May 3, 2009: Last week I told you about three of the features in our DAART™ — Datastick Advanced Analysis and Reporting Toolkit software that make it easy to see bearing faults in their early stages. One point I made is that signal-to-noise ratio is very important.

In case you missed last week, signal-to-noise ratio is the difference between what you WANT to hear (signal) and what you DON’T want to hear (noise). Noise can cover up a low-level signal and make it difficult or impossible to hear, and that’s the problem.

DAART has exclusive features that can pull signal out of noise. You can read about them here.

But that’s only part of the story. The other part is simple: it’s best to have less noise in the first place!

Our VSA-Series vibration analyzers have extremely low noise. How low? So low that some of our customers using our VSAs have seen low-frequency faults in their machines that never, ever showed up with their old vibration analyzers — even though the old analyzers cost anywhere from four to eight times more than ours.

In a quiet environment, a VSA’s noise floor can be as low as 0.0013 inches per second at 4 Hz — even when reading from an accelerometer and calculating velocity through integration. (I know I’m getting pretty technical here. The main point is that the mathematical integration used to derive velocity out of acceleration data tends to increase low-frequency noise, and in spite of that we have a noise floor WAY below what you will see with other equipment made by those expensive guys.)

April 27, 2009: Wow, it's been a while. Let's see, where were we? Ahhhh . . .

Years ago, in what seems like a different life, I worked in a recording studio. This was back in the analog days, when from an engineering viewpoint, the big deal was signal-to-noise ratio.

Signal-to-noise ratio: that’s the difference between what you WANT to hear (signal) and what you DON’T want to hear (noise). Noise can cover up a low-level signal and make it difficult or impossible to hear, and that’s the problem.

And guess what? The same thing is important in vibration analysis. To make matters worse, most vibration signals are picked up with accelerometers, which means that if you want to see vibration in terms of velocity or displacement, you have to use a math function called integration to get them. And that has an unfortunate byproduct of making noise — especially low-frequency noise — worse.

This has led some of our competitors to come up with fancy math to make vibration spectrum peaks stick up out to the noise. And guess what – we have some too. But ours are better.

One of ours is called Sharpener™ peak clarification technology. This is an entirely new way to overcome the shortcomings that are part of displaying a vibration spectrum and make peaks pop out on a graph ACCURATELY so you can SEE vibration trouble before it becomes BIG trouble.

Another one is called Peaking™. This shows you the excessive high-frequency peak energy that usually means your bearings are in trouble.

And then there’s Impact Factor™, which gets to the heart of periodic bearing tones that are the early warning signs of bearing failure.

These are all part of DAART™ — Datastick Advanced Analysis and Reporting Toolkit.

We have just published some eye-opening technical notes of these technologies and we think you’ll find them quite interesting. Check them out here.

We’d be interested in your feedback.

February 15, 2009: Datastick Vibration Basics Training Seminar — Next stop: Houston Texas. March 17, 18, and 19.

Predictive maintenance can save you from breakdowns, unscheduled shutdowns, production losses, and expensive repairs. Vibration analysis is a very important part of predictive maintenance. Just about everybody in manufacturing knows this. But many people don’t know how to begin. That’s what this seminar is all about.

This seminar is designed to ease you into a clear understanding of the fundamentals of vibration and vibration analysis for predictive maintenance — without making your head spin in the process.

In the first two days you’ll learn about vibration: what it is, how it’s measured, and what it means in relation to machine health and predictive maintenance. On the optional third day you’ll learn how to use Datastick VSA-Series vibration analyzers.

For more information, please see the training section of this website.

We keep the class size small so that everyone gets individual attention and lots of hands-on experience.

We look forward to seeing you there.

February 8, 2009: As I write this, the media are buzzing with news and speculation about the proposed economic stimulus package. It’s a hot issue and this is not a political forum, so I’ll keep my opinions to myself.

However, the February issue of Pumps and Systems magazine arrived this week with the cover story, “34 Experts Speculate Impact of Stimulus Package on Pump Industry.” A quick summary: The experts tend to think that many billions of dollars — the estimates vary anywhere from $6 to $25 billion — will go to wastewater and drinking water projects, and they point out that such projects are well known for their use of pumps.

