Condition monitoring - why it sometimes goes wrong

'I tried condition monitoring and it did not work.' These words are often h eard when vendors try to introduce a plant manager to the concept of condit ion monitoring (CM). This paper has been developed over a number of years i n an attempt to put right some of the perceived problems that are often wro ngly addressed about condition monitoring equipment. The most common reason that CM fails is that right from the outset the user /manager does not have clear goals in terms of what is the reason for a pur chase of the system. Often, the reason is corporate and yet one would think that this is a perfect scenario. Reduction of costs is another reason but initially all managers see it as an increase in costs. How can these systems fail? Why can some companies get measurable success a nd others not? It is certainly not because of the available technology, it may be misuse or misunderstanding of the capabilities of the technology. It may simply be lack of effective training. Some available technologies will be discussed and the for and against argum ents will be developed. Individual hardware and software will not be identi fied but the available technologies will be examined. Some example configur ations will be used and these will be generic to all systems.