As a business owner, there is an expectation that equipment and machinery will run safely and reliably at all times. Of course, this ensures that unplanned downtime during operation is minimised so that costs remain constant and production stays on schedule. In reality, this is not always the case.
Often, due to poor maintenance and monitoring of systems, the equipment used becomes worn down and/ or breaks down entirely which leads to a low productivity or the inability to work entirely, and ultimately, loss of profits.
Thankfully, there are simple solutions that can be implemented to create a reliable and productive environment, starting with temperature monitoring.
Often overlooked, temperature monitoring plays a vital role in condition monitoring, which is pivotal to the success of many industries including the chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive and mining industries. Temperature monitoring devices are critical in maintaining the safety of people and assets where sensitive chemicals and processes occur.
In the food industry for example, vegetable fats are hydrogenated to produce margarine. According to the ‘Chemical Engineering’ blog, ‘Hydrogen is highly explosive, prone to leakage and permeation, and difficult to detect.’ In this case ‘special care must be taken during process engineering design of equipment and systems that handle or contain hydrogen.’ If this is not done, the machinery used in the process could become damaged, leading to a break in production of this simple household item.
What about in the mining industry? Rotating parts, such as motors, bearings and gears in critical equipment used can overheat due to lubrication or vibration issues and can cause damage that can lead to a total failure and downtime. The simple solution would be to monitor the condition of the machinery on a regular basis and install temperature monitors to ensure early detection of any potential failures or threats.
Thankfully with equipment such as the Timestrip products, a user can easily see what the temperature of a certain area is, as it is displayed on the easy to read monitor.
For a more complex offering, users can look to the Berlinger Fridge tag 3 with SMS monitoring, which monitors conditions and updates you in real time. This contributes to the process significantly in that the person monitoring is informed by SMS directly to their phone when a certain temperature has been breached.
The monitoring process can be best summed up in the following paragraph sourced from the Banner engineering website: :
‘Monitoring and regulating temperature and other conditions is critical in many applications and in a diverse range of industries. For many applications, such as ensuring product quality and food safety, specific temperature ranges must be maintained.
Condition monitoring is also an effective method of predictive maintenance and enables users to more accurately anticipate when machine maintenance will be needed based on real-time data from the machines themselves. Because of this, predictive maintenance can help reduce machine downtime, increase mean time between failure (MTBF), and reduce costs of unnecessary machine maintenance and spare parts inventory.’
Advances in the industrial Internet of things (IOT) and artificial intelligence (AI) paired with condition monitoring has revolutionised the way things are done. Now reliability and process improvement are constant. The implementation:
- Determines the operational status of equipment
- Evaluates the present condition of equipment
- Detects abnormal conditions in a timely manner
- Assists to initiate actions for the prevention of possible forced outages
As an added benefit, there is a significant link to increased profit due to less down time because of machine failure.
The temperature monitoring process cannot be underestimated and is significant in most industries. As Africa’s leading temperature monitor distributor, we would be glad to assist you in finding the best temperature monitoring solution for your business.
