z,p and reliability are topics regularly covered in trade publications, around the water cooler, and in budget planning sessions.  For those that walk the plant floor, however, those same terms are more often than not a reminder of a jarring phone call at 2:00 AM or a mid-day emergency stoppage associated with some catastrophic equipment failure.  Many technology vendors have approached the challenge of asset maintenance and reliability with a variety of condition monitoring capabilities.  Generally, these technologies monitor one or more attributes and primarily assess the vibration associated with a given asset.  The limited scope of these technologies overlooks other relevant equipment data that is at the fingertips of most every process manufacturer.

When Will It Fail? Anticipating Equipment Failure Using Predictive Analytics explores the challenges facing production staff and the limitations of traditional condition monitoring technologies.  It then introduces predictive analytics as both a meaningful complement to those technologies and a solution for anticipating equipment failure.