Many companies that utilize large machines for production purposes also use monitoring software to ensure equipment is constantly at the ready and chances of delays due to technology failure are lessened.

Such systems can provide valuable insight into a machine's condition, produce information for analytics and enable staff to take proactive measures for preventive predictive maintenance.

Those looking to implement such an equipment monitoring system need to take a few aspects into consideration to determine which machines warrant monitoring and how frequently they should be monitored.

According to Machinery Lubrication, a balance must exist between the crucial necessity of a machine and the cost of condition monitoring. Therefore, administrators need to decide if the machine is critical enough to operations for an equipment monitor. Some factors to think about in this respect include effects that could occur if the machine fails, cost of downtime as well as cost of repair.

These are very important factors, as condition monitoring can allow for preventative predictive maintenance on a machine. HumanIPO stated that this kind of method depends on the capacity to anticipate issues, as well as where and how a problem may occur.

After determining that a machine is vital enough to the company's operations to be monitored, administrators must then evaluate how often to inspect a machine. Machinery Lubrication stated that if a machine is essential to operations or has a high risk of failure, inspections should take place more regularly. If the opposite is true, the machine can be scanned less.

However, equipment monitoring systems can help in this aspect, as these systems can remotely monitor equipment on a regular basis depending on the settings.

Machinery Lubrication also stated that it is very challenging to create a one-size-fits-all policy for machine monitoring. Because each piece of equipment may operate at different levels and perform tasks of varying difficulty, an individualized approach should be taken with each machine. Furthermore, monitoring should always be performed on aging equipment to prevent failure and resulting downtime.