prove 

the increased energy efficiency of the equipment 

and thus also the energy savings. A 

common mistake here is the assumption 

that a quick glance at the electricity meter 

is enough. This is, of course, only a snapshot 

that merely represents the current electricity 

consumption in an unknown operating 

state. 

Precisely to prevent such errors, there 

are standards that define how a measure to 

increase energy efficiency is to be measured 

to be able to make a reliable statement at 

the end regarding the savings achieved. The 

best-known standards include the following: 

- the International Performance Measurement 

and Verification Protocol 

- the ISO 50015 

Figure 1: Electricity demand outlook in selected regions/countries in the Stated Policies 

Scenario, 2019-2030 (IEA, 2020). 

Both standards are very similar in content 

and, among other things, make the statement 

that verification of energy savings is 

not possible or meaningful without considering 

the influencing factors (influence on 

the energy consumption of a system). 

Klüber Lubrication 

Klüber Lubrication not only offers its 

customers expertise when it comes 

to selecting the right lubricant, but 

also carries out corresponding measurements 

according to international 

standards on the customer's plant if 

required as part of the "KlüberEnergy" 

service program (see Figure 2). 

The measured 

The KlüberEnergy Service Program 

has achieved energy savings 

on several refrigeration plants. For 

example, a reduction in energy consumption 

of more than 3 percent 

or around 28 MWh per year was 

achieved and verified on a refrigeration 

compressor of an Italian food 

manufacturer. 

Together with the cost savings 

resulting from the longer service life 

of the Klüber Lubrication lubricant, 

the savings add up to more than EUR 

4,300 per year with a payback period 

of only 4 months. The absolute savings 

will now be maximized by converting 

all refrigeration compressors 

to Klüber Lubrication's lubricant. 

KlüberEnergy 

Energy Efficiency 

Figure 2: KlüberEnergy overview 

Energy consulting 

Evaluation of equipment 

and report on energy 

savings potential 

Find out which of your 

equipment has a real potential 

for energy reduction 

Energy 

measurements 

Professional measurement 

of all relevant influencing 

factors before and after 

application optimization 

Maximize efficiency in 

measurement to avoid 

retrials 

Services for optimum energy efficiency 

of your lubricant application. 

Reports on concrete savings. 

Energy consulting 

(tribo-system) 

Energy analysis 

Analysis of measurement data 

Provide complete transparency 

regarding savings and energy 

consumption with a high level 

of confidence 

Energy measurements 

Energy analysis 

Reporting 

Translation of analysis results 

into relevant key figures 

Clear and simple reporting 

of relevant values, e.g. cost 

savings, CO2 emissions, ROI, 

energy consumption 

Reporting 

(energy + cost savings) 

SOURCES: 

IEA, Electricity demand outlook in selected regions/countries in the Stated Policies Scenario, 2019-2030, IEA, 

Paris https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/electricity-demand-outlook-in-selected-regions-countries-in-the-stated-policies-scenario-2019-2030 



Reliability is 

About Two Things! 

Have you ever experienced 

a Reliability and 

Maintenance Improvement 

Project where it 

feels like you are drowning? 

High level project 

plans, a lot of meetings 

and the latest buzzwords 

being thrown around to 

describe what you should 

do. Sound familiar? 

OWE FORSBERG, 

IDCON, 

Vice President. 

HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED in implementing 

a new computer system that 

“will improve maintenance by 50 

percent” but so far it hasn’t made any 

improvements? Have you seen projects 

where a consultant from one of the BIG 

consulting companies was brought in 

to decrease maintenance costs and yet 

a year later, somehow, the cost is higher 

than before? The company may have 

started a major training program in 

reliability and maintenance but there 

is no improvement to show for that 

either. Or maybe a decision was made 

to change the organizational structure 

where maintenance employees report 

in small units of the Operations organization. 

Could it be the changes in your organization 

have led to a lack of training 

and vision for reliability—the maintenance 

technicians are expected to 

repair the equipment as soon as possible 

instead of practicing prevention 

and condition monitoring. Part of the 

change was to put all maintenance 



technicians on shifts so that repairs 

could be done faster, which led to many 

parts of the preventive maintenance 

and condition monitoring tasks being 

left behind. Have you been a part of 

outsourcing maintenance to contractors? 

Have you noticed an increase in 

the number of equipment breakdowns 

since you started to use contractors? 

Hopefully, you haven’t seen all these 

pain points in your organization. 

What is needed? 

