Wouldn’t it be wonderful to actually know when a refrigerator, a heat pump, or a washing machine part is about to fail? Then the service engineer could arrive just before the product stopped working. We would be able to use the part or product to its maximum, avoid costly down time, and anticipate the time and expense needed for the coming repair. What an ingenious idea!
The Xerox Corporation is hard at work on this creative idea. Their researchers are working on a technique they have labeled Signature Analysis, although it has nothing to do with handwriting. This technique focuses on unique, identifiable, analog signals; such as, vibrations, or noises, or loads that characterize the status of motors and other electromechanical devices. Each part gives off a signal that's represented as a waveform. If you can compare how that waveform looks when the part is healthy to when it is about to fail, you can assess its life expectancy.
Signature analysis started in heavy industry, where workers maintaining equipment; such as, electrical generating turbines and large industrial machinery used it as a diagnostic tool. In the mid-1990s, Xerox extended its use to smaller, less costly components of printers and copiers. Xerox is now working with design engineers to incorporate signature analysis into future generations of Xerox systems, so that a machine can fully diagnose the state of its own health.
A product with signature analysis could remotely transmit problems to a central database that would send a service engineer just in time - before the copier or printer actually breaks. The result: less downtime for customers and lower service costs.
