Practical tips for monitoring and regulating power consumption

Large, 3-Phase motors, compressors, pumps, and equipment used in an industrial setting benefit from operating at certain voltages (and amperages). While managers and machine operators may be aware of the OEM specs and operational guidelines, few practice practical condition and energy monitoring over the lifetime of their equipment. By tracking equipment performance and detecting fluctuations early on, you can easily – and significantly – extend the lifetime value of your most expensive equipment.

Why bother to energy monitor?

Power monitoring can help protect your expensive equipment from potentially destructive power surges and outages. In addition, it can help to significantly extend equipment life, which minimizes maintenance and the need to purchase new equipment, reducing replacement costs. There are dozens of ways that energy monitoring can save you money and power monitoring devices can be used in a wide range of residential, commercial, and industrial equipment applications, all of which provide a number of critical benefits, including:

Allowing for the early detection of costly failure
Informing the use of down time, material, and labor
Identifying priorities for maintenance
Reducing overall maintenance requirements (extending the period of time between equipment shutdowns)
Reducing overall inventory costs
Implement a Predictive Maintenance Plan

Busy professionals tend to take a reactive approach to machinery maintenance, meaning that they wait for something to break before they snap into fix-it mode. This approach leads to higher overall maintenance costs and lower productivity. On the other side of the spectrum is Preventative Maintenance, which is based on the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) specs and doles out maintenance procedures at regular frequencies to prevent major disruptions. The preventative approach falls short in two ways: it does not consider specific operating conditions and can quickly lead to unnecessary maintenance costs.

A Predictive Maintenance plan is tailored to the unique condition of your equipment. Such a plan can monitor conditions, detect anomalies, forecast future performance, and predict and prevent failures. Most importantly, predictive maintenance allows managers to increase production with a lower probability of unscheduled outages.

As a result, operating efficiency increases 10-15% while operating expenses decrease, reducing the need for spares, increasing the life expectancy of your equipment, and decreasing the risk of catastrophic equipment failure. A predictive maintenance plan far outperforms preventative and reactionary maintenance and can reduce costs by up to four times.

Optimize with Energy Monitoring

Energy monitoring equipment is able to monitor multiple inputs and is designed to detect fluctuations in machine vibrations, temperature, voltage/ current. Having detected the potentially harmful fluctuations in the performance of your electrical equipment, you now have the opportunity to take corrective action. Armed with real-time power monitoring data, you can extend your equipment life by:

Taking decisive action
Optimizing and prioritizing your resources
Minimizing risk (to equipment and personnel)
Avoiding downtime
Extending the lifecycles of your most critical assets
It’s also important to reiterate the importance of consulting the user manual and manufacturer’s guide for all large electronic equipment. You can drastically extend the life of your equipment by following a simple set of guidelines: keep good records, maintain a maintenance and repair schedule, check for signs of wear, maintain a clean environment, stay on top of operator training, and implement these simple power monitoring techniques.

Interested in learning more about how to extend the life of your equipment via energy monitoring? Contact a Magnelab consultant today at (303) 772.9100

Topics: Maintenance