How do you focus on reliability and 

maintenance to ensure that there are 

value added improvements in throughput 

and that unit cost decreases? It 

comes down to some of these fundamentals: 

• Improved planning of work 

• Improved equipment technical 

data and Bill of Materials 

• Improved scheduling of daily and 

weekly work orders 

• An optimized PM system 

• Technicians trained on the equipment 

and instrumentation 

• Organized spare parts 

• Input on new equipment and projects 

to improve reliability and 

maintainability 

You are sitting in meetings all day long, 

and we know that nobody can stay focused 

in that situation. 

There are two things that will improve 

maintenance! What I mean by 

improving maintenance is improving 

reliability and lowering the total cost. 

Everything we do in maintenance 

leads back to TWO things: 

1. Prevent failures, which extends the 

life of the equipment 

2. Find failures early and make efficient 

repairs safely and of high 

quality 

How do we get to this state of being 

good at two things? Maintenance and 

reliability are built on several key 

processes, and these need to be implemented 

and executed with discipline 

and rigor. 

IDCON Circle of Continuous 

Improvement 

Market and Production Plan: 

You are a successful manufacturer, 

and the market wants more of your 

products. The market drives the plant’s 

production plan. There are other players 

competing on the market that are 

putting pressure on you to lower cost 

per unit and improve quality. 

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling: 

The plant is operating at max 

capacity and every time equipment is 

down, quality specifications are not 

met, or the speed (performance) goes 

down, revenue is decreased and sometimes 

delivery dates are missed for 

customer orders. This puts a lot of pressure 

on Production Planning and the 

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling 

process. Because of the market opportunity 

and the pressure to compete, Operations 

and Maintenance have started 

to work in a close partnership to make 

sure that the production and maintenance 

schedules are well coordinated. 

Preventative Maintenance and 

Condition Monitoring: 

The plant is currently trying to improve 

the Overall Equipment Efficiency 

(OEE) from 72% to 85%. This increase 

is valued at $50 million in additional 

revenue. It should also be noted that


the calculation indicates that using 

the same amount of resources with 

improved OEE will decrease cost per 

unit, since fixed cost will be spread over 

more units. Increasing OEE strategically 

points to improving maintenance 

work, specifically decreasing corrective 

maintenance and breakdowns. It is best 

if we can set up work processes to prevent 

repairs altogether. We can prevent 

failures with good lubrication, correct 

installation, cleaning, good operating 

practices and correct design of equipment. 

To enable Planning and Scheduling 

of maintenance work (in addition 

to coordination with the production 

plan) there must be good Condition 

Monitoring (inspections) of equipment. 

Condition Monitoring provides 

lead time for Planning and Scheduling 

by finding failures early before they 

develop into breakdowns. The failures 

found by Condition Monitoring should 

be prioritized according to defined priority 

rules. 

There is now a project to utilize 

machine learning that installs sensors 

and downloads software for some of 

the manufacturing equipment. Craftspeople 

and Reliability Engineers have 

already started to use that information 

to improve their PM programs 

by identifying and correcting conditions 

that eventually lead to failure of 

components. In fact, the maintenance 

organization has direct access to the 

machine learning database while they 

are inspecting, troubleshooting, or trying 

to find the root cause of a failure on 

their tablets and laptops. 

Technical Database: 

In an effort to improve OEE, Maintenance 

realized that there must be a 

good technical database and stores to 

enable effective planning. The technical 

database that includes OEM helps 

the planner find instructions, materials, 

spares, and technical specifications. 

Information such as clearances, set 

points, torque specs, etc. needs to be 

included in the work order packages. 

Stores must be well organized to protect 

the condition of parts. The Bill of 

Materials, as part of a technical database, 

must be complete and up to date 

to ensure that information is known, 

and correct parts are allocated to the 

job. This process will decrease the 

amount of time spent tracking down 

manuals, ordering parts and executing 

corrective maintenance work, allowing 

us to focus on improving OEE. 

Do: 

Once the job is planned and scheduled, 

the repair is executed at high quality. 

The craftspeople meet with the supervisor 

for 15 minutes in the morning 

to see if there are any changes to the 

schedule. The schedule is posted in the 

maintenance shop, but all the craftspeople 

have the schedule up on their 

tablets. The schedule shows start and 

stop times of each job and downtime 

of equipment coordinated with Operations 

and agreed upon by the Operations 

and Maintenance Coordinator 

(OMC). The OMC is the one point of 

contact between Maintenance and Operations. 

