New 'Lean M&D' Solutions Promise the Right Fix at the Right Time

摘要

Many large power gen- eration fleet owners have deployed cen- tralized monitor- ing and diagnstic (M&D) centers to improve generating performance and reliability. These M&D centers use advanced pattern recognition (APR) software to provide an early warn- ing of changes in equipment condition that might indicate an impending failure. It is well documented that these central- ized M&D centers have saved millions of dollars in avoided outage, maintenance and lost opportunity costs. However, a significant investment of human and capital resources must be made to achieve these benefits. False alerts are common and can distract M&D personnel from fo- cusing on actual problems. Furthermore, interpreting what is causing the changes and determining the time horizon for action requires manual analysis and intervention by a time-con- strained staff of experts and a dedicated monitoring team. This increases the cost of monitoring and can result in a delayed, inconsis- tent, or inaccurate diagnosis that wastes time, money or can put equipment and/or safe- ty at greater risk. As a result, many smaller fleet operators are delaying implementa- tion of a centralized M&D capability or are looking to outsource their M&D needs ; to third parties.