Pick up the magazine and read the article yourself, or go to www.pump-zone.com for their blog on the subject.

As a friend of the pump industry, Datastick wishes all pump manufacturers and service companies well. Actually, we wish ALL manufacturers well, as well as municipalities, utilities, and everyone else that uses rotating machinery.

We know that many companies have been looking at ways to improve the efficiency of their operations. These days, the impact of a breakdown is even greater than before. Quite a few are considering trying out predictive maintenance for the first time. Whether or not you use our product, we think the move to PdM is very smart.

Of course, we think it’s even smarter to use our products. If you’d like to see how we can help you get started and save money, contact us and we can walk you through some scenarios.

We think you’ll find it stimulating.

February 5, 2009: We're back from Sterling, Virginia after our Vibration Basics Training seminar and we're happy to report it was a great success.

At the end, we surveyed everyone to get their feedback. Every single one was positive. Here are some highlights:

“This course should be taken by anyone starting a vibration career.”

“Excellent. Exactly what I was hoping for. Simple explanations without getting too long-haired. (intellectual).”

“Most valuable are the reasons why machines have problems. I especially liked the images of damaged bearings and their causes.”

“Easy to follow and understand. The most valuable aspect was the focus on concepts with demonstrations and illustrations.”

All of the hands-on was using Datastick VSA analyzers, of course. One of the guys went so far as to email all the people in his company who are using competing vibration analyzers and urge them to take a look at Datastick.

They’re happy. We’re happy.

We're havng another one in Houston, Texas in March.

January 23, 2009: When people say, “Unbelievable,” they usually mean one of two things:

1. It literally cannot be believed; something about it is unreal or not true.

Or

2. It is amazing. In this case, the word, “Unbelievable,” is an exaggeration.

The reason I bring this up is that one of our sales guys recently emailed me from the road. Here’s what he said:

“Today the new Reliability Manager for the plant mentioned that he did not believe the Datastick VSA-1215 was an accurate and versatile machine because it was so inexpensive. He said he could not believe an analyzer that sold for so little could do anything worthwhile. 
 
“Yesterday and today I have been having him use my VSA-1215 to practice going through the menus and taking simulation readings.
 
“It was only after I reviewed these excellent features that he admitted he had been very skeptical that the VSA-1215 would be a viable vibration tool for the expanded RCM program he wants to run here. He said he was used to having to pay $20K for a vibration analyzer. So at below $7k for the VSA-1215 with extras, a sensor and cable, he had thought it must not have a lot of features or be very versatile.
 
“After he had a chance to work with it, he was thrilled that the VSA-1215 can do so much for so little money.

“Another guy at the plant said he was very happy with how light and simple the VSA is. He said that his boss told him that the Datastick couldn’t possibly be a good unit since it was so small and inexpensive. He said he just assumed the boss was correct. Now that he has had a chance to try it out, he told me he liked the VSA better than the IRD DataPak he had been using. The VSA holds 10X more data than the IRD box. And there is no need to return to the office to data dump.
 
“With the small pool of men I’ve spoken to, there seems to be a lack of understanding in some in the RCM community that small and less expensive means limited features.  
 
“My opinion is that the RCM community needs to be educated that when the Silicon Valley geeks look at vibe analyzers, the solution is represented by Datastick.”

So it looks like we went from “it can’t be true” to “amazing.” Even more amazing when you consider that we do not force you to pay a mandatory annual support fee.

Leave it to the Silicon Valley geeks at Datastick to produce exactly what the RCM community needs this year, and every year. All we have to do is get them to believe it!

January 9, 2009: Happy New Year! 2009 is full of challenges, but, as the old saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. As this applies to business in a tough economy, it’s a call to action. The strong survive, so it’s time to show strength.

What do I mean by strength?