Record: 

After the work is completed, the job 

history is recorded in the CMMS. Recording 

work order history will answer: 

What was the problem? What was done 

to repair the problem? How can it be 

prevented in the future? The craftsperson 

has the flexibility to do this though 

their tablet, phone, or laptop. Since 

craftspeople update the work order history 

daily, the maintenance schedule is 

up to date in real time. This helps the 

Figure 1: IDCON's Circle of 

Continuous Improvement 



maintenance supervisor to update the 

weekly and daily schedule and manage 

the resources more effectively. 

Continuous Improvements: 

Equipment history can be analysed 

for continuous improvement actions 

through the Root Cause Problem Elimination 

(RCPE) process. The RCPE 

process analyses history by looking 

at equipment and components with 

costly and repetitive repairs. Once the 

root of the costly and repetitive repairs 

is known, corrective actions can be 

planned and scheduled. The organization 

takes pride in its problem-solving 

skills and eliminating equipment problems. 

The Reliability Engineer gives out 

a monthly summary report describing 

which root causes have been eliminated, 

including the worth measured in 

dollars. 

Circle of Despair: 

Of course, the circle of continuous 

improvement is not always followed. 

Break-in work happens because we 

react to an emergency (or perceived 

emergency) and subsequently the 

equipment is subject to poor-quality 

repairs causing us to go back to the 

same job. This does not mean that the 

technician made a mistake when doing 

the repair, but that the root cause 

problem was not eliminated. Therefore, 

the circle of despair is often 

repeated over and over. To break the 

circle of despair, you must focus on 

those two things: preventing failures 

that extend the life of the equipment 

and finding failures early to make 

efficient repairs safely and of high 

quality. 



Define the Two Things 

Now, when we have laid out the Core or 

Fundamental System, you must define 

how to implement and manage the two 

things. 

The first thing: Prevention. What 

is that? Your own health may be an 

example of how you think about prevention. 

You might eat healthily, exercise, 

spend time outdoors, have fun 

and challenge your brain. Each one of 

these tasks can help prevent mental 

and physical deterioration. To draw the 

parallel with equipment in processes, 

manufacturing and facilities, prevention 

includes the following: 

• Cleaning of equipment 

• Lubrication 

• Operation practices 

• Design for reliability 

• Alignment 

• Balancing 

• Calibration 

• Storage and transportation of 

equipment and parts 

• Precision maintenance following 

specifications during repairs and 

installation 

All the above tasks lead to healthy and 

extended life of the equipment. 

The second thing is the process of 

Work Management. Work management 

can be described as “the chain 

that cannot be broken.” The chain (as 

shown in the picture below) or work 

management process is a simplified 

view of the Circle of Continuous Improvement. 

Work management includes the 

process of Preventive Maintenance, 

condition monitoring (inspecting) 

to find failures early to get lead time 

for planning and scheduling, which 

will minimize the impact on operations. 

The next step is to plan work 

to provide a job plan that is efficient, 

high quality and safe. When the job is 

planned, we can schedule to determine 

when and who is going to do the work. 

The last step is to provide seamless execution 

according to the planned and 

scheduled work. 

You must ask yourselves, how well 

are we executing each step in the 

chain? 

Guide to Leadership and Two 

More Things 

Now, here are two more things for you 

to make it happen. Let’s say that you 

have implemented the chain of work 

management, but you are still treading 

water. 

A well-built work management 

system requires great leadership to be 

effective. Maintenance processes rely 

on people to follow the process and 

execution of the work. Your ability to 

motivate and lead people will be a big 

part of your road to success. Motivating 

your organization comes down 

to having a vision of the future state, 

communicating that vision on a regular 

basis, and seeing actual progress. 

You must involve the organization in 

implementing these additional two 

things and reward them when they 

succeed. You must also practice what 

you preach and show the organization 

that you know what is going on daily 

by measuring performance. 

If there are roadblocks you need 

to remove them, and if there are performance 

issues you must deal with 

them quickly. Leadership also includes 

creating partnerships and agreements 

with Operations and other important 

stakeholders. Remind yourself that the 

first line of maintenance starts with 

the operators running the process. 

SUMMARY OF SUCCESS 

The keys to success in Maintenance 

and Reliability: 

1. Focus on two things: prevention, 

and finding failures early to execute 

repairs 

2. Implement the chain and do not 

break it 

3. Add two more things by providing 

leadership and enabling people to 

execute maintenance well. 

