Why are we using infrared, and what can be gained from it? After eight-and-a-half years as an on-site technician, and three years as a traveling technician, this question has popped up on more than one occasion from many different people as well as in my own thoughts.
There are as many different answers to this question as there are different applications of infrared. From my on-site days, working in a large industrial complex, the question at the beginning had a different answer than it did later in my career. In the beginning, without formal instruction, the answer was simply, “To see what we can do or see with this new tool called infrared.” I ran around where I worked looking at everything and asking, “Why does it look this way?” and “Why does this component look different than the same type of component right next to it?”
After my Level I Thermographic Applications course I had a much better idea how to answer those questions. This course brought up many more questions for me such as, “How can we use infrared to help the process, operations, maintenance, and the bottom line?” We started to arrange routes both electrical and mechanical; the mechanical was later broken down to systems and equipment types. The infrared work was then teamed up with MCE (Motor Circuit Evaluation), Vibration Analysis, Oil Analysis, Ultra-Sonics, and NDT (Non-Destructive Testing) for materials.
This combination formed what is now called PdM (Predictive Maintenance) or Condition Based Maintenance and created a data gathering and analysis team. Even after the team was formed, and operating at a very successful level, there were other questions, such as “How can we improve our success rate or include more equipment types into the program?” With the support and encouragement of the management, more training, more coordination with operations, supply, and maintenance, a better, more focused program was grown from the simple question of “Why are we using infrared and where are we going with it?”
During my time as a traveling IR technician, the questions came from the escorts. Many had no idea of “Why are we doing this?” The answer can be rather difficult to define from the stand point of a contractor coming to a site and not always knowing the exact goals of the management. They could be just satisfying an insurance requirement or, they could be having trouble with a system and have exhausted all readily available resources. Perhaps they may want to “see” if the technology is valid and of use to them before making a major investment. The customer may even be considering developing a program of their own but don’t know where to start.
There are papers, magazines, and even entire books written on the subject of “why infrared.” There are even open conferences dedicated to reliability and predictive maintenance all asking the same question. Much more can be covered here in this blog, but it all starts with the simple question “Why we using infrared and what are can be gained from it?” So, leave a comment and let us know your version of the answer!