Condition Monitoring

Condition monitoring describes the monitoring of machines in order to ensure their safety and efficiency. In addition, condition monitoring is intended to design the maintenance of machines more efficiently by enabling condition-oriented and precise servicing, thereby replacing a reactive or preventive maintenance. Three steps are necessary to be able to monitor the condition of a machine and draw conclusions for operation and maintenance: condition monitoring, condition comparison, and subsequent diagnostics. For condition detection, physical parameters such as vibration and temperature are regularly measured by sensors and the data are documented. These machine values form the basis for the condition comparison, which compares actual values with a specified reference value, such as an empirically established limit value. For the diagnostics, the results of the condition comparison are analyzed in order to localize any present errors and be able to plan necessary servicing measures in a targeted way. Besides the sensors for data acquisition on the machine, a prerequisite for condition monitoring is also a more secure and faster transfer of these data, e.g. by means of machine-to-machine communication.