Asset calibration: how do you gain insight and control

By regularly calibrating assets, you reduce failure costs and increase production quality and safety, while complying with legal standards. But how do you approach the calibration process in a structured way? How do you keep calibration data properly? And how do you make that data transparent and auditable?

18 November 2021 • 10 min read

From a pump or conveyor belt to a torque wrench or medical instrument, many devices or parts require regular checks on all kinds of tolerances. For example, are the pressure, vibrations, temperature, or delivery still within the supplier’s margins? With many assets and measuring points, it is quite a job to keep the calibration process under control. Especially if this is done ad hoc using poorly insightful Excel sheets, as is still the case with many companies. The possible consequences? Errors in the calibration and thus higher failure costs. But it can also come at the expense of the quality of production and the safety of employees. Moreover, the calibration process is not transparent and therefore insufficiently auditable; the figures are open to discussion.

Alignment of calibration and maintenance

You can gain a lot by managing the calibration of equipment from an asset management system, such as IBM Maximo. You can then have the calibration process connect to your maintenance process or even fully integrate it into it. The best solution is to use the special add-on for calibration from IBM Maximo. In IBM Maximo Calibration[insert, you can easily record all relevant measuring points and tolerances from your suppliers’ datasheets per asset. It doesn’t matter what kind of asset or which supplier it is. The add-on guides you step by step through the calibration process and offers you insight into the state of affairs at any time via handy dashboards. Which assets have you already calibrated? Which ones do you still need to calibrate? And are the values in accordance with legal standards?

Better decisions for maintenance and replacement

IBM Maximo Calibration also helps you to optimize the maintenance and replacement of your assets. For example, you can retrieve and analyze data from past years to view trends over time. What was the tolerance of an asset at the time of purchase? And what is it after 5 years or 10 years of use? With this type of information, you make the right decisions about maintenance and replacement at the right time. It is also useful that your employees can work mobile with the add-on for calibration. During their maintenance or inspection round, they see which tolerance values an asset may have and easily record current values on their tablet or smartphone. This way you also keep a grip on the calibration process on the work floor.

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Would you like to know more about IBM Maximo Calibration and how Gemba can help you improve your calibration process? Please contact Wouter Schouten: +31 (0)6-52 68 37 43 or w.schouten@gemba.nl.

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