Prognostics for industrial machinery availability: Final seminar

Operational reliability of industrial machinery and production systems has a significant influence on the profitability and competitiveness of industrial companies. A three year research project Prognos - Prognostics for Industrial Machinery Availability was started in October 2003 with the objective of generating methods for improving and maintaining industrial machinery availability by developing tehniques which enable prognosis of the operational condition, failure probability, and remaining operating life of the machinery and production lines. The project has been a joint research effort of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and three technical universities, with financial support from Tekes and 13 industrial companies. Industrial cases selected on the basis of the strategic needs of the industrial partners in the Prognos-project formed the basis of the work carried out by the research organisations. The results of the research and development include methods, tools and knowledge covering many areas and technologies including tools from maintenance planning to component level monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics. A general schematic description of prognostic concepts made in the project assists in figuring out the different areas of existing methods, available data and possible further development needs in any specific cases considered. The results of the project have been published in more than 90 publications, including 7 M.Sc. theses and one doctoral thesis. This symposium publication and the final seminar give a summary of the work performed and the results obtained in the three year project.