Numerous industries are in the process of adopting proactive maintenance, predictive maintenance, and condition monitoring in business operations as they gradually evolve.
These have also extended to influence the maritime maintenance processes with the maintenance models that have progressed to preventive maintenance, all way long from reactive and predictive maintenance techniques.
One of the most cumbersome tasks in the maintenance of vessels for ships is to avoid unnecessary downtime and the marine-specific risks involved.
Also, machine breakdown in the ship vessels causes a high-end risk while considering the safety of people onboard.
This blog post delves deep into the condition monitoring of on-board ships, how they work and the benefits in detail.
Why Is Condition Monitoring of On-Board Essential in the Marine Industry?
In everyday ship operations, structural or mechanical defects can result in severe accidents. This could leave passengers and the entire crew onboard in danger, which causes a threat to the ecosystem.
Ship damage can cause severe financial losses, hence it needs a cost-effective and efficient maintenance strategy to save ships from danger.
Using condition monitoring for onboard ships facilitates continuous monitoring of the following components: thrusters, main engines, compressors, generators, pumps, and so on.
Read More About:
- Understanding The Concept Of Wireless Condition Monitoring
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Benefits of Condition Monitoring Of On-Board Ships
- Less inventory required: The ship crew should be well aware of the arrangement of maintenance schedules to minimize or even get rid of the overhead expenses. The parts usually required in case of machine failures need not be demanded in advance, hence the inventories for spare parts and stocks will be less.
- Low operational costs & energy consumption: The timely monitoring makes sure the equipment exhibits high-end efficiency, thereby helping you with low energy consumption and low operational costs involved. It extends the shelf life of the components, making them function well and last longer. Thus, the unexpected breakdown of equipment is least likely to happen.
- Fewer expenses involved: With condition monitoring, you get timely alerts and can quickly analyze the possible faults or concerns of onboard ships. This way, you can reduce the amount you spend on repairs, maintenance, and other particular expenses.
- Improves staff morale: The monitoring services help the ship’s crew prevent the situation of overworking. In this way, it helps the team to remain well aware of the condition of equipment, and its future.
- Environment-friendly working ecosystem: The proactive approach cultivates a secure work culture on the onboard ships. It also makes sure that the eco-friendly working system is maintained with low energy usage.
How Does Condition Monitoring of Onboard Ships works?
Operating vessels successfully needs time management, efficient crew management, maximization of the resources available, and scheduling of crucial activities.
Due to this, many fleet managers, ship owners, and ship engineers have been utilizing condition monitoring techniques to identify defects, wear, etc. to eliminate unwanted repairs.
Condition monitoring eases the task and lets it be implemented through the least intervention while the machinery works with normal operation.
It involves looking for any structural or mechanical defects and the changes in the lubricating oil, which is essential for vital gears.
The most reliable method is to examine and map the vital machinery of the ship, setting the measuring stations and plotting the data patterns.
Furthermore, the analysts conduct data validation and data interpretation in detail.
The customized reports which highlight the concerns finally help you with suggestions on how to move forward with the maintenance measures and repairs.
The Increasing Influence of Condition Monitoring of On-Board Ships in Maintenance Strategy
A ship is a future-oriented investment. The vessels that undergo service nowadays are likely to possess an operational lifespan.
The operator who has an ad hoc maintenance approach cannot realize the entire value of the asset. Having a proactive approach to tracking the health of vital machinery and equipment can let experts adopt high-risk control, minimize downtime and implement vessel repair within the cash flow cycle for profit maximization.
Based on the stringent regulations and compliance standards the shipowners would be worried about the timely adoption of maintenance strategies.
But, condition monitoring tools also need to be considered right from the earliest phases of design to the outset of the vessel operation functions.
This helps to manage the costs, identify the issues of critical equipment and machinery, etc. Moreover, the technique helps operators to manage and eliminate potentially expensive problems.
Condition Monitoring in Root Cause Analysis- Case Study
Leveraging the Condition monitoring technique as a part of predictive maintenance is the need of the hour to enhance efficiency and fleet availability.
A shipping company with the aforementioned expertise faced challenges in taking its maintenance strategies to the next level, to implement a proactive approach.
Through a proactive maintenance approach, the condition monitoring technique was introduced to analyze the deterioration in the machine condition with a corrective solution that understands the root cause of failures.
The objective of this technique was to scale the operations of machinery and improve ship reliability, to identify and prevent repetitive problems.
Partnering with a provider specializing in timely data analysis, application engineering, and machinery expertise, the company was able to trigger the current fleet machinery condition monitoring system while augmenting the fleet maintenance technique.
With the help of standard work procedures, the data on vessels are collected. This data is further transmitted along the communication system of the ship and the certified specialists conduct offshore analysis.
The results were further turned into customized reports to let vessel engineers emphasize particular machines which required the most maintenance.
Hence condition monitoring is effective in deploying root cause failure analysis to eradicate the persistent issues concerning reliability.
Ocean’s Approach to Delivering Condition Monitoring in Vessel Services to the Clients
Ocean conducts various condition monitoring specific services to the onboard ships like vibration inspection and analysis.
Infrared thermography to save switchgear and electric panels, noise reporting and measurements, remote diagnostic solutions, installation and distribution of inline monitoring systems, etc.
Our Condition monitoring services provide in-depth analysis and support for all marine-related issues with vibration analysis, and infrared thermography to support rotating machinery and offer high-end report analysis for maintenance recommendations in line with regulatory standards such as ISO and DNV.
The information gathered can be tracked onboard to take prompt actions, transferred to implement in-site diagnostics, or even shared with the Ocean experts to receive relevant recommendations or insights.
To know further about the services Ocean provides and to discuss them in detail, contact us today!