The Reliability & Maintenance marketplace is awash with wireless condition monitoring products, and vendors are ringing your phone off the hook trying to entice you into a trial run. Your boss has tasked you with picking a vendor to partner with, and now you’re like a deer in the headlights.

What now?

When speaking at a Reliability oriented conference or just canvassing the exhibit floor, I’m often asked “Ed, which of these wireless sensor systems is the best?” The response that I’ve settled on is to offer the following analogy –

Envision the algorithm the average dad might work through when your college graduate daughter approaches you with her signing bonus and asks, “Dad, what is the best car to buy?” My inclination is to say ‘it depends’. Which of the many attributes should be the priority for our search – Safety? Reliability? Quality? Economy? I will need to educate her on these concepts as applied to automotive technology as much as her patience and attention span will allow, and then she will have to make a decision. My role in this situation is to be her coach, to offer her the best advice I can, while resisting the temptation to try to make the decision for her – even if her focus is on style and color.

Despite intense interest within the maintenance and reliability community regarding Wireless Condition Monitoring Sensor Systems, confusion persists about how to best leverage this complex technology. A reliability professional confronted with the confusing messages regarding the complex features, subscription business models, IT/OT integration and data management challenges can find themselves in unfamiliar territory. Even seasoned vibration analysts struggle to interpret wireless sensor specifications which look different from those of legacy sensors and data collection instruments.

This talk will briefly survey some of the issues to consider and questions to ask yourself when considering engaging purveyors of wireless sensor systems.

Ed Spence is the Founder and Managing Director of The Machine Instrumentation Group, representing a network of consulting and contract engineering service providers with expertise in Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance.

Previously the Marketing Manager of the MEMS Sensor Technology Group at Analog Devices (2008 – 2017), Ed defined the MEMS accelerometer roadmap for vibration based Condition Monitoring. Ed has long experience in new product development and thrives on defining new solutions for client applications.

Ed has published or presented on subjects related to Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance on numerous occasions, maintaining an ongoing dialogue with the PdM eco-system regarding technology trends on subjects such as the application of MEMS accelerometers, wireless sensor networks (IIoT), wireless sensor selection, battery life and data engineering for Predictive Maintenance.