Strength: the property of being physically or mentally strong

Strength: permanence by virtue of the power to resist stress or force

Strength: an asset of special worth or utility

It should be obvious that Predictive Maintenance is an integral part of the strength of any company involved in manufacturing. But just you have to convince someone, here are 26 reasons why Predictive Maintenance is smart, able to resist economic stress, and of very special worth:

Predictive Maintenance:

• Minimizes or eliminates costly downtime — increases profitable uptime. 
• Minimizes or eliminates catastrophic machinery failures — damage from catastrophic failure is usually much more extensive than otherwise would have been. 
• Reduces maintenance costs.
• Reduces unscheduled maintenance — repairs can be made at times that least affect production.
• Reduces spare parts inventories — many parts can be purchased just in time for repairs to be made during scheduled machinery shutdowns. 
• Optimizes machinery performance — machinery always operates within specifications.
• Reduces excessive electric power consumption caused by inefficient machinery performance — saves money on energy requirements. 
• Reduces need for standby equipment or additional floor space to cover excessive downtime — less capital investment required for equipment or plant.
• Increases plant capacity.
• Reduces depreciation of capital investment caused by poor machinery maintenance - well maintained machinery lasts longer and performs better. 
• Reduces unnecessary machinery repairs - machines are repaired only when their performance is less than optimal.
• Minimizes or eliminates the possibility that machinery repairs were the wrong repairs. 
• Reduces the number of dissatisfied customers or lost customers due to poor quality - with less than optimal machine performance, quality always suffers. 
• Reduces rework of goods caused by machines operating at less than optimal condition. 
• Reduces scrap caused by poorly performing machinery. 
• Reduces overtime required to make up for lost production due to broken down or poorly performing machinery. 
• Reduces penalties that result from late deliveries caused be broken down or poorly performing machinery. 
• Reduces warranty claims due to poor product quality caused by poorly performing machinery. 
• Reduces the possibility of accepting recently purchased new or used machinery with defects - the invoice is not paid until the defects are corrected. 
• Increases the likelihood that newly purchased new or used machinery meets specifications. 
• Increases machinery safety — injuries are often caused by poorly performing machinery.
• Reduces safety penalties levied against a company for unsafe machinery.
• Reduces insurance rates because well maintained machinery increases safety. 
• Reduces the time required to make machinery repairs — advance notice of machinery condition permits more efficient organization of the repair process.
• Increases the speed that machinery can be operated, if desirable.
• Increases the ease of operation of machinery.

Imagine what it would be like if your company had these advantages, and your competitors didn't. The strong survive.

December 12, 2008: Last week’s comments on vibration pens stirred up a flurry of responses running the gamut from “Thanks, I’ll tell my boss to lay off the requests for pens” to “What do you mean?! Pens are great.” Excellent responses! The last thing I want to do is say something boring!

We've posted a tech note on the website that expands on my comments and goes into the pros and cons of various methods of attaching sensors to machines. As you’ll see, everything has its place.

We’ve just returned from a whirlwind trip to the west coast of Florida where we took part in the International Maintenance Conference: IMC 2008. As usual, our booth seemed to get more traffic than our competitors' booths. Take a look at the photo above for a typical scene. Even fellow exhibitors commented on it. A number of people said they intended to promote our VSA-Series vibration analyzers to their fellow maintenance and reliability people when they got back home. Why? As one fellow said, “Because these are easy enough to use that our guys will actually be able to use them.”

Exactly.

December 5, 2008: We’ve been asked recently about pen-style vibration meters. These devices have probe tips and normally display overall vibration on a little LCD. You hold the tip against the machine you’re testing and push a button to see overall vibration. Some even promote the ability to tell you about the health of your bearings. Oh, yes, one more thing: they’re cheap.

The trouble is, probe-tip devices are not very useful for serious maintenance and reliability work. First of all, pressing a probe against the machine with your hand is not going to allow you to pick up frequencies much higher than about 200 Hz, and this is not nearly high enough to see bearing faults. Of perhaps even greater importance is the fact that the readings are not reliably repeatable since it is nearly impossible to duplicate the location, angle, and pressure of the contact with the hand-held probe from one reading to the next.

The interest in these probe meters is almost always driven by the desire to save money. The desire to save money is certainly understandable, but in this case it can lead to tests that are unreliable and may mask machine faults until it is too late to avert costly repairs.

November 28, 2008: Every car I’ve ever owned has had an oil-pressure warning light on the dashboard. It illuminates when the oil pressure is dangerously low — just before the engine becomes toast. Here’s an actual quote from the owners’ manual:

“Immediate actions:

“Pull off the road and stop the vehicle.

