The Reliability Engineer's Reading List
P-F curves, vibration spectrum interpretation, CMMS integration, and condition-based maintenance decisions — written for the people who run rotating equipment, not for people who sell to them.
Using Predictive Maintenance Data to Actually Improve MTBF and MTTR
Reducing unplanned failures improves MTBF. Faster root-cause diagnosis from sensor data improves MTTR. Here's what that looks like in the data after 6 months on a 50-asset fleet.
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What Maintenance Directors Need to Know About Asset Health Scoring
Health scores aren't just a dashboard metric. Understanding how they're calculated — and what they don't capture — helps you make better prioritization decisions.
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Pump Maintenance Strategy for Food and Beverage Plants: Condition-Based vs Time-Based
Food & bev facilities run pumps hard and can't afford contamination from a failed seal. The case for condition-based monitoring on CIP, transfer, and filling line pumps.
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Reading Vibration Spectra: The 5 Fault Patterns Every Reliability Engineer Should Recognize
1X synchronous, sub-synchronous, bearing defect frequencies, gear mesh, and high-frequency stress wave — what each tells you and which sensor axes to watch.
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Condition Monitoring for Rotary Compressors in Oil and Gas Operations
Compressor failures in upstream and midstream operations have outsized downtime costs. What rotating equipment monitoring looks like for this asset class.
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Where to Mount Vibration Sensors on Centrifugal Pumps: A Field Guide
Drive-end bearing. Non-drive-end bearing. Horizontal, vertical, axial axes. The placement decisions that determine whether you catch imbalance vs cavitation.
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Temperature Trending as an Early Warning for Motor Bearing Failure
Winding temperature alone isn't enough. The rate of rise and correlation with load tells a different story than any single reading.
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How to Calculate the Real Cost of Unplanned Downtime (And Present It to Finance)
Beyond lost production: include maintenance overtime, emergency parts premiums, secondary damage, and schedule knock-on effects. A spreadsheet framework maintenance directors can use.
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Why Your CMMS Is the Last Mile Problem in Predictive Maintenance
Condition data is useless if it doesn't become a work order. Getting predictive alerts into SAP PM or Maximo without manual entry is the integration most PdM tools miss.
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The P-F Curve: A Reliability Engineer's Practical Guide to Condition Windows
Most maintenance teams can tell you what a P-F curve is. Fewer use it to actually set maintenance thresholds. Here's the gap.
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How Vibration Analysis Predicts Bearing Failure Before You Hear It
By the time a bearing makes noise, you've already lost your P-F window. Here's what the frequency spectrum tells you 4-6 weeks earlier.
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