A Message from Allan Rienstra
Addicted to Reliability
We want our assets to perform at their best. And when our condition monitoring activities rewards us with the results we anticipate that winning moment leaves us looking and feeling like champions. But if doubt clouds our decision-making then it impacts our actions, leading to outcomes that are less than ideal. Therefore, to navigate uncertainty, our tendency is to follow the crowd; to act or behave as others might in similar situations.
In his New York Times best-selling book Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini refers to this phenomenon as the law of Social Proof. This law asserts that when people are uncertain about an action or choice they’ll seek self-affirmation from others. The simple fact that others have chosen similar prior paths is all the evidence required to convince them their decision was sound.
Reassurance becomes amplified when social proof is found within our own peer group, and even more so when it comes from a person of authority. But caution should be exercised. When the source of social proof is close friends or family there is a complacent comfort that can turn proof into approval. Therefore making choices that fit your own needs and lifestyle is sometimes perceived as less important than following a current trend.
For evidence in support of the Proof/Approval theory one only need look at alcohol and tobacco consumption statistics during recessions and pandemics. One might reason that when money is tight that beer, liquor, and tobacco sales should suffer. But the opposite seems true. In fact, more people are compelled to make lifestyle changes that negatively impact their health during crises, and they find comfort in their bad choices when they see friends, family, and even celebrities behaving the exact same way. Perhaps it’s true that misery does indeed love company.
Despite some of us choosing to “go-with-the-flow” and suffering under the influence a little too heavily during COVID~19, not all trends during this global pandemic have emerged negative. One positive has arose from the least likely of spaces, the reliablity departments of many manufacturing companies.
At first it seemed odd that during this unprecedented time in our history organizations opened their check books for reliability initiatives. But then it dawned on me that these unprecedented times also equaled unprecedented opportunity. My farming father-in-law’s favourite expression was “make hay while the sun shines”. Well, for many industry sectors these past 18-20 months, the sun has shone like never before.
SDT Ultrasound Solutions is Helping Wind Farmers Power Ontario
Wind farmers power Ontario with clean renewable energy while providing Canadians with a greener more sustainable future. But maintaining wind turbines is a difficult challenge for reliability personnel.
Accessibility is a major issue for wind farmers. The average wind turbine height in the US is 280 feet. Without a permanent monitoring solution, technicians need to make that ascent every time they want to collect data. This becomes extremley time consuming, and dangerous.
While most wind turbines have permanent vibration monitoring solutions in place, the slow-speed main turbine doesn’t rotate fast enough to make vibration analysis a viable option.
Unexpected critical component failures result in costly downtime and logistically challenging repairs, so it is best to use a condition monitoring solution that can predict impending failures as far in advance as possible.
Hear More about Vigilant for wind energy using the link below!
https://www.bevigilant.io/monitoring-ontarios-wind-farms-with-vigilant/
Ultrasound… Beyond the Essentials™ Tradespeople in the New Digital World of Maintenance
Predictive Maintenance technologies, processes and software evolve to improve the speed and efficiency of maintenance operations. The most stark difference between today’s maintenance departments and the maintenance departments of 20 years ago is the digitalization.
For better, or for worse… digitalization in maintenance is here to stay.
Younger maintenance practitioners have an easier time adapting to new digital technologies as they’ve got the benefit of growing up in a rapidly digitalizing world. While the experienced maintenance workforce face challenges with digitalization as it becomes more present in their daily routines.
For 25 years Peter worked in maintenance, where he wore a number of different hats… Peter has worked as a millwright, an electrician, electronics technician, and a maintenance planner. The past 20 years Peter has worked as a maintenance consultant, and he currently specializes implementing digital best practices into maintenance departments.
He will be sharing valuable insight on his upcoming Ultrasound… Beyond the Essentials episode, tomorrow, November 24th, at 10:30 AM ET. You don’t want to miss it!
https://sdt.training/tradespeople-and-the-new-digital-world-of-maintenance-with-peter-phillips/
Featured LinkedIn Posts
If you’ve made it this far down you really should be following us on LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sdtultrasound/
We post daily tips and tricks for the condition monitoring tech, technical and applications blogs, polls to test your knowledge, case studies, and much more! Here are our two featured posts from the past month!
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6867164680012533760
What do you think is the ideal condition monitoring technology for monitoring the condition of slow rotating equipment? Be sure to leave your vote on our poll & your thoughts in the comments!
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6856304687394672640
Validating your grease guns is an essential step for your precision lubrication program. Learn more about it in this Tuesday Tip!
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6859575745803546624
A short video case study of SonaVu being used to detect partial discharge found in a closed 33KV panel.