In this age of AI, it seems that everyone is moving towards sensors and online data. Oil analysis sensors aren’t far behind in this revolution. There are mid-infrared sensors that have been engineered to relate their findings to those of regular oil tests (developed by Spectrolytic). While sensors are the way of the future, the fundamental concept remains the same. What are we doing with the data, and what data are we trending?
Sensors deliver speed, but proven lab methods still set the benchmark for accuracy.
Traditional oil analysis labs trend data, albeit the frequency of the data points is not as high as that of an online sensor. Hence, subtle/instant changes may not be readily noticed or detected. The methods used in these labs have been tried and tested over the years (and approved by various standards committees) to reflect conditions that the oil is facing in the field.
On the other hand, in the sensor world, not many of them (with the few exceptions) correlate exactly to what is being seen in the field. Hence, some lab tests, especially for the specialty tests such as RULER, MPC, and TOST (mainly for turbines), still need to be done by the lab. This is a great opportunity for traditional labs and sensor companies to collaborate and provide customers with collated data.
Moving Towards Sustainable Maintenance
While this article explicitly discusses extending the oil drain intervals for your assets, it underscores the importance of working alongside maintenance and condition monitoring to achieve these results. There is no clear cookie-cutter routine to achieve this, as each fleet of assets will be different and require varying levels of complexity for analysis. One thing is clear, though: we need to move towards sustainable maintenance.
Performing maintenance in the traditional way of just waiting for the appointed interval may be costing us increased labor and parts. However, by working alongside maintenance and condition monitoring, we can get more value from our assets and even increase our ROIs. Sustainable maintenance is the way forward for most asset owners as we move into a new era of maintenance.
