Technological development resulted in increased
complexity in both industrial machinery and production
systems. The modern industry is constantly demanding for
work at high reliability, low environmental risks, and human
safety while operating their processes at maximum yield.
Therefore, prevention of failures and early detection of
incipient machine and systems problems increase the useful
operating life of plant machinery. Fault detection and diagnosis
in the early stages of damage is necessary to prevent their
malfunctioning and failure during operation. This will reflect in
substantial benefits achieved through the use of optimization
techniques in plant operations by improving the resource
utilization at different levels of decision-making process. The
premise of condition based maintenance is that regular
monitoring of the actual mechanical condition of equipment
and operating efficiency of process systems will ensure the
maximum interval between repairs; minimize the number and
cost of unscheduled outages created by machines failures and
improve the overall availability of operating plants [1]. One of
the most cost effective maintenance techniques is condition
based maintenance.