IT IS ALL well and good that companies are looking to this approach for their vibrating, rotating, thermal and other mechanical based assets. However, in many cases they do not include the IT hardware associated with the collection, transmission, storage and analysis of this data in their approach. There are several reasons these key assets are ignored. They are often considered non-critical, since the IT hardware is commonplace and inexpensive. Lack of domain experience is also a factor.
Control engineers do not have extensive training in IT, or the time to invest in learning the technology or keeping up to date. Similarly, IT professionals often do not have a process control background, resulting in a lack of trust and understanding between the two groups. Unfortunately, the main reason is simply a lack of awareness.