Condition Monitoring Services for e-Maintenance

Abstract Maintenance should follow quickly after the first appearance of problems, and be in accordance with the actual condition of the machine. This is made possible by monitoring the condition of machine parts via signals and sensors. The status of the system is ascertained based on the condition-values, load-values and the particulars of the situation. Main idea of the presented “Condition Monitoring Services” approach is to host and to provide electronic services for the analysis and prediction of machine health status using enhanced diagnostic algorithms and to deliver online assistance and additional information for related maintenance activities over the Internet. In this sense online services shall support condition based maintenance and help to reduce downtime caused by failure or degradation of components. Therefore a set of relevant machine devices and corresponding parameters and signals that indicate present machine status must be selected. The remaining lifetime of individual components can then be estimated. Using regular updates of the load, which are documented by the machine, the future progression of wear is predicted. With the result of classification of machine health status planning of maintenance and repair activities can be improved. The main requirement is the ability of the system to record and transfer relevant signal parameters via the Internet to the remote server for data evaluation. The results are stored in the machine producer's database and made available online to the customer via a web-browser.