“Shut the engine down.”

In other words:

I don’t find that particularly helpful. What if I’m in a hurry? What if it’s the middle of the night and I’m in the middle of nowhere? I’m sunk.

I’d like to be warned at the earliest sign of trouble so I can schedule a repair at my convenience and avert a catastrophic failure.

This comes to mind because of an email I received recently. One of our friends told us about a plant that has a vibration analyzer (not one of ours) and doesn’t use it. They also have an infrared camera, which they do use. They use the camera in a number of settings where it is extremely beneficial to use infrared thermography: electrical connections, transformers, and electrical lines.

But they also used it on a piece of rotating machinery that had an obvious vibration and heating problem. What did the picture show? Heat, of course! The picture proved what they already knew: machine was already in bad shape.

I don’t find that particularly helpful. Sort of like the oil light on my dashboard: “Hey! Look! Your machine is toast!”

If they had been doing vibration analysis, they could have spotted the problem – misalignment — when it was a minor situation that could have been corrected with a small alignment adjustment before problem got worse and started damaging the equipment. But they didn’t.

Why?

Nobody knew vibration analysis.

Why was that? Simple: They assumed it was too difficult.

There are ways around that. Most obvious is to outsource the analysis. It’s pretty easy to learn to get good, reliable vibration reads. We can teach it on-site in anywhere from one to three days, usually. Then send the data to a consultant. Our vibration analyzers are easy to use and our software is designed with data sharing in mind.

Another thing to do is to learn vibration properly. There are a number of good courses out there for vibration-analysis certification training. There’s one thing to be aware of, however: the first step on these courses can be pretty steep for someone with no background in vibration. We can help there, too.

Our Vibration Basics Training Seminar is designed to give you a solid understanding of the basic fundamentals of vibration. It’s designed for people who have no knowledge of vibration at all. It is the perfect first step to take before any certification training, and if you simply want to know the basics from a management viewpoint, this will do it.

November 21, 2008: The November – December issue of Reliable Plant magazine landed on my desk this week. The Editorial and the Exponent column both have words of wisdom for anyone interested in plant reliability. They both address the question, what is reliability worth?

In his editorial, Paul V. Arnold says,

“Many maintenance leaders still seem perplexed on how to get their ‘customers’ in production and their bosses at the plant and corporate levels to see the value that their organizations bring. From my perspective, the problem generally stems from a few facts:

“1) Maintenance folks are pretty humble. They normally don’t seek the spotlight. They are uncomfortable (or have no clue in terms of) promoting and marketing themselves.

“2) Maintenance folks fail to quantify their value in terms that get the attention of management. . . . An increase in mean time between repairs is nice, but money is what talks.”

This leads right into Drew Troyer’s Exponent column on the next page. In the column, “Rationalizing Your Investments in Reliability,” Drew builds a model of quantifying annual machine failure costs before and after implementing monitoring, planning, and reliability improvements. It’s a good article and I recommend it. As I write this, it is not yet posted on the magazine’s website, but here’s their general web address. I’m sure they’ll post the article soon.

http://www.reliableplant.com

You can also check out our own Return on Investment page:

http://www.datastick.com/roi.html

We run you through some numbers, but what you’ll really want to do is put in your own numbers. It’s an eye-opener.

November 14, 2008: We’ve posted the beginning schedule and course outline for our all-new Vibration Basics training seminar on our Training page.

The first seminar will be in Sterling, VA (near Dulles International Airport outside Washington D.C.) on January 27, 28, and 29, 2009. The first two days are the Vibration Basics seminar, and the last day is purely on the operation of our VSA-series vibration analyzers.

While the last day is mostly interesting VSA users and serious prospective customers, the first two days — the Vibration Basics training seminar — is a must for anyone who needs to learn vibration. This is NOT certification training. This comes before certification training. It’s an easy introduction to the subject of vibration. And it should be a prerequisite to ANY certification training. Here's why:

A couple days ago I got a call from a graduate of one of our original Vibration Basics seminars last year. He called to tell me that he recently took the plunge on a certification training course delivered by one of the best-known and most respected vibration training organizations in the country, and had just completed it this past week. He described the certification course as being deep and thorough and quite technical – with lots of verbiage but surprisingly few examples and very little hands-on. He told me he made it through okay, but he stressed that he doesn’t think he would have nearly so well if he hadn’t gotten a solid foundation on vibration basics from us first.

