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With increasing demands for wireless sensing nodes for assets control and condition monitoring; needs for alternatives to expensive conventional accelerometers in vibration measurements have been arisen. Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometer is one of the available options. The performances of three of the MEMS accelerometers from different manufacturers are investigated in this paper and compared to a well calibrated commercial accelerometer used as a reference for MEMS sensors performance evaluation. Tests were performed on a real CNC machine in a typical industrial environmental workshop and the achieved results are presented.

Abstract:A key aspect of competition in industrial maintenance is the trade-off between cost and risk. Decision making is dependent upon up-to-date information about distributed and disparate plant, coupled with knowledge of sensitive non-technical issues. Enabling technologies such as the internet are making strides in improving the quantity and quality of data, particularly by improving links with other information systems. In maintenance, the problem of disparate data sources is important. It is very difficult to make optimal decisions because the information is not easily obtained and merged. Information about technical state or machine health, cost of maintenance activities or loss of production, and non-technical risk factors such as customer information, is required. Even in the best information systems, these are not defined in the same units, and are not presented on a consistent time scale; typically, they are in different information systems. Some data is continuously updated, e.g. condition data, but the critical risk information is typically drawn from a historical survey, fixed in time. A particular problem for the users of condition based maintenance is the treatment of alarms. In principle, only genuine problems are reported, but the technical risk of failure is not the full story. The decision-maker will take into account cost, criticality and other factors, such as limited resources, to prioritise the work. The work reported here automatically prioritises jobs arising from condition based maintenance using a strategy called Cost-Based Criticality (CBC) which draws together three types of information. CBC weights each incident flagged by condition monitoring alarms with up-to-date cost information and risk factors, allowing an optimised prioritisation of maintenance activities. CBC does not attempt to change the strategic plan for maintenance activities: it only addresses prioritisation. The strategy uses a thin-client architecture rather than a central database, and is illustrated with examples from food manufacturing.

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02632241 Copyright Elsevier Ltd. DOI: 10.1016/j.measurement.2008.12.002Researchers have been looking for alternatives of expensive conventional accelerometers in vibration measurements. Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometer is one of the available options. Here the performance of one of these MEMS accelerometers compared with a well known commercial accelerometer

Damage is an inevitable occurrence in metallic structures and when unchecked could result in a catastrophic breakdown of structural assets. Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) is adopted in industries for assessment and health inspection of structural assets. Prominent among the NDE techniques is guided wave ultrasonic testing (GWUT). This method is cost-effective and possesses an enormous capability for long-range inspection of corroded structures, detection of sundries of crack and other metallic damage structures at low frequency and energy attenuation. However, the parametric features of the GWUT are affected by structural and environmental operating conditions and result in masking damage signal. Most studies focused on identifying individual damage under varying conditions while combined damage phenomena can coexist in structure and hasten its deterioration. Hence, it is an impending task to study the effect of combined damage on a structure under varying conditions and correlate it with GWUT parametric features. In this respect, this work reviewed the literature on UGWs, damage inspection, severity, temperature influence on the guided wave and parametric characteristics of the inspecting wave. The review is limited to the piezoelectric transduction unit. It was keenly observed that no significant work had been done to correlate the parametric feature of GWUT with combined damage effect under varying conditions. It is therefore proposed to investigate this impending task.

Purpose: Continuous manufacturing systems used within the steel industry involve different machines and processes which are arranged in a sequence of operations in order to manufacture the products. The steel industry is generally a capital-intensive industry and because of high capital investment, equipment utilization as effectively as possible is of high priority. This paper illustrates a new method, Overall Equipment Effectiveness-Market Based (OEE-MB) for the precise calculation of equipment effectiveness for full process cycle in order to respond to the steel market. Design/methodology/approach: A refinement of the existing concept of OEE is developed based on a new scheme for loss analysis within market time. The paper illustrates the concept with a case study based on compact strip manufacturing processes within the steel industry. Findings: While, the results for OEE by ignoring a considerable amount of possible hidden losses might be satisfying, the OEE-MB report shows potential room for improvement. It reflects changes in both internal and external market for the steel industry, and therefore provides a tool for not only monitoring but also managing improvement. Practical implications: OEE-MB provides a sound perspective on improvement of steel plants by taking into consideration all losses within market time for meeting both internal and external demands. Originality/value: OEE-MB monitors production and measures the equipment effectiveness for full process cycle in order to meet the market. It makes communication more efficient and easier within the steel industry and may be used as a benchmark to achieve world-class standard.

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