Success = prevention + finding failures 

+ do not break the chain + leadership 

+ involving people 


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TRAINING AND EDUCATION 

Competence 

and Skills 

in the Era of 

Industry 4.0 

Digitalisation, Industry 4.0 and IoT transform the industrial landscape at 

a breath-taking pace. The technological development is rapid, but 

the successful application also requires human skills and capabilities. 

What are the most topical issues that should be included in the curriculum 

of newcomers and for those already in the profession? 

MIRKA KANS, HELENA KORTELAINEN AND LASSE METSO 

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION in the form 

of Internet of Things (IoT) or Industry 

4.0 (I4.0) brings both challenges and 

opportunities to maintenance and asset 

management. The transformation 

makes available a broad variety of tools 

and technologies including smart devices 

and sensors, intelligent inspection, 

diagnosis and prognosis, cloud-based 

computing, simulation, location and 

tracking, and virtual and augmented 

reality (VR/AR) tools. Cloud technologies 

enable on-demand network access 

to shared information resources and 

mobile devices allow access to the necessary 

information from any location. 

Simulation - combined with information 

collected from smart sensors, devices 

and information systems - enables virtual 

presentation of a physical system 

i.e. digital twins. Location and tracking 

technologies support operator and 


equipment identification and enable 

traceability of the past maintenance actions 

and geo-localisation. 

Digital transformation influences 

maintenance, and asset management 

processes and offers solutions for more 

effective practices. The implementation 

of such technologies in current asset 

management practices is, however, not 

straightforward. Novel competencies 

and skills are needed when deploying 

and enrolling digital technologies into 

the operations and on different levels or 

organisation, and when maintaining intelligent 

equipment. The training of both 

experienced employees and newcomers 

is necessary. What knowledge and skills 

do maintenance and asset managers 

need in their working life, and what skill 

and competence requirements does 

the rapid technological development 

impose? In this article, we highlight domains 

where special attention needs to 

be paid to the development of new skills 

and competences and the content of 

education at all levels. 

Industry 4.0 induced 

competence needs 

I4.0 and IoT are changing the industrial 

landscape requiring new capabilities for 

information management. Manufacturing 

companies are required to collect measured 

data, analyse it, refine information 

from it, and supplement the information 

from it with the knowledge of their employees. 

One success factor is flexibility, 

it is enabling production companies to 

produce and deliver products of high 

quality and to adapt quickly to customer 

requirements. When the data and the 

information is visible and available, 

companies can recognize things similar 

to each other and make quicker decisions.


Manufacturing companies want to become 

agile companies that react in realtime 

to occurring events and make databased 

decisions [1]. Advanced information 

and communication technologies are 

growing in the industrial automation field 

and the Industry 4.0 is based on them. 

While implementing Industry 4.0 successfully, 

the obtainable data should be 

prepared and processed in a way that it 

supports decision-making. The data may 

be useful if the technical requirements 

for real-time access are met and if there is 

an infrastructure with the necessary data 

processing and seamless data transmission. 

Another principle for successful Industry 

4.0 implementation is that manufacturing 

companies need IT integration 

to improve data use and increase agility 

[1]. IoT cloud computing architecture has 

a big role in IoT data management. IoT 

data and applications are stored in the 

cloud for easy access in any client software 

web browser. The cloud computing 

architecture suits Industry 4.0 because 

of its centralized control accessibility for 

various users like managers, customers, 

operators, and programmers [2]. The collected 

data should be used to understand 

how the existing plants are running, to 

identify the inefficiencies in production 

capacity. 

DESPITE THE FAST DIGITAL 

DEVELOPMENT, IT IS THE 

RESPONSIBILITY OF HUMANS TO 

INTERPRET THE OUTCOMES OF 

SMART DEVICES AND SYSTEMS. 

Cognitive capabilities are needed to 

convert the exploding big data to meaningful 

insights that further improve manufacturing 

processes and functions. In 

order to translate the patterns, anomalies 

and trends to predictions of remaining 

lifetime or future behaviour of an item, 

thorough understanding of the asset system 

is required. Traditional physical models 

are highly complicated and require a 

lot of modelling efforts to capture relevant 

behaviour. Data-driven models and algorithms 

usually use pattern recognition 

and machine learning techniques to detect 

changes in system states. Qualitative 

information like risk and reliability analyses 

provide essential information about 

the target application. These analyses 

could provide cause-consequence chains 

that connect failure indication or initiation 

pattern or a deviation from a certain 

chain of events and link the emerging 

event with expected consequences. This 

allows the user to make predictions and to 

take proactive actions in time. A further 

step to add value is to connect the data 

with business-related information like 

KPIs, life-cycle cost and profit model, or 

decision-making situation. 