He went on to say that the certification course didn’t have any prerequisites and was promoted as being fine for beginners. Nonetheless the course immediately jumped into the middle of the subject and apparently assumed that the people knew more about vibration than the actually did. He said he observed that many of the students were struggling after the first half hour. They were making gain, but with visible pain.

That’s why we recommend our new Vibration Basics training seminar as the first course ANYONE should take on the subject of vibration. Now matter what you plan in the way of certification training later, start here for a good start and a firm foundation to build on.

Our seminar is an introduction to vibration and is designed to get you comfortable with the basics. You really don’t have to have any prior knowledge of the subject of vibration. Our seminar features an easy learning curve, lots of hands-on examples, and a strong emphasis on giving you a clear understanding of vibration terminology so that it won’t be “all Greek” to you.

November 7, 2008: In the coming week, we’ll be posting a schedule and course outline for our all-new Vibration Basics training seminar. Check our website on Tuesday, November 11, and you’ll see it. The seminar is an introduction to vibration and is designed to get you comfortable with the basics — providing a solid foundation for more advanced vibration training. The seminar features lots of hands-on examples and puts emphasis on giving you a clear understanding of vibration terminology so that you can understand what vibration experts are talking about. The Seminar leader will be our own Director of Applications, Derek Norfield, who has been in the vibration and balancing business for more than 30 years.

December is coming (how did it get here so soon?) and that means its time for the annual International Maintenance Conference: IMC 2008. This year it is in Bonita Springs, Florida at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point. It runs December 9 - 11.

This is one of the top maintenance conferences of the year, and it certainly couldn’t be held in a nicer location:

You can find out more about the conference here: IMC2008

I also want to tell you that our website home page has had a makeover and I’d be interested in your feedback — especially since your feedback might influence another makeover soon.

October 31, 2008: Not as scary as a machine breakdown on a cold, rainy night, but pretty scary. Happy Halloween from Datastick!

October 24, 2008: Spec Clarification and A Word About the Economy

I got two notes this week from people who commented that our spec for 100 mV/g accelerometers, which provides six input ranges (0-1 g, 0-2 g, 0-5 g, 0-10 g, 0-20 g and 0-50 g), doesn’t provide enough range. Some people want to go higher, and some lower. Similar comments could be made about velocity, displacement, or pressure.

The answer is the same for all: Our default setting is for 100 mV per unit (g, in/sec, mil, psi – or their metric equivalents), but you can set our software to read sensors with outputs anywhere from 10 mV/unit to 1,000 mV/unit. Depending on input, your ranges could be anywhere from 0-0.1 units to 0-500 units. Is that better? (By the way, the specs on our products pages, such as this page for the VSA-1215 / VSA-1216 / VSA-1217, have been clarified to reflect this.)

And I can’t help but make a comment:

The world-wide economy has been shaken up lately. Businesses are looking for ways to do more with less.

Plants without reliability programs and PdM will start to implement them, because it’s more economical to make an adjustment to a machine early, than suffer a breakdown later. Breakdowns cost more money to fix, but that’s not the real expense. The real expense is the cost of the lost production during the downtime.

Plants that already have PdM programs using the old “traditional” vibration analyzers will be looking for more economical means, i.e. no annual fees, faster training time, and less initial investment, because managers will be thinking, “there has to be a better way.”

There is: Datastick VSA-Series vibration spectrum analyzers. They offer a lot of performance and capability for a lot less money than anyone else out there. VSA-Series analyzers will save companies thousands of dollars by avoiding costly downtime — after they save thousands of dollars on the cost of purchase and ownership.

As a matter of fact, one of our customers did a return-on-investment analysis and found that his VSA-1215 would pay for itself in six months. Six months! The initial investment is about the same as the annual support fees for the “traditional” vibration analyzers out there. (And we don’t demand an annual fee at all.) Then think about training costs: a guy can be trained to use a VSA-Series analyzer in less than a day.

