Condition-monitoring specialist WearCheck launched an updated version of its condition-monitoring application (app) last month. The app was first launched mid-2017.

The app provides WearCheck customers with instantaneous mobile access to their condition-monitoring data – which provides technical information on equipment – from anywhere and at any time – says WearCheck MD Neil Robinson.

He notes that the new version has upgraded features, including “better all-round usability”, as well as a feature that enables users to track the progress of a sample.

The app, possibly the first of its kind in Africa, according to Robinson, enables customers to access their condition-monitoring data, ensuring that “they are able to make decisions while at the coalface, instead of waiting until they get back to a desktop computer”.
The app enables users to access reports and view their current samples list. Further, sample reports can be viewed on the mobile device as either one-page (“concise”), or two-page (“full”) PDF documents. Single or multiple PDF reports can be emailed to different recipients simultaneously.

Sample data can be submitted using the equipment/component “search” option, and the “submit samples” option, where equipment and/or component verification is needed for currently listed machinery.

“Where applicable, new equipment information is created in the WearCheck system. Customers can also view their five-day submission history,” says Robinson.

He adds that one of the highlights and unique features of the app is the interactive key, where customers can ask a diagnostician about a specific sample and receive an emailed reply on their mobile device. The app also enables users to submit feedback about a sample result, component condition or maintenance event.

The app is free of charge, data is highly secure and the login process uses the same password credentials as the WearCheck online system. Additionally, the app uses only about 40 MB when it is downloaded.

The launch of the app and its subsequent upgrade coincides with a time during which mines are becoming increasingly aware of the cost-saving benefits of condition monitoring, says Robinson. Further, he points out that, “in the current tight economy, all companies should look favourably at any method aimed at improving the efficiency of their operations while simultaneously adding money to their bottom line.”

Robinson comments that “not everyone knows that condition monitoring saves money by reducing maintenance costs and preventing expensive and disruptive unscheduled breakdowns”, adding that participation in the 2018 Investing in African Mining Indaba, which will be held from February 5 to 8, is a chance to showcase the benefits of investing in a good condition-monitoring programme.

WearCheck has exhibited at previous Mining Indabas and says its stand at the Cape Town International Convention Centre will feature all aspects of condition monitoring. Additionally, some of the instruments used in the company’s proactive maintenance reliability solutions programmes will be available for demonstration. “We will also have various technical staff on hand to answer questions about condition monitoring.”

He states that WearCheck intends to leverage the opportunity provided by the Mining Indaba platform to expand its operations even further afield in Africa. “We are looking to link up with mining companies that are setting up in new mining hot spots, such as Burkina Faso, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and North Africa, as well as mining operations that do not already have access to a condition-monitoring programme.”

WearCheck, a subsidiary of industrial group Torre Industries, has been operating worldwide for more than 40 years, and has a network of 16 laboratories and support offices across Africa, the Middle East and India.

“Our one-stop-shop approach to condition monitoring includes the scientific analysis of used oil and other fluids, as well as a spectrum of reliability solutions services and a robust transformer monitoring division,” concludes Robinson.