The Power of Advanced Condition Monitoring

Today’s high-tech diesel engines require fuel filtration at an extremely low micron level. When contaminants—even microscopic ones—are ignored, the costs can add up fast: shorter component life, unplanned downtime, expensive repairs.

What happened?
An offshore customer was using poor-quality fuel. As a result, fuel filters were plugging quickly, injectors were failing prematurely, and downtime and repair costs were on the rise. To resolve the situation, Caterpillar Oil & Gas and the customer agreed to a pilot program for remote Advanced Condition Monitoring. A system to transmit engine data back to Caterpillar was installed at a cost of less than one injector repair. The system tracked key data including differential pressure across the fuel filter. Predictive analytics were applied at the same time. Our Fleet Advisors—armed with facts, analysis and deep expertise—were able to notify the customer about increasing filter restrictions, so preventive filter changes could be scheduled and completed before injector failure.

What is the value to the customer?
The customer was notified 74 times in a 12-month period. Because the customer acted on the Fleet Advisors’ recommendations, there were no additional injector failures. The power of trends in predicting behavior cannot be overemphasized. Long before alarms are triggered based on defined thresholds, analytics can point to developing events. Potential problems can be identified and addressed prior to failure—maximizing uptime and component life while minimizing total ownership costs.