October 17, 2008: Why We Use Excel

An article entitled “The Fundamentals of Data Collection” in the August 29, 2008 issue of “Quality” magazine contains an interesting observation about Microsoft Excel:

“More time is wasted in this industry today making reports than anything else. . .  In the end, the vast majority want the report container to be Excel. . . Excel is perceived to be free and easy to use, both of which are false, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that everyone thinks all of the data is best suited to land in Excel.” The quote is from Bruce A. Brigham, president of Prolink Software Inc.

Our Datastick Reporting System™ software is based on Excel for exactly that reason.

It’s true that Excel is not free. Microsoft charges a fair price for it. But nearly everyone in business and industry has Excel on their PC already and is at least somewhat conversant with it.

And it’s true that Excel isn’t always easy to use, which is why Datastick Reporting System doesn’t look a whole lot like Excel when it’s running. It looks like a vibration analysis, trending, and reporting application because that’s what it is. It has been carefully designed and built so that you don’t have to know much about Excel to use Datastick Reporting System. All the controls are in floating pallets, so all you have to do is click control buttons.

Datastick has put a lot of vibration analysis power into Datastick Reporting System — and that’s on top of the considerable power that’s already in Excel. So if you are an experienced Excel user, you can get even more out of it.

A big part of that is the ability to make reports quickly and easily. Because Excel is part of Microsoft Office, you can make reports in Word or PowerPoint and even in HTML for the web with the skills you already have.

Click here to take a look at Datastick Reporting System.

Click on the small screen illustrations to see bigger ones.

October 10, 2008: A Stitch In Time Saves Nine

Last week I sent out a little parable comparing the apparently thankless task of cleaning a garage to the apparently thankless task of managing a predictive maintenance program — and the task of collecting data for predictive maintenance. The argument, “I don’t have time” is frequently heard in both subjects.

I received quite a bit of mail in response, and I want to share one with you. This quoted with the permission of one of our friends in India, addressing the “I don’t have time” issue:

“A STICH IN TIME SAVES NINE

“Call it human nature or tendency. That quality is in-built within us. However, we have to weed it out from ourselves and iron it out flat.

“I find it difficult to understand how engineers can overlook the basic essence of predictive maintenance in their daily activities at the plant. At times it is unbelievable when I meet people who do not have the words, 'predictive or preventive maintenance or reliability-centered maintenance' in their vocabulary.

“Small mistakes, or oversight can lead to disastrous consequences if not attended to in the initial stages. The result could be total loss of production, loss of precious valuable time in re-starting the affected (out-of-action) machinery, injuries and loss of human life, besides the huge cost of DOLLARS and Dollars and Dollars . . .

“Predictive and preventive maintenance go together to ensure SAFE AND SMOOTH running of machinery. It is definitely worth investing in technology, equipment and instruments as they serve as our extra-sensory organs, helping us to keep a periodic check on the health of our vital plant machinery.

“As a maintenance man, I see no difference between a human body and an industrial plant. Both deserve a constant vigil of their health condition. So if we cannot ignore our own body's condition, how can we ignore our industrial plants?

“If we ignore the initial tell tale signs of danger or sickness to our body, we are out of action for some time or end up in the hospital bed.

“Same with the industrial plants. If we do not attend to minor faults with our machinery, they lead to catastrophic failures.

“And, if we have something like the Datastick range of products with so much of measurement capabilities at such an economical price, they become indispensable tools to check vital signs of critical machinery in our daily plant life, which no sensible engineer can afford to ignore.”

That’s what he said . . .

October 3, 2008: Garage Cleaning — A Parable

Like most people — probably — cleaning the garage (or storage room, or closet) is not my highest priority. Whey should it be? It’s not fun. It’s time-consuming. Nobody hands me a bonus check for doing it. When I finally do clean it, nobody will even notice it except me and my wife. So it’s nowhere near the top of my list.

Well, as could be predicted, last week I had to find something in my garage. I looked high and low. I looked all the places I “knew” it was supposed to be. It took more than an hour to find it. And at the end of the hour, even though I found what I was looking for, I was fuming, because I had wasted an otherwise useful hour of a perfectly good Saturday morning.

