The Use of Equipment Condition Monitoring Techniques on Cost Reduction in the Chemical Industry: A Case Study

In this study, reducing the running cost of a chemical plant, and also increasing profitability using equipment condition monitoring (ECM) were done. Condition monitoring data of critical equipment were collected from case study plant and different condition monitoring techniques were used for analysis. A regular bearing failure of a turbine led to carrying out a root cause of failure analysis (RCFA) using ishikawa diagram. The analysis revealed lube oil as the culprit, a lube oil analysis was done using Spectro oil analyzer (Spectro-Q153) which showed high water in oil of about 41,250ppm and a viscosity of 287.5cst. Cost benefit analysis were done on four equipment. The cost analysis revealed that ECM increased availability of all equipment and a downtime savings of 35.89% for Waste Heat Boiler (WHB), 88.2% for Firebox, 60% for Aux. Boiler, and 70.8% for the Carbonate pump turbine was achieved. Also achieved was a savings on Total Maintenance Cost of N3,328,389,446 for WHB, N11,376,330,000 for Firebox, N1,306,198,614 for Aux. boiler and N1,776,304,000 for the Carbonate pump turbine. This research proposed running a steam turbine at a pressure good enough to constantly get rid of steam condensate which is a high source of water in oil. The findings revealed that though setting up an ECM program may be expensive in the early stage, it promised great financial savings as related to maintenance and downtime cost. This savings tends to increase profitability of a firm.