Using a Banner wireless condition-monitoring kit, a motor-maintenance company learned a customer faced an imminent failure of a critical process fan.

Ventilation fans are critical for maintaining safe air quality and optimal machine performance. In the past, as part of its regular maintenance schedule, a commercial printing company would have its ventilation fan motors checked by its motor-maintenance company. But even routine checkups can’t always prevent breakdowns.

Sudden breakdowns cause unplanned downtime and send technicians scurrying day or night to fix problems. To help the company be more proactive and avoid this fate, the plant's maintenance manager was challenged to find a way to reduce its risk.

The motor-maintenance company installed a wireless condition monitoring system from Banner Engineering. The solution included vibration and temperature sensors, DXM controller with VIBE-IQ software, and access to Banner CDS (Cloud Data Services). The solution simplifies the monitoring of motors, fans, pumps, and other rotating assets.

The solution enabled the print company to move from preventive to predictive maintenance. With a predictive solution, sensors are placed on the rotating assets and are continuously monitored via the DXM and VIBE-IQ software. The automated process eliminates the need for tedious manual motor checks and complex analysis to determine the condition of asset bearings, set condition benchmarks, chart trends, and send alerts if the condition is deteriorating. The data can optionally be sent to Banner CDS for cloud storage and analysis.

After the monitoring system had been in place a few months, the motor-maintenance company received an automated warning of high vibration on a critical process fan at the print facility. It informed the printer’s on-site technicians who quickly made plans to follow its shut-down procedure at the next shift change.

Customer technicians made an initial fan-motor bearing inspection and found no defect, so they did a more thorough, full physical inspection. Doing so, they found the fan enclosure was critically damaged and about to fail.

Due to the early warning by the Banner sensors, the fan was replaced between shifts. The repair allowed production to get back up and running quickly, and it let the printer avoid 48 hours and $70,000 in downtime and repair costs.