Of course, I could have found it in seconds if garage had been orderly. But that would’ve meant cleaning it some weeks or even months earlier — and of course I didn’t have time for that.

But what if I had cleaned the garage weeks or months earlier?

Well, I would have found a number of things that if I’d have fixed them then – or at a timely moment of my choosing – might still be useful. But I didn’t find them when they were fixable. I found them when they had deteriorated to junk.

In other words — and here’s the moral of our little story — predictive maintenance, like cleaning the garage, requires an investment in time and effort. But the investment pays off big in saved time, money, and production.

Predictive maintenance may take time. But what’s the alternative? A messy garage? Lost production? You decide.

September 26, 2008: Stretching Your Reliability Resources

One thing that was very obvious at the PdM show in Omaha last week was the large number of visitors we had at our Expo booth. There was frequently a crowd around the booth — sometimes so large that you could barely see the booth itself — and even at the quiet times when seminars were in session, there were long conversations happening at the booth.

While walking the show, I noticed that our competitors’ booths did not enjoy the amount of traffic we did. When I walked by their booths, I usually saw only one or two people, and sometimes no one at all.

So, why did we get all this attention?

Well, certainly the fact that we were announcing nine new products caused a lot of interest. Clearly, this is not something that happens every day.

But, impressive as they were, the product introductions were not the only reason our booth was so crowded. Many of the visitors has seen our ads or found our website and were interested in how we could help them get predictive maintenance programs going, or enhance their existing programs.

Many people told us that Management is demanding that they accomplish more in the way of reliability while at the same time cutting their budgets. “We need to do more with less,” was the theme we heard over and over.

And here’s what we said over and over: our prices are affordable — think in the range of $5,000 to $8,000 — and that our equipment is easy to operate — we can get you up and running couple of hours. And we actively encourage you to work with vibration consultants on a daily or even hourly rate rather than stressing your budget and your company with new hires.

That’s why our booth was so crowded.

September 17, 2008: PdM 2008 — Datastick Booth. The place was packed!

We’re back from the PdM Conference and Expo in Omaha. What a show!

We announced an unprecedented NINE new products and every single one was enthusiastically received.

VSA-1216 (Palm TX handheld), VSA-1226 (iPAQ 2400 series handheld), and VSA-2216 (Treo smartphone) Vibration Spectrum Analyzers — We call these the “Six-Series” analyzers. These have all the features and capabilities of the VSA-1215, VSA-1225, VSA-2215 analyzers and add the ability to use ICP(R) pressure sensors and independently powered and conditioned displacement sensors. These are well-suited for pump-flow balancing and for taking vibration signals off of displacement-based systems such as Bently Nevada.

VSA-1217 (Palm TX handheld), VSA-1227 (iPAQ 2400 series handheld), and VSA-2217 (Treo smartphone) Vibration Spectrum Analyzers — We call these the “Seven-Series” analyzers. These have all the features and capabilities of the VSA-1216, VSA-1226, VSA-2216 analyzers and add the ability to make automatically triggered measurements when a user-defined threshold is exceeded. The application is impact testing, also called bump testing.

DAART™ (Datastick Advanced Analysis and Reporting Toolkit) DAART is the next best thing to taking the machine apart to see how it's operating. DAART takes vibration apart so you can see what's going on easily and quickly. DAART includes all of the functions and features of Datastick Reporting System for VSA and then adds an impressive array of powerful, advanced tools for vibration analysts. Features include Datastick’s  PulseDomain™ demodulation, which has an improved definition compared to standard demodulation, Sharpener™ peak clarifier for near perfect accuracy of both frequency and amplitude in vibration spectrum FFTs, demodulation and other frequency-domain graphs.

Datastick InSpect™ route creation and execution software – This software package for PCs and handheld computers allows you to rapidly assemble inspection routes on a PC, download them to the handheld to perform the inspection route, and then trend the data and spot trouble areas on the PC.

BAL-2000™ This portable two-plane balancing system is exceptionally easy to use. It is powered by the USB port on a laptop or PC, which in turn powers its phase-reference laser tachometer and one or two ICP®-type accelerometers.

We're back after a loooong break.

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