The technology in condition monitoring will play a key role in this trend

The ability to monitor the condition of assets 24/7, from any location, is becoming the new trend in maintenance practices.

 Ultrasound, being a key technology in condition monitoring, will play a key role in this trend.

The "4Cast" from UE Systems is the latest innovation in assets remote monitoring using ultrasound

Just as technology has been rapidly developing in fields like telecom, data analytics, smart devices and infrastructure, the same can be said of asset condition and parse through continuous data sets from a

It is important to recognize that new technology often calls into question old methodologies or habits.

Each time some development emerges, the industry involved must adapt to make best use from it. That can be particularly difficult in the industrial setting, often driven by the mantra, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

But plant maintenance technicians have increasingly recognized the benefits of predictive maintenance in terms of keeping equipment online, preventing unplanned shutdowns, increasing plant efficiency and saving money for the organization.

The paradigm shifts of asset condition monitoring

The book “Asset Condition Monitoring Management” by Jack Nicholas, Jr., outlines four ways asset condition monitoring has changed over the decades, including nowadays:

In the 1980s, microprocessors made way for more portable data collection devices.In the 1990s, laptops emerged while software packages gave all computers better memory storage.

In the 2000s, wireless data transfer arrived as the methods for reporting and analysing data grew more sophisticated.In this decade, the condition monitoring paradigm shifts include Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, tablets, virtual and augmented reality, wearable devices and so on.

Though the technologies have changed, many" of the challenges remain the same: will technicians and practitioners accept the"

 Can IT departments keep newly online assets safe from cybercrime? Is the infrastructure available for massive amounts of data? Do we have the skilled workers necessary to champion these tools and then pass their knowledge along to others? And finally – what do we even do with all this data?

Finally, to add a bit of perspective, consider this: today’s college graduates were born after Amazon opened, eBay came online and Yahoo registered its domain name.