The surveillance of equipment condition is critical for ensuring the detection and prevention of equipment failures and the ensuing unplanned downtime. While analysts and engineers may be responsible for defining the overall strategy for equipment, operators often have a better day-to-day understanding of physical equipment functions and conditions. In addition, operators are presented with the best opportunity to collect the data needed to assess the current condition of equipment. An optimal equipment strategy can be more effective when operators monitor the physical equipment to detect the existence of the symptoms that indicate imminent failure. Therefore, ensuring that operators are monitoring critical equipment and capturing the appropriate data is fundamental to managing the reliability of equipment.

Meridium's Operator Rounds module puts the power of Meridium APM in the hands of equipment operators through a handheld application that lets them execute aspects of the asset strategy by monitoring equipment performance and capturing condition data electronically in the field. Meridium Operator Rounds integrates equipment strategies into day-to-day operations and surveillance programs and facilitates the efficient assessment and quantification of asset performance.

First-hand knowledge of equipment operational requirements makes operators the best candidates for monitoring equipment and documenting condition, but collecting data in the field has challenges. Paper logs are cumbersome and create the potential for inaccurate and inconsistent data collection, and many electronic data-collection systems are complicated and difficult to use, requiring extensive training.

Meridium Operator Rounds offers a solution to these problems by providing an easy-to-use data-collection application that can be deployed on a wide variety of common handheld devices, including PDA-style devices, and tablet PCs as well as intrinsically safe mobile computers. Consisting of a minimum number of screens that guide users through an intuitive, step-by-step workflow, the Meridium Operator Rounds solution makes data collection both efficient and portable. Features include:

• Route Management
• Measurement Location Management
  • Measurement Location Templates
  • Allowable Values
  • Schedules
  • Limit Values
• Route Execution
  • Route Download/Upload
  • Data Collection
  • Reading Alerts
  • Recommendations
  • History
• Data Analysis, Trending, and Alerts
  • Measurement Location Alert Review
  • Route Status Monitoring
  • Trend Graphs
  • Conditional Alerts
  • Key Performance Indicators and Scorecards

Ensuring that operators are monitoring critical equipment and failure symptoms identified by an overall asset strategy, as well as capturing data accurately in the field, is fundamental to managing the reliability of equipment. Meridium Operator Rounds offers a solution to the challenges presented by other methods of field-data collection by providing:

• An easy-to use application for monitoring the condition of assets in the field.
• Real-time instructions for operators, explaining what to do and how to react to the situations they encounter in the field.
• A structured approach to defining the asset strategy and implementing the monitoring program in operations.
• Effortless synchronization between collected data and the master system, allowing for increased accuracy, accountability, and efficiency.
• The ability to evaluate and analyze the collected data within a fully integrated APM system to optimize asset strategies.