Despite the fast digital development, 

it is the responsibility of humans to interpret 

the outcomes of smart devices 

and systems. In smart maintenance, 

smart systems support the technicians 

and managers, but do not replace them. 

However, the employees working in the 

field often lack necessary technological 

competence and skills, and a large 

proportion of fieldworkers are unaccustomed 

to the use of digital technologies. 

The employees feel that they lack 

analytical skills and the capability to 

interpret the data provided by novel 

sensors [3]. The technology has evolved 

so rapidly that relevant standards (e.g. 

EN15628:2014) do not take into account 

the existence or use of these technologies 

when defining the competence areas 

for a maintenance manager. However, 

these competence areas can be extended 

to also cover the knowledge and skills 

that arise I4.0 [4]. As a conclusion, the 

maintenance managers are expected to 



use their technical/engineering knowledge 

and digital organizational tools to 

improve maintenance tasks and plan 

efficiency in terms of availability and 

reliability. 

What skills do the engineers 

and technicians in the 

maintenance domain require 

in the future? 

It has traditionally been thought that 

the competence profile of people 

performing maintenance activities 

includes, for example, maintenance 

and reliability engineering, standards, 

maintenance management skills and 

skills necessary for operating maintenance 

information systems. In addition, 

the understanding of the financial issues, 

contracting and health and safety 

assurance is regarded as necessary. Digitalisation, 

IoT and many other technological 

advancements, increasing value 

of data in decision making, networking 

and transformation towards holistic 

approaches as asset management pose 

novel competence requirements. It is 

also evident that maintenance is not an 

isolated function in the company, but 

a business area that cooperates, and is 

coordinated with several internal and 

external partners. Maintenance personnel 

are expected to use their traditional 

skills and apply an increasing number of 

digital tools in an increasingly complex 

business and operational environment. 

This also requires interpersonal and 

interaction skills. 

The required competencies and 

skills in the era of Industry 4.0 go beyond 

those defined e.g. in the standard 

EN15628:2014. An extended curriculum 

for educational programs as well as for 

continuing professional education and 

training is therefore proposed, with following 

topical content: 

Maintenance professionals need the 

traditional core competence and knowledge 

on technical and engineering topics, 

and in addition, the skills to make 

use of modern digital technologies and 

tools to improve maintenance tasks and 

plan efficiency in terms of availability 

and reliability. In this domain, there is a 

need for continuing education and training 

for those already in the profession. 

Asset management emphasises management 

skills, economic assessment 

methods and asset life cycle thinking. 

Education should go beyond the worldwide 

initiative CDIO and also incorporate 

economics, sustainability, and circular 

economy. 

Data collection, analysis and refining 

calls for cognitive capabilities and competence 

to apply commercial tools in the 

prevailing operational and business environment, 

such as analytic reasoning and 

problem solving. 

Networking, outsourcing and partnering 

requires not only capabilities in 

formulation of common goals, KPIs and 

contracts but good communication, cooperation 

and interaction skills. The experienced 

professionals would also benefit 

from continuing education. 

Increasingly complex systems call for 

system thinking, and the ability to build up 

a holistic view of the positive impacts and 

negative consequences of decisions. This is 

tightly connected with engineering ethics. 

REFERENCES 

[1] Stich, V., Schmitz, S. & Zeller, V. (2017) Relevant Capabilities for Information Management to Achieve Industry4.0 Maturity.18th Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises (PROVE), Vicenza, 

Italy. pp. 28-38. 

[2] Khan, M., Wu, X., Xu, X. & Dou, W. (2017) Big Data Challenges and Opportunities in the Hype of Industry 4.0. IEEE ICC 2017 SAC Symposium Big Data Networking Track. 

[3] Kortelainen, H. & Hanski, J. (in press) Asset life cycle management for Smart Grids: Challenges and implications. International Journal of Engineering Asset Management. 

[4] Kans, M., Campos, J. and Håkasson, L. (2020) A remote laboratory for Maintenance 4.0 training and education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.11.016 


VIBRATION ANALYSIS 

THERMAL IMAGING 

ULTRASOUND 

MEASUREMENT 

EYESIGHT – HEARING – SENSITIVITY 

WE HAVE IN COMMON 

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Maintworld Magazine 3/2021

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